Looking for design inspiration?   Browse our curated collections!

WIPIP Wiki Poem in Progress

SAIGON De Manila

Blog #3 of 8

Previous

|

Next

August 3rd, 2013 - 02:13 AM

WIPIP  Wiki Poem in Progress

the centenarian




Chapter 1
the hatching-

Whenever we sat in the park,
her in her blue eyes and matching cardigan,
she would tell stories so surreal,
I imagined when she stood and fiddled with her cardi buttons
that a whole Lek of butterflies, like her tales,
would emerge and blaze past me, over me, leaving me dusty, frenzied.
like her metaphors and similies,
from the black and white era.
Amazing really!
When it was time to go home
warm from her yarns
I would take her arm
and she would lean, ever so gently on me,
carrying all that life within her,
inside her blue cardigan
still fluttering
and flapping
cooling her suffering
soothing her loneliness
fanning her love
Still looking forward to new sunrises
like children about to jump
from the brink of a river.

We always met at sunrise,
The preferred time of her morning meditation.
She said the veil was thin at dawn
Between Heaven and Earth.
We often saw the brothers there,
At the mouth of the river
Flowing into the Sea.
Little fisher men,
Waiting for the sun to warm the water
Waking the catch of the day.
We waited too for the Sun
To stroke the flowers faces
Luring the butterflies.
She said the butterflies were sacred
And that the movement of their wings
Was felt around the world.

Entangled with maternal love,
the dreams from bygone memoirs was vividly recalled
moments by the sea, watching the fading cove.
of a day old sun, for her favorite son
with his childhood friend
one can feel sun burnt skin of lost youthful days,
etched to the heartfelt diaries.
Weaved by flickering butterflies o’ wind before the sea
Across the cliff that watched them dream
Filled with hope that hardly bent,
By childhood broken friendships and cry babies
Entrusted to small adventures and secrets
That will forge a lifelong duty
To a colourful past and beautiful journey
Like the butterflies flying in mid summer noon..




We rose before the Sun,
My brother and I.
It was our ritual to race
Past the River to the Sea.
We sat in silence
As darkness peeled back
And shadows spoke before the dawn.
Together we prepared our lines
Together we cast our contest.
Who could catch the first fish,
The fattest, the most.
So self absorbed were we
They went unnoticed at first.
Those ladies on the bench.
Then the butterflies came
And our eyes met.

Our eyes met,
shadow to shadow
depth to depth
but there was more than a river between us
she knew,
her in the shadow of our shadows
and her
in the laundry pile of butterflies, seeming aloof,
but especially her in the blue cardigan
watching with eyes of those nature designed
on cryptic wings

'was another face
like the boys that shows around
innocent teases

the hyperbole
of a freckled skin and grin
fancy alliteration

stupid bravery
his presence is my comfort
am sure remembers

all summer cometh
all butterflies that have come
sealed our own cocoons

She keeps her distance, in the summer shadows
twirling her skirts, I feel the remains of her moving, in the air,
but I don't turn,
I'm brave, I'm a boy, I'm fishing, competing with my sister
contesting the look of the old sage
across the river
who waits for me to fall and nearly drown
so she can scream 'I knew!' and save me!
I don't need saving
I'm a boy, soon a man.
How long will she dance in the shadows?
How long will it take for me to understand
how their minds work?
For now, I catch fish,
and enjoy the quiet lisp of her billow
echoing soft through my hair
like the caress of a monarch.

And like Monarch butterflies of four cycles
These young souls just hatched the egg of their destined lives
The carefree season had to halt
As the dogs of war filled
The bellows of the land
Disrupting all lives
Not the butterflies
But the budding
Blossoms
Of
Young
Friendship
Or love that was found
On every morning on the shore
Of this far east pacific motherland
Two lives from north and east migrated
On every summer's day like that of a Monarch butterfly's.

My sister hooked the glass fish from the water
and laughed.
'Message in a bottle!' She cried.
Blue cardigan stood, bowed like the bottom of a boat,
her eyes the colour of the Pacific.
They waved right through me,
and summoned sister.
I fought her for our treasure but she was taller!
We waited, hesitant, expectant,
I felt a shiver from the shadows
a leaf weighted laugh,
behind my back.....
The leather fingers;
curled like cooked sausages,
bereft of prints,of proof of life,
removed the cork,
to my delight.
She surveyed the writing with her diamond eyes and smiled,
No good to you boy!
She's white!
I turned and looked into the shadows of the
coastal shrubs,
but no ethereal feeling stirred
no mirages emerged.
When pressed, blue cardigan confessed
it says....'I love you'...
Son, she said kindly
this could have been for anyone!
And with her large awkward thumbs,
took my face between them, like soft wings might
and dried my eyes
then moved me on
into the light,
my sister clung to the glass
I wrung it from her, ran, barefoot
and tossed it into the river!
I was done with love....
Forever!

I watch the green glass shimmer,
An emerald in the dirty brown river,
A lost treasure slowly sinking.
My brother laughs,
Savoring his cunning coup.
Old Blue Eyes gazes fondly
As if he were a long gone son.
I pinch him sharply and twist
My sovereignty into its proper place,
While staring a dare
Straight into those milky eyes.
Her cackle rises above his squeal
While the butterflies flutter and
Drift between us
On tiffany wings so fragile.

'Funny', she said,
'How he thinks the brown plain butterflies are blue'.
'And your eyes too',
The old friend turned and cooed.
And when he looked through them
he saw the reflection
of many wings
in the deep, soft brown hue.
'You know, old man..
the boy is colour blind..
in more ways than one!'
Smiled the centenarian.

Chapter 2
-caterpillar

My brother was always the friendly sort.
Quick to pick up conversation
Telling all secrets to strangers.
I could see
He was sizing up the old lady
Ready to ask embarrassing questions.
Stupid questions.
Why do the butterflies come?
How do they fly on windy days?
Where are they going?
Where are they from?
He had found a new audience!
And my duty, to stay always by his side,
To watch him like a hen lest he stray.
I saw the Granny settle back
Fully content to bask
In his boyish attention.
The lazy water slapped sloppily against the pier's sturdy legs
wake up and play it seemed to say
as sista an me lay, like flatfish baking on the slatted wood
No breeze,
no rustle of leaves
just birds whistling in the rotunda's eaves.
Then in the glare of the sun from a burning eye
I spied, blue cardigan,( though it may be brown),
but blue is all I know,
'Boy' she whispered, 'what you dreamin' bout?'
Nothin old woman, I drawled,
"You thinkin' bout that bottle, sailin' away, right out o' your head?
I sat upright in the heat.
"Why don't you sit in the shade' she sang
No, missus no i said, the words rang in my ears
I don't like no shade, full o'shadows, and moving things...
I looked behind and across the shrubs
all cool and blue, or green it seems..
''There ain't nuthin in those bushes boy
Just the girl from across the bay
a little girl, who likes to play, near water, and listen and watch
I remember being jus' like that, no sister or brother, jus li'l ol me
Blue cardigan smiled, a lonely smile, I got up and walked her to the hill
where she could sit and lean and glean my face
and all the ways it told her things
I never knew myself..
Animals in nature, change their shape and colour to suit themselves
I know that missus, think I'm dumb? I laughed slighted
No, boy! but even I don't know everything! 100 years of living
and there's still more out there, ever changin', ever changin' and stayin' the same...
A stick was in my hand, suddenly, I know not when it came, and I scratched a word in the blue earth
WHITE...
The white girl? She asked brazenly, uncaring if she hurt a fellas feelings, like a bullet through the heart
Whats wrong with White,I asked, a rainbow's colours are few to me anyway, I piped! pitifully. Hurt.
'The green bottle held a white butterfly..dead, folded within its love note, dusting her unpractised words
I knows eveything around these parts, the river, the houses, no matter that homes lay covered in bush
I hear every hush....listen....I know how silence moves...creeps...seeps....
Boy! Its not her colour....as she has none..except maybe a hint of pink...she laughed
and thats a shade of green to you...she squealed...like some little girl...I blushed
I know she's leaving soon, she's going back home..where white butterflies roam in northern parts
far away....and so she skirts your soil....catches your breath in the air as it passes her and blows it back to you!
I've watched you sense her whereabouts...smell the scent in the air....hoped she stir.' She said.
I watched blue cardigans face..how it spoke to me...how well it remembered...how it travelled back across the sea..
So, that story that they all tell bout you...its true...
The american? I asked...I dared.
It's true boy...But, I'm tired...I'm a hundred years old you know....you help me up now.
And as I took her arm once more I felt the years lean, worn on me, years I had to live yet...years of sun, and riverbanks,
and what else?
Her arm slipped out of mine as she stepped onto soft ground, her arched spine rocking gently from side to side, like a little terrapin,
and then she turned, with diamond eyes, mined from coal, earth's deepest and she whispered secretly,
'He was my first love' and off she shuffled...discreetly..deep.

My brother found a deep fascination
In the milk eyed crone.
I am not such an easy prey
To the wily words of a wrinkled up old woman,
Yet I lurked on the edges of their conversation.
Gazing at the gardens, those masses of blossoms
Full blown and ripe for butterflies.
The butterflies were also attracted to her
And floated around her head like a living halo.
I wondered why.
What does she posses to create such attraction?




The attraction was never an instant nor was spontaneous
Like all wars were deep in mankind pyche’s fuse
My year of birth was two years before the first world war
Not deictic peacetime answered by Avatar
As country side resistance was all over in Moroland

No wonder the christened me as Marcella
A name dedicated to the God of War- Ares
I have no idea if the Nurse read it as Carmella
A name that means “orchard”, I wouldnt detest
shorname “Ella” was a consulation I understand

Their earliest memories was akin to butterflies
Fred came in colorful trouser in native buri hat

Cossette love my checkered Sunday dress
But it was my blue Cardigan that Fred muses:
"as mysterious as Ocean's skin and sky's combined"

The youthful times are vivid
always had new things each day.
Not worrying the upcoming days are gloomier,
It was fun seeing mechanical birds
Not knowing its death hovering in the sky.

Did you write this missus..I mean missus Blue..I asked
She said she did. She swore she did
but i never saw her write nothing, every day
every day when she sits on the bench
she talks and talks and silent sits and watches
always watching, sometimes yelling, wailing
sometimes seeming sleeping, but I know she's not
like she daren't...incase one of her metal birds
falls and messes up her hair!
She writes as though she is the girl
that white girl hiding, peering through the bushes
slipping bottles down the bank
as some silly prank
that might break a heart
or get her noticed.
I'm confused.
The poem is signed Ella
The same name she called the girl
or did I mishear
did she call her Fella?
or Yella, or Bella?!
oh! Hella!

I heard them call my name.
"Ella" cried my brother,
"Ella" echoed his friend,
A boy picked up somehow
Near the feet of the crone.
"Ella" called my brother.
I ignored him
Through the trough
Of my dark green den.
I closed my eyes then.
Drifting to the inner world
Where fairies dare to appear.
Then the cries came closer,
"Here she is" he proclaimed.
Opening my eyes
I saw the hem of his colorful pants,
Then his face under that silly hat
Intruding into my solitary sanctuary.
"This is Fred!" Beamed my brother

Fred and I
present and past
peered at the gossamer figure
All shadow and light, glimmering beneath the hedge
its miniature blossoms seeming caught in her hair
mere angelic, cherubic, sprite!
Sista, Sista my voice broke, echoing in the leafy hollow
Look who's here, who's been searching , all aged and slow
and with my spirit hand, an open gesture, I presented my future self, Old Fred!
His face, a picture, I saw in it love and yearning, discernment, disappointment
Regret, even hate, for a man in spite of himself is able to hate, for then he can know love
Can separate the two.
In his deep veined hands, I saw the sinews that had struggled with driven strength to build this life before our eyes, Fred, my mirror, more than I could imagine, could ignore or surmise.
Ella’s eyes seemed glazed, still wispy but glazed like she was amazed, and sad I supposed
That there was some kind of closure, that something was near over!
Old Ella slippered into the glade a little green bottle in her mottled hand
'Little Fred!' She exclaimed, 'Who you got here, wot you doin'? Always up to sumthin’!
And before Old Fred could turn to face the aged love, he’d lost so young, through lives war torn
Young Ella seemed to float to meet herself, from past to present, from young to old, from half to whole...
Then Fred turned his eyes following the young girl he’d spent his youthful days rebuking, wanting, taunting, playing, loving, missing!
His bright wearied eyes hovered upon some story from out a book...his hands, my hands, which now fused with his, threw up their wanting in the air, for the face he’d hoped to look upon so long before, gazed ablaze with such tender fervour drowned into his,
‘Blue Eyes” he said,I said, even though we knew were brown, ‘ You waited’
“I waited, every day wailed frail Ella, Blue Cardigan, and the Ella of her youth, who shone like some
Aura all around the crone, to hold her up, to give her strength to hold her love within her hands.
Oh! Fred, she laughed in disbelief as the spirits of our youth ran off...dispersed!
Along the pier, the sand, the sun and sea
where all youth lives eternally!

I crept from beneath the camellias,
Twigs tangled in my hair.
Brother proud as a puppy
With what he had dropped at my feet.
I stared down the interloper.
A contest sparked between us.
I glanced at my brother,
Then back at Mr. Dandy Man.
Who would hold the conquest
Of my brothers attention.
Old Granny sat there laughing
A sideways snicker.
Looking right at us
While the butterflies landed
All at her feet.

CHAPTER 3
-Chrysalis-

On his two brown feet
My dear Fred went to college
in 1936

we read war footing
even German's Olympics
as Hitler's facade

it was my country's
taste of basketball glory
fifth historic place

it was all good news
like how our old riverbank
attract butterflies

not only on summer
but in windy November
was it an Omen?

Of good things to come
or something in the bedlam
like mines on strange land

.


.


.
EPILOGUE

Her age divisible by 10
from double ten till past 2010
Ten decades of loving tenderness
Without the ill temperance tendencies
Tenacious soul of pure kindness tenure
Survived every decadence tension
Like struggles are tenpounders
No hallow pretensions or
tentative nature
As if 10 lives
Are on
Her
Aged tendons
As immortal tenement
That walk the earth in tenderfoot
In tender heart of tenable providence
Like a beautiful tench in a tendrilled sea
A vibrant life master for its tenpence
A woman in every tenses
Happiness in a tenfold
facial countenance
Missing her
attention
often
and
tenderly,
tenderly...

.

.

Click Here for More Information

Comments

Post a Comment

SAIGON De Manila

9 Years Ago

Makati, NCR

Yes comrades it's (nostalgic)an epic with some historical chronicle..please check your email for my update from time to time...

Maria Disley

9 Years Ago

Melbourne, Vi

Wow! I had forgotten just how much work went into that....it didn't feel like work!,,, :). There were parts that just didn't seem to fit but it is so epic I wouldn't know where to start, so much of it is profound :)))))

SAIGON De Manila

10 Years Ago

Makati, NCR

thanks Karen..it still half baked...if i will edit here...comments will be deleted =/ well its WIP anyway...

Karen Newell

10 Years Ago

Anywhere

Wahoo! It is an epic:))