Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006
The death and triumph of rock and roll
By Lourd Ernest H. De Veyra
Ten tabs down. Grassfield of cigarette butts carpets the room.
The window frames the moon.
The eye misperceives the moon.
The mind misperceives the world.
Ten tabs down. A case of beer reduced to its barest amber essence.
Scent of puke hanging in here like a junkie friend refusing to leave.
Ghostly smoke.
Scattered strips of aluminum rest on the floor— sordid confetti.
Scattered splinter of shadows.
The secret strips of solitude inscribed in his bones. Read more »
Imago
By Alessandra Rose Miguel
Out of my cocoon
I fly
With filmy wings
Leaving my
Callowness behind.
I will pave lanes of asters
To seek coolness
In nature's arms
And also to find
A lover.
I will not die
Inside
A salamander's
Mouth.
Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006
His own classic drama
LIKE Robert Louis Stevenson's famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, playwright and poet Nicolas Pichay has his own double-personality to show.
At daytime, Pichay is a tough lawyer who uses logic and reason in studying jurisprudence, reading legal cases or conducting cross-examinations.
But when nightfall comes, Pichay turns into a rather fragile creative writer, possessed by words or child-like fantasies, enamored of nebulas of imaginary worlds and the ether of love's fables. Read more »
Lenten Parade
By Benedict Parfan
Judas Iscariot's kiss is on the 27th float.
It is him whose lips are frozen
inches away from the Messiah's face,
scrutinized close by a soldier
who held his torch as if to burn
their wigs, or hit their heads,
his angry frown made theatrical
by the sculpture's dark carapace.
Between the two main statues,
the kiss never really happened.
There is just the traitor's hand
casting a shadow on the back of Jesus,
not touching either, just a gesture Read more »
Reincarnation
By Myla Jasmine U. Bantog
WHEN we created castles on the coast,
we knew it would end up this way:
sea scraping sand, waves washing away
towers, leaving traces of brine.
Even the winds scatter
sand to strange shores,
virgin waters.
But the sea will dry up someday. Perhaps we will
see it once more, ashes built on uneven ground–
pillars reaching up, as if embracing the sky.
Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006
Rise of Ghosts
By Keith Cortez
It is a promise we kept
Before the end of the world,
That you and I would stay
Together even if the sky
Was lit up by lightning
And the heavens was raining fire.
Spirits rising from their graves
Rubbing their ethereal eyes
With ghostly hands.
The world crumbles
And shakes but don't
Be afraid.
The world is just slowly undoing
Itself, piece by piece.
Somewhere, a continent
Has already sunk,
A mountain swallowed by the ground. Read more »
Sa Ikagaganda ng mundo
Ni Joseph D.L. Saguid
1
Unahing iwasan ang mga liwasan.
Pagkat laging naroon siya:
ang matandang nanlilimahid
sa pangaral.
Naroon siya't iniiwasan
ang lahat liban
sa iyong tingin na agad
niyang sinasalubong
at agad ding itinatakwil.
Na tila may nais ipahiwatig.
Ang paglimot sa sarili.
Na tuwina'y nais mong alamin
bago marating ang dulo
ng liwasan. Ipangako mo,
sadya mong iiwasan
ang matandang walang ngalan.
2
Huwag paghinalaan ang ilog. Read more »
Marked
By Ramil Digal Gulle
Death, standing in his all-white
parlour, drops his last mask.
Hundreds, thousands of false
faces litter the floor.
He would like to say, "Enough!"
and walk out with his real face.
But there are manners to consider
and the delicacy of the human race.
He never likes taking them by surprise.
When my young mother saw his shadow
cross the room, I lay in the incubator,
six months, three weeks old, a tiny mind
with a will to leave. She called on heaven Read more »
Inside a Cebuana's hearth
THE MODERN city woman–independent, family and career-oriented–is out to break the age-old stereotype of the meek, damsel-in-distress ideal of the patriarchal society. She drives her own car, works her way up the corporate ladder, and can even raise children without any support from a husband.
Women in the House (UST Publishing House, 2006), the debut novel of award-winning essayist and fictionist Erma Cuizon, tells the story of the modern woman who crosses the boundaries of the city to reach the dispersed islands of the Visayas. Read more »
Pakikipagsapalaran
Ni Deni Rose M. Afinidad
Makikipagsapalaran ako
Sa pagmamahal sa'yo
Kahit iginuhit na sa ating mga palad
Ang wakas
Kahit matalo tayo sa pakikipagbuno
Sa mga braso ng oras
Kahit patuloy na inuubos ng edad
Ang ating mga buhok
Kahit 'di na natin madugsungan
Ang hininga ng panahon
Kahit nalanta na ang binhi
Ng pag-asa
Kahit unti-unti nang nilulupig
Ng kulimlim
Ang naghihingalong liwanag
Mamahalin ka
May langit man
O wala
Ang iyong mga labi,
Ang aking ulap Read more »