Jim Pascual Agustin's Blog, page 45

Trawling

Currently checking the net for any mention of my work… just found this again:

Two poems (which I am usually reluctant to review) caught my attention. ‘How to Fetch Firewood’ by Michelle Tandoc-Pichereau is dedicated to the women and children of Darfur, and has been published in multiple venues prior to this. It is a powerful, both moving and chilling poem about the horror and desperation of living in a war-torn and famine-wracked land with no hope and no help. Jim Pascual Agustin’s ‘In Every War’/'Sa Bawat Digma’ is a bilingual poem published here in both English and (I presume) Filipino. Like the above-mentioned poem, this one focuses on the plight of non-combatants in wartime, in this case parents who cannot sleep for fear of what might happen to their children. – The Future Fire Reviews (http://reviews.futurefire.net/2008/11/gud-3-autumn-2008-rev-johann-carlisle.html)

Will add more soon.

 

Filed under: Uncategorized

An Apology

I have been away from here for too long. I apologize to all those who read these posts – not that there are many of you, but a single reader is as valuable to me as a million. I meant to write something while I was back in Manila, but far too many roadblocks popped all over. My secondhand laptop could not manage the heat and humidity and came close to turning into molten lava. I could have cooked a full meal on it, but somehow I felt responsible for such an old friend. I managed to bring it back to Cape Town in one piece, and it has since recovered. Now it is a back up machine should this new one I got decide to abandon me midstream.

Some big news… my twin books born in 2011, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan and Alien to Any Skin, will have new siblings. Now busy with copy editing the texts and getting hold of blurbs, possibly introductions – should the stars allow. If you or anyone you know have read and enjoyed/hated my books or any of my poetry, please send me word.

Thanks for staying with me for the ride.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, Filipin, Jim Pascual Agustin, poetry, UST Publishing House

Another poem from ALIEN TO ANY SKIN gets published!

One of my poems with a very long title that’s a dig and a stab after the initial tickle (or so I hope), has been published on the The Philippines Free Press website. I posted the news on my book blog for Alien to Any Skin.

I did a quick search on the event the poem tackles and found this:

Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein

Toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein was a staged event, by U.S. soldiers, for the media. A Reuters long-shot of Firdos Square where the statue was located (see below) shows that the Square was nearly empty when Saddam was torn down. The Square was sealed off by the U.S. military. The 200 people milling about were U.S. Marines, international press and Iraqis. However, the media portrayed it as an event of the Iraqi people.

An American military vehicle actually pulled down the statue. Marine Corporal Ed Chin, who temporarily placed a U.S. flag over Saddam’s face, became an instant media celebrity. His sister, Connie, appeared on the “Today” show and spoke with her brother via a video hook-up.

Military Admits Statue Toppling was a Psyops Stunt

On Point, a US army report on lessons learned from the war, notes that it was a Marine colonel, not Iraqi civilians, who decided to topple the statue. “We moved our [tactical PSYOP team] TPT vehicle forward and started to run around seeing what they needed us to do to facilitate their mission,” states a U.S. military officer involved in the operation. “There was a large media circus at this location (I guess the Palestine Hotel was a media center at the time), almost as many reporters as there were Iraqis, as the hotel was right adjacent to the Al-Firdos Square. The Marine Corps colonel in the area saw the Saddam statue as a target of opportunity and decided that the statue must come down.” The pyschological team used loudspeakers to encourage Iraqi civilians to assist, packed the scene with Iraqi children, and stepped in to readjust the props when one of the soldiers draped an American flag over the statue. “God bless them, but we were thinking from PSYOP school that this was just bad news,” the officer reported. “We didn’t want to look like an occupation force, and some of the Iraqis were saying, ‘No, we want an Iraqi flag!’ So I said ‘No problem, somebody get me an Iraqi flag.’ “

from SOURCWATCH

-o-

“Going Retro: The Victorious Army of Gobbledygooks Penetrates the City” was written in December 2008.

Filed under: Asia, Bush legacy, Fragments and Moments, Influences, Mga Tula / Poetry, Middle East, North America, poetry, politics, terrorism Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Bush, human rights violations, Jim Pascual Agustin, media lies, memory, poetry, propaganda, United States, US imperialism, UST Publishing House

Horton Heard a Who, No One Hears Me

My online existence has been zapped to oblivion. I am back home in Manila but have no internet access. So all my contacts on various online media seem to be living behind a very high wall while all I have is a spool of thread and a paperclip – I can throw bits of paper stuck to the paperclip but the wind blows it away before it reaches the top of the wall.

So much for connecting with people. Sigh.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Flying on a Heap

In a few hours I will sit for nearly a day among total strangers with one thing in common – we shall convince ourselves that a heap of metal, rubber, glass, plastic and other materials held together by technology (or magic, faith, man's arrogance? what's a better term?) will successfully (if not safely) take us across vast masses of land and water.

I wrote this poem many years ago while flying from Manila to Cape Town – today I fly the other direction, and maybe some day a poem from this current trip will be born. I've attempted a translation to accompany this post. The original Filipino appears in my book Baha-bahagdang Karupukan.

Kalawakang Binabagtas

lumilipad akong pabalik sa panahon

na anim na oras paatras

palayo sa sinapupunan

palalim nang palalim sa gabi

itong eroplano,

patay na ang mga ilaw sa napakahabang pasilyo

nakabalabal kami ng maninipis na kumot

humihinga ng hanging hiram lamang

sa kalawakang binabagtas

nakatiklop ang aking mga binti

nais bumulusok pauwi

sa payapang lawang pinagmulan

samantala, pinupuno ng mga sinag

ng bagong umaga ang inyong silid

at malapit ka nang magising, inay

paggising ninyo ang aking pagtulog

at higit pa sa anim na oras

ang muling mamamagitan sa ating daigdig

-o-

translation attempt 9abril2012 (I fly in a few hours)

1323-1341

pb2

The Space We Cross

I am flying back in time

six hours behind

away from where I was born*

deeper into the night

this plane plunges,

lights turned down in the long passage

we are wrapped in thin blankets

breathing air borrowed

from the space we cross

like a fetus with legs folded,

I wish to fall back home

into the calmness of a lake

meanwhile, rays of light

begin to fill your room

just before you wake up, mother

as you rise it will be time for me to seek

slumber, and more than mere six hours

rend me from your world

-o-

*the Filipino word "sinapupunan" means womb, but in translation it sounds inappropriate

Filed under: Uncategorized

Like a Stranger, April

I write to a friend whom I will never see in person, someone I've only met online. We are words and images flickering on a monitor, transmitting thoughts. It is an odd feeling knowing someone this way. Strangers who, in another time, would have walked past each other perhaps on a busy street or in the caverns of an airport. More likely we would never have met at all, submitting to the reality of living on either side of the world, sunrise and sunset forever chasing each other.

I tell this friend I am going back home. Home where my umbilical cord was cut. Where my feet first touched soil warm with the struggle of sun and rain, on land close to the band of heat that whips the planet. This friend has only known life in four seasons. Looking up to the heavens at night gives us some comfort – we become equally small and bound by the earth's pull, beckoned by stars.

I tell my friend my worries. Time having pushed all family and friends to trajectories away from mine, we will be more like strangers than we dare admit. It will be like rebuilding a house on another plot of land – the same rooms perhaps, but not the same views out the door and windows. No, that's not quite right. It will be more like a tent than a house. Sharing a temporary space, forced in a squeeze of time. We will be taking fragments from the past and try to make them fit some picture neither of us will fully recognize.

All will be over in less than three weeks. And I will step into a plane that will take me back to being a stranger to everyone. Again.

It is the reverse of homesickness.

-o-

Filed under: Africa, Asia, Fragments and Moments, Influences, Life in a different world, Sanaysay / Essays, Silly Babble Tagged: Jim Pascual Agustin

A photograph that reminded me of a photograph

This is a first draft and I may have to delete this post should Mimo Khair think it does not do justice to her own photograph. Here is a LINK TO Mimo's Photoblog.

A Photograph that Reminded Me of a Photograph

for Mimo Khair

A friend showed me her photograph of the children who took her

away from the entrance to the Valley of the Nobles, the ancient

tombs cut from stone. In place of silence and eternity, she surrendered

to the call of giggles and handmade dolls. Small, dusty hands

clasped hers. Off she was led to their houses amid a made up chant

of her name, as if a long lost playmate had returned home.

Yellows and reds and wide smiles in that photograph

echoed a desert trip in India with my family. We expected

camels and vast stretches of nothing but sky and sand.

Not the laughter of children in bright floral saris, their hysterical

screams that made our twins withdraw. We should have

stayed a while longer in that village until their voices

settled. Instead we kept to schedule, caught

the paid-for camel ride into the sunset.

Without permission I stole their laughter,

stored it in my cellphone camera. Those children

who only wanted to play with our children

before we disappeared from them forever.

-o-

 

 

A very good friend from an online poetry critique group suggested I try shorter lines with this. So here. Please tell me what you think.

-o-

A Photograph that Reminded Me of a Photograph

for Mimo Khair

A friend showed me her photograph

of the children who took her away

from the entrance to the Valley of the Nobles,

the ancient tombs cut from stone. In place of silence

and eternity, she surrendered to the call

of giggles and handmade dolls.

Small, dusty hands clasped hers. Off she was led

to their houses amid a made up chant

of her name, as if a long lost playmate

had returned home.

Yellows and reds and wide smiles

in that photograph echoed a desert trip in India

with my family. We expected camels

and vast stretches of nothing but sky and sand.

Not the laughter of children in bright floral saris,

their hysterical screams that made our twins

withdraw. We should have stayed a while longer

in that village until their voices settled.

Instead we kept to schedule, caught

the paid-for camel ride into the sunset.

Without permission I stole their laughter,

stored it in my cellphone camera.

Those children who only wanted

to play with our children

before we disappeared

from them forever.

-o-

 

Filed under: Asia, Fragments and Moments, Influences, Life in a different world, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged: children, India, Jaisalmer, Jim Pascual Agustin, Mimo Khair, photography

The Duck Dance

One of my daughters, when she was around three, used to perform on cue something we ended up calling "The Duck Dance." She would bend her knees a little, lean forward, pull her hands to her chest, lift her elbows slightly, then wiggle her bum. It made us all laugh. The lightness that laughter and pure joy bring is what comes over me when I find out a work of mine had been given some space somewhere.

March has so far been a good month. After winning the Goodreads.com Poetry Competition with "People Like You," I received the good news that a number of poems had been featured in the South African website LitNet.co.za. One poem, "Someone's Head" is on their main page while four others are in the "Poetry Blog" section. After months of waiting I can now say I've got a foot in the South African poetry scene. Now I suppose I have to muscle my way through the door somehow. hahahahha. Perhaps doing "The Duck Dance" in front of an unexpecting audience at a local poetry reading will be too daring. I'll wait until I've earned some kind of name for that.

Here is the link to the Goodreads.com Poetry Competition.

UST Publishing House

Sign up, Vote. Quick! Then laugh with me

Poll

GOODREADS FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER TOP FINALISTS' POEMS — PLEASE SELECT ONE!

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS MONTH'S FINALISTS

* Voting is anonymous and choices are listed randomly.

Thanks, as always, to our judges, Wendy Babiak, Tara McDaniel and Ruth Bavetta for selecting six finalists from this month's group!

Eggcorns –Heather Kamins

After Falling Down. Again. –Robert Masterson

People Like You –Jim Pascual Agustin

an e e afternoon –R.A. Munroe

Wife's Lullaby –Deborah Hauser

His Life –Burgess Needle


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invite friends

Please read the poems and decide for yourself which is the best. Although you do know which one I am hoping you would choose.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Goodreads.com, Jim Pascual Agustin, poetry, UST Publishing House

Another Shot

My poem "People Like You" got selected as one of six finalists in the Poetry! Competition at Goodreads.com

CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE THE POEMS AND VOTE

Please vote for my poem – at least to keep it from being last in this particular popularity contest. Tough not having enough friends. Or maybe it's the poem. hahahaha.

You have to join and vote quickly because they close the polls soon.

Filed under: Literary News & Articles, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, Baha-bahagdang Karupukan, Jim Pascual Agustin, Philippines, poetry, UST Publishing House