Haribol Suralista: An Aki Sa Laog Kan Harong

An Aki Sa Laog Kan Harong
Su silensiyo sa laog kan harong
su sa barayleng kawat pagpundo kan tugtog.
Dai naghihiriro su mga bagay. Kidit
sa pagpasan sa sadiri nindang saray
na kumugtakan: an mamugtak.
Ini an saindang tibay, daing makadaog.
Ini an pruweba kan saindang pagkagadan.

Dawa pa, pinugol man giraray kan aki
su saiyang paghangos. Ginugom su kamot
nganing dai maglaylay pag natanglay.
Binurarat su mata maski magruluha
dai sana magpirok. Muya niyang mation
an tagas kan mga tukawan.
Saparon an pasensiya
kan mga garapon na gapo.
Sa arog kaini garo kairiba siya
sa saindang paghalat
kan sarong pag-abot na dai niya pa aram.

Dinupa kan relo su rayo
kan dose sa sais. Tisuhon
na ispin, nakatadok sa tahaw
kan matalimon na pansagang.
Namamate niya an paghali
kan saiyang pagmati.
Sa higot kan saiyang gugom
nalingawan niya su saiyang kamot.
Sa linaw na nagdumig sa saiyang mata
duminiklom su saiyang paghiling.
Luminataw su isog kan saiyang tagas
siniba su saiyang tulang.
Arog na siya sainda:
an liya-liyang nagtitipon ki liday,
an kurtinang nag-iipos ki paglataw.

Pag harani na an saiyang pagkalamos
iisip niya na nagririrop siyang perlas
na naguong sa batak sa kantil.
Kun minainit an saiyang daghan
iisip niya na arog kaan an higot
na kugos kan saiyang tatawanan.

May saro na sana
na dai siya napapapundo.
Nagtutuktok ini.
Arog pag bangging dai nang ribok
pigtatahob niya an saiyang kamot
sa tahaw niya nganing dai niya na madangog.
Ngonian na napahalo na niya su gabos na tanog
ini na sana su nadadangog.
Kan pinundo niya su gabos na paghiro
namate niya an paghiro kaini.
Naglalakop hali sa kun sain na rarom
na maski nasa laog niya dai niya maturo.
Nagtutuktok ini.
Nagtutuktok ini sa saiyang tikab.
Nagtutuktok ini sa saiyang kamot.
Sa saiyang luong. Sintido. Rapandapan.
Hanggan sa mapano siya ki mga tuktok.
Garo siya naghalon ki mga duwendeng
dai nagagadan. Pigraraot kaini
an saindang laoman.

Dangan kuminagrit siya
sa puro kan kaya niyang tioson.
Sa luwas, suminalak an tanog na ini
sa ikik kan mga bayong sa piot na mangga
buda sa arual kan mga surusuan na makina.

Translation:
The child in the house
The silence in the house
is of the dancing game when the music stops.
The things are still: strained
in carrying their own kept
condition: to be content.
This is their skill, none can surpass.
This is the proof of their deadness.

Even so, the child still held
his breathing. Clenched his hand
to keep them from dangling in case of strain.
Widened his eyes to the point of tears
just to keep from blinking. He wanted to feel
the hardness of the chairs.
Suffer the patience
of the stone jars.
In this way, it's as if he belongs
to their waiting
for an arrival net yet known.

The clock stretched for the distance
of the twelve to the six. An unswerving
spear, plunged at the center
of a circular shield.
He feels the departure
of his senses.
In his clench's tightness
he forgot his hand.
With the clearness wetting his eyes
his vision darkened.
His vicious hardness surfaced
devouring his bones.
He has become like them:
the rocking chair which gathers fluency
the curtain preparing its flight.

Whenever drowning nears
he imagines himself diving for pearls
stuck between the cracks at ocean's trenches.
Whenever his chest burns
he imagines it as the tightness
in the embrace of the one (for whom all of this will be given.)

There's one more thing
he can't hush.
It knocks.
Like at night when the noises are gone,
he places a hand
in his center to shut it off.
Now that he had all the sounds silenced
this is what remains sounding.
After he had frozen all movements
he can feel it moving.
Spreading out from a certain depth
he can not pin-point, even if it's within.
It knocks.
It knocks at his chest.
It knocks at his hand.
On his nape. Head. Underfoot.
Until he is filled with knockings.
As if he had swallowed deathless dwarves. They are tearing down
their prison.

Then he shrieked
at the limit of what he can take.
Outside, the sound blended
with the screech of the birds in the crowded mango
and the howling of jammed engines.

Part 1 of the PTALB Winning entries series

On Borlagdan's Poetry

A Rush of Metaphors, Tremor of Cadences, and Sad Subversions
By Tito Genova Valiente
titovaliente@yahoo.com

The first time I read the poems of Jesus Jaime Borlagdan, Jimple to those who know him, I felt immediately the seething movement of the words. There was a rush of metaphors in his works. I immediately liked the feeling that the rhythm caused in one’s reading for poetry, in my book, should always be read aloud. I was hearing the voice. It was a voice that happened to sound from afar and it was struggling to link up with a present that would not easily appear.

It was heartbreaking to feel the form. I felt the lines constricting. I saw the phrases dangling to tease, breaking the code of straight talk and inverting them to seduce the mind to think beyond the words. Somewhere, the poems were reverting back to direct sentences, weakening the art of poetry with its universe of ellipses and nuances, but then as suddenly as the words lightened up, the poems then dipped back into a silent retreat, into a cave, to lick its own wounds from the confrontation that it dared to initiate.

For this column, I decide to share parts of the longer paper I am writing about this poet.

In Karangahan, the poet begins with: Bulebard, ikang muymuyon na salog/ki gatas buda patenteng nakahungko,/ako ngonian kahurona. Borlagdan translates this into:Boulevard, you forlorn river/ of milk and downcast lights/ speak to me now. Savor the translation, for in Bikol that which is a dialog has become an entreaty.)

The poet is always talking to someone but in An istorya ninda, an osipon ta, he talks about a the fruits of some narrative: Ta sa dara nindang korona kita an hadi/ sa krus, kita su may nakatadok na espada./Naitaram na ninda an saindang istorya./Punan ta na man su satong osipon./This I translate as: For in the crown they bear we are the King/ on the cross, with the embedded sword./ Marvel at this construction, as the poet cuts at the word “hadi” and begins the next line with “krus” and the “espada.” Marvel, too, at how he looks at conversion and faith, a process that made us special but also wounded us with ourselves stuck with the sword.

Finally, the poet says those lines of the true believer: They have already spoken their story, now let us begin with our tale. The poet does not have a translation but will the istorya in this line be “history” and osipon be “myth.” Shall these last four lines in the first stanza be both a subversion of our faith embedded in a foreign culture or a celebration of what we are not, and what we have not become?
Puni na an paghidaw. Puni na an pagluwas/hali sa kwartong pano ki luha, puni na/an paghiling sa luwas kan bintana./Puni na an paghidaw para sa binayaan./Puni na an pagsulit sa daluging tinimakan./Puni na an paghidaw sa mga sinugbang utoban. Terrifying lines as the poet calls us to begin the remembering and also begin the moving out from the room full of tears. In the poet’s mind, the lacrimarum vale or valley of tears had become an intimate area for instigating his own release.

The rhythm is there as in a prayer. But it is no prayer. There is the repetition but it is not a plea. There is the self but it is one that has turned away from itself into something else. That self is one that shall face the recollection of the faith that has been burned.

And yet the poet, resolute when he wants to, loves to sing and hint of fear and anxiety. Even when he is merely observing children playing in the rains, he summons images of terrible beauty. The skies become diklom na pinandon na “may luho” (with hole). From this hole, comes the sarong pisi ki sildang/ tisuhon na buminulos. The poet stays with this metaphor with such intensity that the silken thread coming from the hole justifiably becomes luhang garo hipidon na busay/paluwas sa mata/kan dagom. Dark wit and a penchant for the horrifying are tandem graces in these lines.

This is the poet who can, without self-consciousness, tell us of the …haya/kan mga ayam na namimibi/nakakapabuskad ki barahibo/nakakaulakit ki lungsi. He whispers of “halas na rimuranon, malamti/sa hapiyap kan mga bituon.”
This is a startling universe, where dogs pray (and bay), and where fears bloom and paleness afflicts and infects, and serpents are caressed by the stars.

1 comments:

Jai Jesus Uy Borlagdan July 14, 2008 5:52 PM: A comment from Tito Valiente:
An Aki Sa Laog Kan Harong

Su silensiyo sa laog kan harong
su sa barayleng kawat pagpundo kan tugtog.
Dai naghihiriro su mga bagay. Kidit
sa pagpasan sa sadiri nindang saray
na kumugtakan: an mamugtak.
Ini an saindang tibay, daing makadaog.
Ini an pruweba kan saindang pagkagadan.
The child in the house
The silence in the house
is of the dancing game when the music stops.
The things are still: strained
in carrying their own kept
condition: to be content.
This is their skill, none can surpass.
This is the proof of their deadness.
Dangan kuminagrit siya
sa puro kan kaya niyang tioson.
Sa luwas, suminalak an tanog na ini
sa ikik kan mga bayong sa piot na mangga
buda sa arual kan mga surusuan na makina.
Then he shrieked
at the limit of what he can take.
Outside, the sound blended
with the screech of the birds in the crowded mango
and the howling of jammed engines.

what goes in the mind of this poet? what magic is found in fear?
the poet talks of the fluency of the chair, in a poem that talks about death and silences.
jimple, i love the line about the ikik kan mga bayong sa piot na mangga.
you are the tragic poet of claustrophobia and expanse.
tito