Dalawang pangungusap mula sa “Ang Katahimikan ng mga Sirena”

ni Franz Kafka
aking salin


Kung tutuusi’y may mas nakamamatay pang sandata ang mga Sirena maliban sa kanilang awit, at iyon ay ang kanilang katahimikan. At kahit sa totoo lang ay hindi pa naman ito nagaganap, maaari pa ring isipin na may kung sinong nakuhang makatakas mula sa kanilang pag-awit; bagay na tiyak hindi mangyayari pagdating sa kanilang katahimikan.

Takot

ni Raymond Carver
aking salin


Takot sa kotse ng pulis na pumaparada sa tapat.
Takot sa pagtulog ng mahimbing sa gabi.
Takot sa kawalan ng tulog.
Takot sa paggising ng nakaraan.
Takot sa paglipad ng kasalukuyan.
Takot sa teleponong kumikiriring sa kalagitnaan ng gabi.
Takot sa mga bagyo.
Takot sa tagalinis na may bahid sa kanyang pisngi!
Takot sa mga asong hindi naman daw nangangagat.
Takot sa pangamba!
Takot sa pagkilala ng katawan ng patay na kaibigan.
Takot sa kawalan ng pera.
Takot sa pagkakaroon ng sobra, wala mang maniwala sa takot na ito.
Takot sa mga sikolohikal na pagsasalarawan.
Takot sa pagiging huli at takot dumating nang wala pang ibang tao.
Takot sa sulat-kamay ng aking mga anak sa mga sobre.
Takot na mamatay sila bago ako, at sisisihin ko ang aking sarili.
Takot sa buhay kasama ng aking ina sa kanyang katandaan, at sa aking katandaan.
Takot sa pagkabalisa.
Takot na hindi masaya ang huling hirit ng araw na ito.
Takot na gumising nang wala ka na.
Takot na hindi nagmahal at takot na hindi nagmahal nang lubos.
Takot na kung ano’ng mahal ko’y makasasama sa mga minamahal sa buhay.
Takot sa kamatayan.
Takot sa masyadong mahabang buhay.
Takot sa kamatayan.
Nasabi ko na ‘yun.

Unang Sipi: “Mataas na ang Araw” ni Faye Cura

Kikilatisin ang isang tula mula sa ikatlong tomo ng hal., na inilathala noong Agosto 2014. Narito ang pamagat kasama ang nag-iisang linya ng unang saknong—

          Mataas na ang araw

          nang pumasok kami sa Zoar.

Biniyak na pangungusap upang maging pamagat at unang saknong. Alingawngaw ito ng Genesis 19: 23, "Mataas na ang araw nang makarating si Lot sa Zoar." Nasa unang panauhan ang bersyon ng tula, at sa halip na si Lot ang sinusundan ng naratibo, malalaman natin sa unang linya ng ikalawang taludturan na nasa asawa niya ang ating tutok—

          Kuminang ang mga butil ng asin
          at alikabok
          sa aking mga paa.

Maliban sa lipat ng pokus, senyal din ito ng kakaibang atensyon sa oras at panahon. Kung mababasa sa pamagat ang pagiging huli (minamadali si Lot ng mga anghel) o napapanahon (nakasulat na ito), nasa saknong na ito naman ang pagiging abante (may asin na!) ngunit huli na ang lahat (alikabok). At dahil naglalakad, nagmamasid, at nag-iisip pa ang asawa ni Lot, mukhang hindi pa siya nagiging haligi ng asin. Baka naman hindi pa siya ganap na nagiging haligi ng asin. Maaaring tinatapatan nitong paglapat ng foreshadowing ng tula ang pagtakda ng tadhana sa asawa ni Lot, sa sambahayan, sa daigdig na ito ng mga babae't lalaki. Kahalo ng "mga butil ng asin" ang "alikabok," ang espesyal na kahihinatnan ng persona at ang karaniwang katapusan ng mga tao.

Pinaalala rin ng mga salitang "Kuminang", "asin", at "alikabok" ang Genesis 22:17 kung saan ipinangako kay Abraham (tiyuhin ni Lot) ang paglaganap ng kanyang lahi, "magiging sindami ng bituin sa langit at ng buhangin sa dagat." Tila anino ng maluwalhating pangakong ito ang kapalaran ng persona.

Samantala, itatabi natin para sa susunod na anotasyon itong ikatlong saknong—

          Napag-iwanan na ako
          sa paglalakad
          ng asawa ko’t mga anak.

graphs—scale

Notes on John Ashbery’s “The History of My Life”

Once upon a time there were two brothers.
Then there was only one: myself.

I grew up fast, before learning to drive,
even, there was I: a stinking adult

I thought of developing interests
someone might take an interest in. No soap.

I became very weepy for what had seemed
like the pleasant early years. As I aged

increasingly, I also grew more charitable
with regard to my thoughts and ideas,

thinking them at least as good as the next man’s.
Then a great devouring cloud

came and loitered on the horizon, drinking
it up for what seemed like months or years.

*

[ PennSound ]
[ New Yorker ]

*

It's seven stanzas. Yahweh marked Cain so that everyone who met Cain would know that harming him would invite a sevenfold return of investment.

        Once upon a time there were two brothers.
        Then there was only one: myself.

Maybe this is survivor's guilt, the poet transfigured as Cain. A kinder intertext would be the longing of Gilgamesh for Enkidu.

        I grew up fast, before learning to drive,
        even, there was I: a stinking adult

Gilgamesh was wanton royalty and the gods conspired to bring him down to size by providing him an equal, someone he would later know as brother. Someone he would lose.

        I thought of developing interests
        someone might take an interest in. No soap.

Gilgamesh would develop an interest in solving death. It was an unnecessary pain, if it could be solved, then let's. He would actually come very close, he was given a flower of eternal life. So he went home, but a snake stole the flower, ate it while he was taking a bath. "No soap."

        I became very weepy for what had seemed
        like the pleasant early years. As I aged

Could be Gilgamesh. But could also be the ancient, seemingly immortal Noah-like figure who would lead Gilgamesh to the secret flower. Instead of returning to his "interest", Gilgamesh just continued on home, ruling wisely until the end of his days.

        increasingly, I also grew more charitable
        with regard to my thoughts and ideas,

Gilgamesh would be made immortal in another way, through the epic. In a way, his "interest" is the poet's: a quest for immortality. But how to do that years after the giants of literature? The Moseses and Gilgameshes, the Shakespeares and Audens?

        thinking them at least as good as the next man’s.
        Then a great devouring cloud

        came and loitered on the horizon, drinking
        it up for what seemed like months or years.

Alone, 1896

A lot of life went wherever it led, and now, the wire fence behind which pecked some free-range chickens, our roots confused with feed. Center recently conducted flaggings, as it has with breast-scale and syndicated distress, you say? I wonder why that option, called the Just in Case Pepper Center moved from “Do you ever store a knife to be whipped in their affidavit,” to “Is it hard to have  a new baby,” I said. “He doesn’t really take the witness-cheek.” When it somehow comes nervous, but at the time, excited to make what none alive can wear as bling. Canon warned that they’d be creative, there’s that, but they’re paying attention to the wrong clerk. So no worries, unless there’s something we haven’t factored in, like maybe anxiety ought to keep us going: it owes us that much. “She was the demolition, the people, blowing on it to see if it will scatter,” she said. Sonnez les matines. Who trebled in and out my door.

private—rose

Carromata

Strange form, the survivor’s home with a wound from objects that fell on his left hip and is currently an open seam. Salt of the imprint, consisting of remembered imagery as a “result of the rigid breaks. The light who's subject to panic is my thing." Released during the decomposition, this catalog of  moldy bread, just to have Fusion: “When you have cells in an echo area” and “ready for further architecture of the old state sleeping on sofas as I sit in a cupcake, worried,” she said.

House Un-likely had a story. My hair is like my fuses, poisoned by underground companionship and community.

“At one point, Noble? Because if the censors are over 45, simply dig,” Strayed cart lived through a leg-career as a fish with people, and the spacious dayrooms with their high ground skeletons, through rusted promises by filling, crowding  it all. 

That's the Pink propping the roof with Our anger and lungs and weeping smoke.

track/strand

read here
or download as
pdf, epub, or mobi

Detailed—belt

The Vapor Rub Installation

“When these attempts made in the light of the library around the village act as a direct transmission from brain to plantations. We hold the hunger seized from the family on the platform. Gasoline contained in plastic breasts. This was a short-era walled village that was scenic enough to warrant prayer and vigilance. Meanwhile, they are tightening one of the houses made accountable at 2 a.m.,” she said.

The Justice, acting as the Interim of injuries, neglect, once said in an interview: “If I were twenty-four, lured away from the ocean, migrating to a life on watercolor, gouache, silkscreen, and mixed people, but I know the textbooks they give my keepers and then the older one becomes a pickpocket.”

“We lost the house because they fueled our quiet. I trace the Greek severe-curtain before I could see any more. Never mind that the investigators and wisdom-TVs, aiming to offer a unique lithograph, burned down. In both houses, I found mail not even sated,” the pastoral letter read.

“I know I should probably have this sleeping in makeshift houses when fire broke out, and the place was a brilliant white, except for the tight, gray ink. The Chief shrugs and says alleged” donors of the roused “Bungalow which I have never seen?”

Never mind that elders on land walk on the bottom of the ocean.

Bonifacio

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