Poems by Young Pilipino Americans at FuseBox 3 edited by Barbara Jane Reyes: Patrick Rosal, Paolo Javier, Sarah Gambito, Tony Robles, Jason Bayani, Irene Faye Duller, Maiana Minahal, Joel Barraquiel Tan, Irene Suico Soriano, Michelle Macaraeg Bautista & Joseph O. Legaspi.
Literature from the Balkan countries is now online at www.wordswithoutborders.org, mirroring not a single "Balkan" identity, but multiple Balkans--defined not only by ethnicity but by politics, history, nature (lovely and indifferent), and personal memory. Or so we see in the classic Croatian Miroslav Krezla's surreal Banquet in Blitva, set in a distinctly Balkan Everywhere of blended places and events; the Jewish Serbian writer Ivan Ivanji's frighteningly lyrical "Games on the Banks of the Danube"; Albanian writer Fatos Lubonja's "Ahlem," about a prisoner's skewed loyalty to a dictator; and Luljeta Lleshanaku's pastoral poetry. In "Theft" and "Cactus" the Bosnian short story master Miljenko Jergovic finds the humor in life at the outbreak of war in Sarajevo. And the Polish writer Juli Zeh, who writes in German, casts her acute eye over the landscape in the aftermath of the Balkan wars.
And here's one of my poems-in-progress:
Adamhood
i.
in the beginning
I AM all
word and yoni
is a uni-
versal song
a voice
a name
I AM one
with my(self)
genesis
(is) a night
of void and
nothingness
ii.
I’ve spoken
my prenomen
and i came
to be what
I AM
a world
of my own
my name
unworded
(the atoms
of my existence)
I AM become
light - the first
Christ
iii.
brightness
crowning my head
godhead within
godhead without
first born of
the parthenous
mind
I AM life
-force incarnate
a makir
a fakir
and foremost
a (man)poet
iv.
my voice
married the dark(
ness) and the abyss
and the fruit
of this incest
is chaos and
out of which
the primal light
sprung from
my fore(head)
i breathed shaping
the firmament
in cosmic gyration
heavens were born
poems unpoemed
v.
i stood
completely
incomplete
upon the ground
where I AM
is I AM
God angered
he beat
the hell
out of me
snatched
a bone
or two
my rib
is broken
broken and
Eve of the broken rib
appeared so dovely
than Lilith
my Adamhood
is complete
vi.
triune
with God's scallywag
I saw Iesu
the anchored angel
while i ate
my last supper
my first sin
the Word
on my tongue
his blood
on my lips
the best meal
i've had
so far
no wonder
the Selfless One
has forbidden
the fruit of
knowledge
vii.
the serpent
triumphant
in the east
of the orchard
there is a door
with the sign
EXIT
Eve
and I
moved out
covering
our (wo)man-
hood & humanity
with the colors
of decay
Literature from the Balkan countries is now online at www.wordswithoutborders.org, mirroring not a single "Balkan" identity, but multiple Balkans--defined not only by ethnicity but by politics, history, nature (lovely and indifferent), and personal memory. Or so we see in the classic Croatian Miroslav Krezla's surreal Banquet in Blitva, set in a distinctly Balkan Everywhere of blended places and events; the Jewish Serbian writer Ivan Ivanji's frighteningly lyrical "Games on the Banks of the Danube"; Albanian writer Fatos Lubonja's "Ahlem," about a prisoner's skewed loyalty to a dictator; and Luljeta Lleshanaku's pastoral poetry. In "Theft" and "Cactus" the Bosnian short story master Miljenko Jergovic finds the humor in life at the outbreak of war in Sarajevo. And the Polish writer Juli Zeh, who writes in German, casts her acute eye over the landscape in the aftermath of the Balkan wars.
And here's one of my poems-in-progress:
Adamhood
i.
in the beginning
I AM all
word and yoni
is a uni-
versal song
a voice
a name
I AM one
with my(self)
genesis
(is) a night
of void and
nothingness
ii.
I’ve spoken
my prenomen
and i came
to be what
I AM
a world
of my own
my name
unworded
(the atoms
of my existence)
I AM become
light - the first
Christ
iii.
brightness
crowning my head
godhead within
godhead without
first born of
the parthenous
mind
I AM life
-force incarnate
a makir
a fakir
and foremost
a (man)poet
iv.
my voice
married the dark(
ness) and the abyss
and the fruit
of this incest
is chaos and
out of which
the primal light
sprung from
my fore(head)
i breathed shaping
the firmament
in cosmic gyration
heavens were born
poems unpoemed
v.
i stood
completely
incomplete
upon the ground
where I AM
is I AM
God angered
he beat
the hell
out of me
snatched
a bone
or two
my rib
is broken
broken and
Eve of the broken rib
appeared so dovely
than Lilith
my Adamhood
is complete
vi.
triune
with God's scallywag
I saw Iesu
the anchored angel
while i ate
my last supper
my first sin
the Word
on my tongue
his blood
on my lips
the best meal
i've had
so far
no wonder
the Selfless One
has forbidden
the fruit of
knowledge
vii.
the serpent
triumphant
in the east
of the orchard
there is a door
with the sign
EXIT
Eve
and I
moved out
covering
our (wo)man-
hood & humanity
with the colors
of decay
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