Montage Vol. 9 • February 2006
An Ilocos Norte diary
By Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
AS THE sky, dying, flicked a last
streak of color—the somber
orange of a tropical bird’s wings—in the small window of the plane, I was gripped with joy that only comes with the certainty of arriving home. Read more »
Law and writing
By Teodoro Lorenzo A. Fernandez
I DISTINCTLY remember reading a Supreme Court decision for the first time as a junior Legal Management student almost five years ago. What made the experience so memorable was that I had to read the case from its general reference number until the part where it read “so ordered” many times to comprehend the decision.
It was not the technical legal terms that made the decision difficult to understand, but the manner in which it was presented. It was plainly confusing. Read more »
Pull that trigger
By Sharline J. Bareng
Many poets of this age tend to indulge in their own personal conflicts through their poems to satisfy their need for self-expression. Fortunately, there are still a few who are able to form poetry from the experiences of other people, particularly those wounded by the pain of bitter realities. Read more »
Exodus to Zero
By Benedict Parfan
Thus, there we are two years from now: migrants
in a cold land. It will take this early to pack a whole life
to a country never big enough. So let me begin
with the mayas whose wings are too small and frail
to cross the Pacific. Then the tricycles of Baliuag
whose sputter pulsate to your eardrums, the rails
along Algeciras whose trains are blocked by lives.
I will scoop the lapu-lapu, talakitok and matambaka Read more »
Traveling writers, writing travels
By Edsel Van D.T. Dura and Jordan Mari S. De Leon
Traveling to different places is probably one of the top things a person would want to do to get away from the hurly-burly of everyday life. Breathtaking scenery, scrumptious food and beautiful people are just some of the things a person looks for when traveling. But to write about these things in a way that would catch the attention and stimulate the imagination of readers is a gift. Read more »
At crossroads
By Eldric Paul A. Peredo
I FEEL so old. At 20 I started living alone, renting a second-floor room in a wooden house along Laon-laan, with only my clothes, my faithful books, a beaten-down but likewise sturdy FM radio, and my laptop in tow. The year before, I received the greatest blow life has yet dealt, and I was then embarking on a whole new journey. I just got out of college, and was set to take up the law course. To complicate things further, I chose to study in UST rather than a much cheaper and much more acclaimed school of law, where I also qualified. What can I say? I love it here. Read more »
Pagsilip sa mga pugad-manunulat
Nina Kris P. Bayos, Mary Joy T. de Lara, at Bernadette G. Irinco
Para sa taong nagnanais pasukin ang larangan ng panitikan, musika o performing arts, ang paghahanap ng bagong paraan upang maipahayag sa mundo ang mga katha at boses, ay minsa’y nangangailangan ng isang mainam na lugar kung saan higit niyang mailabas ang kanyang damdamin at ideya. Read more »
Traffic jam corner of Dagupan and Tutuban
By Mary Joy T. de Lara
Oily blotches,
Bubbly spittles of all sizes
and quantities.
Ancient bubble gums
Flattened by the perpetual flow
of automobiles. Read more »
Dawn
By Reagan D. Tan
On top of the dusty hill lay a crude and neglected
mausoleum overlooking the great sea. To the east,
an ancient temple blocked the rays of the rising sun. The holy edifice, with crumbling etchings on its walls and cracked reliefs on its arched brick roof, displayed—especially during sunrise—the image of a mythical god lording over the small community of Lam-Uwa in the Si-San province along the eastern coast of China. Read more »
memory shifts
By Karen Ann C. Capco
a finger wrote your name
out on the counter of a bar,
skin dragging water, leaving
nothing but droplets and the
faint wetness of desire. no one
else ever wrote it out again, perhaps
nobody else knew. i still do not
know your name. even lips
cannot trace water once it has left.
all i could see then was your face outlined
by lamplight, everything else was smoke
and clinging clothes, hair sticking Read more »