touka: Favorites

Jun 2024 touka

Still Crazy

it’s just me…funny like that…

~for touka, just because…~

my foibles are little pretty doilies,
all dressed up in preparation for
getting stained, as is their due,
their birthright, for they wait in
service for the slippage and the
crumbly stains of strange lyrics

wait! this poem has. gone astray,
my intention to make confession
about my quirks which are more
than numerous, repetitious, and
a little crazy, which is why my very
few friends delight in homaging me
”still crazy after all these years…”

‘tis truth, for better or worse, I’m
not superstitious but don’t step
on cracks or any lines between
the in between, always retrieve
pennies on the street, cause the
Benny Franklin about a penny
earned makes smile because
he stole it from someone prior,
and it goes with friends in the
tip jar at my corner bodega,
where they save me
a raisin scone,
knowing full well, i may not appear
till quite late, or never on bad days
when the poem urges kick me out
of bed, and inspiration is a 3am
pastry…

make me repetitive cups of java all
de day long, wander around from
zoom
to room doing odd-jobs, thisnthats,
never recalling where my muggle is
sojourning till I hear the call of the
microwave “here, here ye old man…
where else would I be so lovingly
reheated?”

put my wallet, watch, spectacles &
testicles (an old rhyming) on the nite
stand in prep for the next day, but oh,
the keys have their little own ceramic
cup lest they scratch the ochre stain,
and I catch holy hell, so ipso-facto, I
am more often than not locked out…

we won’t talk about the too many times,
my phone has gone astray (1j many
countries where recovery was hardly
assured, but have never suffered its
loss, or consequential identity theft,
but then again, no one seems to
want to steal my name, till Paul Simon
up and done it, after sitting next to me
on a Redeye flight from LA to NYC.(1j

it drives me nuts when pompous men
pontificate on the obvious but forget
to pull their tie up to mind the gap tween
knot and the top button, making their
words look..how shall I say it…sloppy,
and my shouting out at the television
at the sartorial stupidity of news “anchors”
for naughty

Making to do lists is my artistical métier,
which only grow longer with age and the
wisdom that their purpose is to taunt me,
my failures to face the difficulties that
reverberate in my guilty conscience, so
that when I remember something to do
and actually do it because the deadline
has passed and I fear her wrath of and
disappointment
which is worse than
disapproval
which I can often
dismiss
with a historical, practiced, “easy peasy”

and if said item even doesn’t appear on my
lists (plural), I add it and derive copious pleasure,
when I cross it out with great
red inked celebratory deliberateness…

ok, okay, (you choose) I’ll wrap and rap it
up, as I go on too long as children oft tell
me when I’m being regaling with my stories,
(is there a point to this story?)
well because…it’s

just me…funnily like that

(1) somewhere on HP is the poem/story

Jun 2024 touka

CENTAUR

Jun 2024 touka

Donall Dempsey

CENTAUR

CENTAUR

Hiding in the hay
me a terrified little boy
& my uncle like a terrified little boy

the voices in his head telling him to be afraid
of all strangers...changes.

He’s been like this
since the day his Dad(my unknown grandfather)
died.

My Aunt’s voice
searching for us...searching us out.

Her shouts like bloodhounds
hunting us down

her words angry & cruel.

Her angry voice slurring us into:
“DonallSeanie! ”

as if we had fused into one being
a metamorphosis of us.

The hay cooks us
and we swelter in our hidey hole

A chicken sits on top
of my uncle’s cap

as if his mind had
materialised into this shape.

He rocks himself
and rocks me.

“Shhhh...boy...shhhh! ”
comforting both him & me.

“Don’t leave me! ”
he clucks

the words scattered around him
like newly laid eggs.

I settle into his silence.

My Aunt’s threats freezing us
in this terrible heat.

His chest hair
tickles my nose.

The cut on my left big toe
throbs through the open sandal.

My uncle cries in fear.

I wipe away the tear
with the ***** edge of my sleeve.

We escape to
the West field

me riding his shoulders

transformed into
a legendary creature

that only exists in myths
fleeing from the realness

...of reality.

Jun 2024 touka

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

Jun 2024 touka

Donall Dempsey

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LITTLE GIRL

she's a mere three
demands to know
"...the history of me..."

well, now I say
that was a long time ago
"...try to remember..." she pleads.

I remember when you
first came out of your shell
hatched into a lovely little girl

you were my duckling
everywhere I went
there you were

I could hear you cry
even before you cried
you made me a good daddy/mummy

your dreams
staining the blue
pillow with golden curls

every night the moon
would come to our window
just to take a peep at you

one day your name
perched upon you
and never flew off again

you were a fairy story
I had never heard before
and wanted to hear more

once when you fell
you hit the road
"Naughty road for falling me!"

"No I never!"
she squeals
"Oh yes you did!" I tickle

"Is there any more of me?"
"Oh loads...loads more
but I too old and tired!"

"Well..!" she tells her dolls
"He tells a good story but
shhh...it's not all true!"

the dolls gasp in disbelief
having drunk down
the dregs of every detail

Apr 2024 touka

tell me

Apr 2024 touka

Dave Cortel

tell me

just tell me how much you like me to smile so i can keep smiling at you with warmth until you melt.

tell me about the type of songs you listen and the films you watch so we can earmark a day or two to revel in their magic together.

tell me of the days you are free so i can synchronize mine then we can be together again.

tell me of the things you hate, so we can make a team to steer clear of them and share in our mutual disdain.

tell me that you love the sky as well, stretched above like a vast azure dome, so we can both lie on the grass until sunset.

just tell me how much you like me and in turn, i shall speak the depth of my enduring affection for you, a sentiment that has blossomed ever since you first spoke my name.

Apr 2024 touka

Untitled

Apr 2024 touka

Dave Cortel

Untitled

on a fishing boat
our backs both sunburned
by the sun of May
we sang a kundiman
while we oared to the spot
where pebbles shimmered
like scattered ornaments

“quick. we must hurry.”
you spoke with enthusiasm
as the sun, as we saw it,
slowly nearing
the islands adjacent to ours

but how could i? when your torso
rendered me weak in the hands
you were god-like with firm shoulders
and you reminded me of Maka-andog
whose body akin to boulders

Apr 2024 touka

warrior

Apr 2024 touka

Dave Cortel

warrior

sat on a rattan chair, my little self once posed a question to my late great-grandmother with dementia
“why was i named after a saint?”

“francis, that is to protect you from the threat of carbines and tanks that the hapons toy against us, filipinos.” she spoke like i’ve been warned.

then i remembered my half-japanese friend whose brain akin to a monggo bean.

i did not believe her.

how could i believe when my friend couldn’t learn my mother tongue?

fifteen years later, i learned that my late great-grandmother used to cover her visage with thick talcum, pretending as geisha to trick the makapilis

the makapilis were filipinos who sided with the japanese.
but they were worse.
they would bang your heads with their blood-stained fists if you refuse to speak the whereabouts of a guerilla’s leader.

guised as a geisha, my late great-grandmother would lure a makapili to her home. there, she would cut his throat with a dagger and let the makapili suffer in a pool of blood.

“if you love this country, that is how you cleanse it—eliminate the ones who betray it.” she once told my mother.

often, i think about her.

all along, my late great-grandmother had been warning us—it is not always the outsiders who will hurt you, sometimes it is the ones who reside with you in the same village, same home, or share your blood.

and that would hurt a lot akin to a gunshot piercing through your waist

you must always be prepared for such treachery, like a warrior who is always ready to draw a mighty dagger from her scabbard to expel those who opt to betray her and her land.

Apr 2024 touka

paksiw

Apr 2024 touka

Dave Cortel

paksiw

vinegar, soy sauce, crushed garlic, peppercorns, and bay leaves
i saw my mother mixed these
in a palayok softened to a gentle patina.

i’d like to help, but my hands
were already covered in bruises
from playing luksong baka.

“where have you been, boy?”
mother asked, as she raised the sandok,
while her eyes glued to the palayok.

i wanted to tell her i’ve been with a friend,
a boy, who pushed me into a charcoal pit
so my knees were black.

but this friend came to our house
carrying a small ointment, bottled in green.

he smiled.

and i looked at him, hesitant to give it back.
i learned that the ointment
was for the wounds i got
from his own mischief.

but he didn’t apologize.
instead, he sat on a dining rattan chair,
facing me.

“why is he here?
isn’t he ashamed of what he had done?”
i thought.

“oy hijo, didi nala kaon.”
mother, in a duster dress, spoke to him
while serving the paksiw,
we could smell its tangy scent
of vinegar and crushed garlic.

she managed to notice
that we might be in a little fight
so she told us that we must have our backs
for each other, always.

and we did.

twenty years later, this friend came back
to our house, redoing the scene:
carrying an ointment bottled in green.

“tita, don’t you know
he’s been crying over a stupid man?”
he spoke and laughed, childlike.

oh this boy, unaware of my charade,
as i fake drama, keeps comforting me
again and again and again.

mother served the same paksiw
and i found myself smiling,
watching him treat my home, a home.

Apr 2024 touka

to wake up in this island

Apr 2024 touka

Dave Cortel

to wake up in this island

imagine this
you awoke to the chirping of mayas,
to the crowing of your neighbor’s chickens,
to the sound of vehicles jolting by the holes

you felt the amber light of sun,
kissing your cheeks
while it exposed the spiders forming
cobwebs on the corners of your room

what a pleasant day, wasn’t it?
to see children by the street
playing patintero
while you watered the bougainvilleas
your mother loved better than you

then you remembered it was Saturday again
and a friend’s mother would come,
selling a basket of bananacues

you quickly grabbed a copy of Jessica Zafra
from your bookshelf with a collection
of novels that you bought
from pickpocketing your father

you marched your way
down to your living area
through the stairs filled
with potted pothos and jade plants
your mother treated like little kids

today must be beautiful. you thought.
so you checked your phone,
hoping for an invitation to a beach.
because why not?
with this sky reminiscent of turquoise,
your skin yearned for the sun

instead of an invitation,
a forwarded message
popped in your screen:
the fourth murderr of the month.

a man shot dead in broad daylight
along the diversion road
in a barrio next to yours.

the spot turned red
as the blood of the man streamed
like a draining river.
people circled the murdered
as if it was news to them.
reality was, it had become a norm

gunshot after gunshot.
you heard them like bad songs on a stereo
and how could you turn it off? stop it?
you had no idea

you see, waking up
in this beautiful island is a bliss.
you get to watch the cinematic view
of a horizon where the sky kisses the sea,
while you stand firm on the pristine shores,
listening to the gentle rustle of palm trees

yet it was only a facade

on this island, where shores shimmer
like jewelry and lush greenery
abounds in beauty,
lies a darker truth

while the murdered men sleep
in agony of injustice,
the culprits loiter in this island,
smoking, plotting the next fire