To the Lost Works / Para sa mga Nawarang Obra

To the Lost Works

The lost work is a child that has died. He hasn’t seen the world; no one has seen the world of the lost work.

Either caught in a mishap of improper keeping or by intention, it vanished in an instant, it is needless to mention how it was sought, how it was missed.

 

 

Where are they headed? Even the mind-womb which created it, conceived it, birthed it, and moulded it, cannot track it even in feeling and in memory.

 

 

The words sown from nothingness were returned to nothingness. Isn’t this a cause for celebration? However, we will never again be able to relish the bliss of being with it. The solace it gives us, goes away too when they are gone. With the disappearance of the affirmation of our being here, it feels we have never been.

 

 

Is there someone reading the lost work in the other side of our experienced reality? What will declare that the lost was our handiwork? What will say that I have held a pen and wrote the piece? How can we discuss the idea that the work now floats in the void?

 

 

The work that was made and lost is now in where all that was never found are. The keeper of all that was lost. Like courage or youth. Nothing can tell that these were once ours. Not even remembrance. Like our life which slowly wastes away. Until we can never remember if even our body was really here.

 

 

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PARA SA MGA NAWARANG OBRA

Arog kan aking nagadan an nawarang obra. Dai pa nahiling kan kinaban; an kinaban kan nawarang obra dai pa nahiling .

 

 

 

Nadiskwido sa salang pagsaray o tuyong bigla na sanang napara, dai na kaipuhan osipon kun pano hinanap, pano hinidaw.

 

 

 

Pasain na an mga ini? Dawa an matris-isip na nagmukna, nagbados, buda naghulpot, naghaman, dai na masusog dawa sa pagmati buda pagrumdom.

 

 

 

An mga taramon na tinukdol sa kawaran nai-uli sa kawaran. Bakong garo magayon na okasyon? Iyo sana an, dai ta na masasapar gilayon an ogma pagkairiba ini. An pigtatao kaini satuyang kamugtakan, pagdai na sinda garo nawawara naman. Apirmasyon kan pagigi tang yaon—pagnapara na, garo dai man kita nagin.

 

 

 

May nagbabasa daw kan nawawarang obra sa balyo kan nasasapar na reyalidad? Ano an mataram na hale sa kamot ko an obrang wara na? Ano an mataram na igwa akong kamot na nagtubong ki panurat para hamanon su obra? Pano matutukar an ideya na an obra yaon na pataw-pataw sa kawaran?

 

 

 

An obrang nahaman, nawara, yaon na sa lugar kun sain an gabos na dai na nakua yaon. An sarayan kan mga bagay na nawara. Arog kan isog o kaakian. Wara nang mataram na nagin satuya an mga ini. Dawa pagrumdom. Arog kan buhay tang diit-diit naaatas. Sagkod sa dai na marumduman kun an lawas tang ini yaon talaga digdi.

 

 

 

Justice

For a few days now, that word has been constantly in my mouth. Justice. There has to be justice in the end. I was drinking with my old friend B. one night when I mouthed it. I had my first flat tire ever in the middle of nowhere; he was already drunk from waiting at a bar where he was supposed to have his first solo performance, because the supposed organizer had his first flat tire ever in the middle of nowhere.

It was a Saturday night in a lonely town where if you have nothing much to do, like having sex with your girlfriend or writing an obra maestra or something, it’s better to drink. So we did. The philosophizings started early. I wasn’t having a buzz yet when that word came out of my mouth: Justice. There has to be justice in the end. We were staring at some big sub-urban houses from a far, partly hidden by the inability of the lampposts to shed light on everything. Our drunken words  were just abbreviations of what we had gone through. He even counted the years we had been friends. He told me 1994; I told him it was the summer we first learned wordstar. Blah, blah, blah. I can’t remember where the word justice arrived, but I can see now that it was a highlight. A roman numeral in an outline. My words were roughly like: for all we have suffered there must be a reward or something, even not here. I don’t know if I had mentioned Van Gogh as an analogy. I might have, as I usually do. What I am sure is it was about suffering. B. asked me if he could kiss me in the lips, and it rained, so we had to go inside, and I laughed so hard I thought I’d die. That was a good one I told him. Inter cut to other tangible scenes: B. vividly (by my request) told me his first experience with a girl. Blah, blah, blah we both had a hard on. I congratulated him, but because he was way over 20 the time he was devirginized I consoled him: mine was with a hoar, sob (no offense to our brothers and sisters in the pleasure industry).

A few days later, we got to talk again. Red dusk at the side of Karangahan Boulevard, we were sitting on a barandilla, and the word came out again. I learned from him that his present occupation was with what Beauty is. I told him mine was Justice. He was slowly puffing at his cigarette, I was waving his smoke away. Many years ago, when we were young I was the smoker and he was the waver. I’m afraid of dying of stroke or a heart attack so I quit my most beloved pastime. I’m afraid of many things. Many things I can’t do because I’m afraid. Like smoking a joint might cause me a nervous breakdown. All these sufferings and the others I have already endured. Abstinence from the things I love, e.g. fatty food and getting lost. Justice. There has to be a reward in the end. Like when I have stood for hours in the sunken garden every Sunday till my vision turned white, in a charoled pair of boots and a stupid mass-produced cap, and my face a catch pan for our sergeant’s spit I knew I was doing it for the love of my parents, for graduation and a piece of parchment.  I just hope this is something like this. I hope each remarkable hurt whether it be a pinch or a genuine shattering of heart is being audited and someday be reimbursed or something. When my turn in the band practice came, I went in, and B. just puffed on. He was in no hurry to spend his time alone.

 

April 21, 2008. Cross-blogged from http://www.lakadbulan.multiply.com