I Miss My Father

Sunday, October 31, 2010

By: Jayson Patalinghug
email: king_sky92@yahoo.com
_____________________________________________

I was listening to a Sunday sermon; our pastor discussed the story of Abraham, on how he obeyed God, and fervently waited for God’s promise, a son. He waited for 25 years after God gave a promise when Abraham was still 75 years old. When Isaac was born, Abraham named him the joy of his life. I do not know why? But my tears just flowed freely on my cheeks like a river that cannot be stopped. I am always like that whenever I hear a story or see a movie about father and son. Maybe I just miss my father.

In my mind I saw my father so happy when I was born. How his tears flowed upon seeing me; how he held me tight on his arms; how he sang a sweet lullaby to comfort me; how he stayed late at night to watch over me, he never allowed even a single mosquito to touch my skin. When I was 5 years old, he was always in a hurry to go home and he always had something for me. Sometimes fried chicken from Jollibee, sometimes ice cream and sometimes toys. We played together, we wrestle and we had a lot of fun. I miss the warmth of his body when he embraced me tight; his lips when he kissed me on my cheeks and on my forehead. I miss his bedtime stories; he always waited for me to sleep first and he was the one who turned the lights off in my bed room. Every Sunday, he will accompany me in the farm; we played with kites; we run along the sides of the water irrigation. When I was seven, he was so excited to send me to school. He held my hands and said “You can do it son”. When I graduated elementary, he bought me new clothes and went to stage very proud. When I was in High school, my father was my best friend. He always asked me about my crushes, he always told me to date my childhood friend. I remember how happy he was when I had my first girl friend. When I was in college, our friendship grew deeper and deeper. He never failed in asking about anything new, my father was always updated. He cried with me when my heart was broke, he spent time with me when I was alone. My father, my best friend embraced and said “Congratulations son, I am very proud of you!” on the day I graduated college.

Then…I paused for while and I could’nt stop myself from crying, the world seems to turn upside down. I felt a pain too much to bear, loneliness too deep to fathom. I regretted the day I was born when I realized that everything did not happen. I miss my father who I never knew, my father who never share a single memory with me. My father who did not even knew I exist in this world. I miss him so bad!

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The Pretenders by Manuel Avenido

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

            to Rodrigo, the Greatest Pretender

                      He stands like a solid edifice
            and walks with a herd of martyrs;
          From his mouth sprung scentless flowers
             of broken promises and prayers
           Clothed in white and in innocence,
                            his eyes a pool of lust and fire;
                        Oh! Beware. Pretender he is –
                  Thou shan’t fall from thy fragile knees!

                       He lives in a golden mansion
                         and shakes thine hand in the street,
                     offers thou his cup of fortune,
                       drowns thou to thy eternal sleep;
                    Thou art lured by his gracious smile
                      nor the silver coins on his palm;
                         Oh! Beware. Pretender he is –
                    Thou shan’t long for his falsehood bliss!

                        He exudes pure magnificence
                  of beauty and perfect romance;
                        Thou hail him in thine dark altar
                    Through the hour of thy madness
                  Embrace his decorated life
                      A fool thou see in the mirror;
                 Oh! Beware. Pretender he is –
                    Thou shan’t wait for his deathly kiss!

                He moves like a sculptured statue
                   but dances like a flower blown
                      Butterflies so tamed and deceived
                of his poisonous nectar juice;
                  Ladies, thou shall not be swindled
                     for he hath a heart same with yours;
               Oh! Beware. Pretender he is –

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Labyrinth by Manuel Avenido

to Leonila, with Love
  
Thou, like a whirlwind
    heading aimlessly
             blown by the waves of time

I, Master of the Game
   molded thy fate,
      counted thy footsteps,
                  bedecked thee with darkness

With thy honeyed tongue
    of stripes and stars
                                      Nocturnal and restless
               for earthly promises

       I, lulled thee with a path of roses
           to that hazy avenue I escorted
            like veins of a river thou take
        interminable, bewitched
  
         I, lulled thee with the
                                 beacon of tomorrow
    Yet shed fortress of uncertainty
  Dead end is
       but thy prize!

     Amongst many seeds sown
                                          in the bedrocks
                                      Washed off by the rains
   thou crawled in vain
        in the face of this Earth

      Like the hand of time
                   encircling, cyclical
     The alien novena utterances
     sprung from thy turmoil mouth

                                     I, paved thy destination
          of mazes and mysteries
      The never-ending sojourn
         of chasing fortunes

     They deemed thee high
        in a pedestal
but the voice from thy bowels
           has sprung sighs of discontent
  
     Thou swayed amongst
       Those hays – withered!
        To the tempo of that
lazy dusk

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A write-back poem to Robert Frost’s Dust of Snow.

The Crow
to Ricky, for all the wisdom
  
That big tree I fling
to fly with these dark-night wings
I shiver for some snow
and shower it down below.
  
An ice died frozen
never melts nor awakens
I bear this numbness
Hollow! No egg on my nest!

With my red round eyes
I see all the worlds are lies –
muds covered with ice,
so white, grant you with surprise!

Yet a stone so hard
to smash my heart apart
strike of a cottonball
I felt; so soft and small.
  
To be stoned to death
is way better to lose breath –
to gasp for that air
like fire less its flare.

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PANDEVILLE by Manuel Avenido

            Mrs. Brown sat at the cashier’s table with eyes gleaming with emptiness. She was pokerfaced. On her lap was a dog I always heard they call Daisy. She was stroking her white furs with her left hand while her right was holding a pen, but she intended to write nothing. She looked blankly outside, on the road right next to her bakeshop, unperturbed by the passing of the jeepneys.
             Daisy was a shitzu. She was just among Mrs. Brown’s many pets in her house.
I know that she has also this really peculiar cat but I didn’t get its name, it’s not my intention to do so either. The lady-helpers in the bakeshop said he’s Mrs. Brown’s favorite.
             I should know that. The moment the cat rubbed his slender body against Mrs. Brown’s foot, she instantly came into her being, as if she was awaken from a long, dragging sleep. Swiftly Mrs. Brown put Daisy aside from one corner and grabbed the cat and started kissing and fondling its shiny ash gray and black furs. Daisy, at once, woke up from her comfortable sleep and tilted her head up with eyes a little bit misty.
             “Do animals get jealous, too?” at the back of my mind I said. I was just sitting outside, in one of those round tables where customers of the bakeshop used to eat their breads and drink their softdrinks. With an array of breads in different sizes and colors in between us displayed and piled blatantly inside a clear glass casing, serving as a division for the lady-helpers inside the store and the customers outside, I could gaudily see Mrs. Brown inside. I could see her dark, sun-burnt, and blemished cheeks due to the harsh astringent. She was in her late forties and married an American who settled with her in this country for quite a long time already. The neighborhood didn’t know much about the Browns but they were talking about them and envied Mrs. Brown for her instant fortune. They just moved in to the village two years ago and they remained elusive from the people.
             I was bringing with me my yellow dirty sack. It was Sunday morning. Though the sun had risen already to its peak and its scorching heat was biting my nape, I had to collect the garbage from the boarders of Mrs. Romano at San Roque Village. But I had to stop by Mrs. Brown’s bakeshop hoping a customer would share with me some of his banana cake or a lady-helper would dare give me some spoiled ones. I was expecting for a miracle that day.
             The bakeshop was situated beside the gate of the little village, across a barber shop and a massage parlor. I had to decide on what bread to buy once I receive the payment of the boarders. Banana cakes were the best for me. I also adored the cinnamons, German breads, kingrolls, and those purple-colored pastries with buttermelt inside shaped into a yo-yo.
             My mother always asked me to buy pan de sal in this bakeshop. She said the bakeshop would be blest for they were selling breads as big as my little sister’s palm, at their regular price. That could be a wholesome painit for our poor family.
             “Hey! Snot-nosed boy.” I heard somebody inside the bakeshop yelling at me. It was one of the helpers, the one with vibrant colors painted on her face smearing like oil poured in our pan. “You better go away before we lose our customers. Mr. Brown doesn’t like you staying here.”

            I grabbed my sack and jumped off from the bench I was sitting on and left the table immediately. I looked in to the eyes of the helper. She looked back at me. Her eyes were like balls of fire ready to burn me into ashes, and her brows knitted. I made faces to her, imitating a monkey’s and in a split of a second ran as fast as I could away from the bakeshop.
             From a distance, I saw the Browns’ black car. It was huge to me; my friends said it’s called a van. Mr. Brown, an old soggy American with a cocky head, went out from the car. He had this unfriendly face and spoke English very oddly, very differently from my grade six English teacher. He sounded like one of those judges in American Idol we used to watch at night. He got inside the bakeshop and his wife got up quickly as if she was facing a dignitary.
             The Browns went out from the bakeshop heading toward the car. I could see the faces of the lady-helpers and Noy Lando, the baker, showing some hints of pity and troubles. The helper who sent me off whispered something to another helper. Curious as I was, I moved a little bit closer to the car. Daisy followed the Browns thinking she could get inside the car with her owners. But the poor puppy shrieked like a mad dog when Mr. Brown kicked her. Mrs. Brown neither drew any sign of pity on her face on what had happened to Daisy nor took a glance to the poor shitzu, for she was more scared with her husband. They went inside the car and I heard a loud thud when Mr. Brown closed the door.
           The next morning, I was on my way to San Roque Village again to collect some garbage. It was Monday but my mother heard from the radio that we won’t have classes, for there was a holiday that day. “This is a good day to earn a living,” I silently whispered to myself. I didn’t notice how I sounded like an old, mature man.
             I was inside the village and the dogs were barking frantically at me. I remembered what my mother said about dogs having strong instincts and how they could easily notice bad elements in their surrounding; I hoped the dogs were not feeling something evil from me. I hoped they also knew I was there for a cause.
              Few feet from where I was standing, in a lot and bedrock where grasses capriciously grow, I saw a small maya, seeking for its survival. The bird’s wings were crinkled and she laid flat on the ground. I was thinking she was half-dead. Just as I was about to go nearer to the bird, a cat with shiny ash gray and black furs had come to the bird ahead of me. It was Mrs. Brown’s cat. I can see his yellow eyes and thick whiskers. I supposed he was responsible for the bird’s condition. He was checking the bird with one of his paws if it was still alive. I felt some of my blood going up to my head and my stomach sickened. I stayed still from where I was standing; at the back of my head I was tempted to pick the stone at my feet and throw it to Mrs. Brown’s merciless cat. That was supposedly the least thing I could do to help save the dying bird. But I remained stunned. 
For a second, I saw the bird quivered a little. It was still alive. The dogs barked louder and more aggressive not to me that time but to the cat and to its prey. But the cat was a ruthless beast and he was not even afraid of the dogs for they were inside the gates. The cat at last devoured the head of the bird, picked it by his mouth, and left the place like a lightning. My heartbeats stopped for a moment. And I vomited some saliva.
 Two days later, a news shocked the neighborhood in San Roque Village. Mrs. Brown was murdered. One of the lady-helpers saw her inside the bakeshop that morning swimming in her own blood. Police described her like a darkened and rotten papaya. Her body was full of bruises – eyes were swollen and black. Mrs. Brown received several stabs as if a beast had mutilated her. The bakeshop was enclosed by yellow lines and policemen were swarming inside the crime scene. I was among the mob outside, from a distant, curiously watching the scene. Few minutes after, two policemen grabbed the arms of Mr. Brown as they led him out from the bakeshop. Flashes of cameras of the press began to greet the suspect. Mr. Brown was escorted inside the police car. His face was heavy and his eyes were still balls of fire.
 As the police car sped away and the siren wailed like a woman’s cry, I remembered the maya bird laying flat on the ground devoured by Mrs. Brown’s favorite cat.


 

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