Power and the Beloved

Power and the Beloved


The beloved
in the beginning
has no power,
a sight
whose beauty
is dependent
on the beholder’s
loving gaze.

He gains strength
the moment
he discovers eyes
fixed on him
with longing,
as if he is a statue
of a greek god
come to life.

By then the lover
has lost control
of his momentum,
water flowing
through his hands,
galatea escaping
pygmalion’s
sculptural grip.

But the lover
can always look
the other way,
his vision riveting
on another man,
or looking back
he can condemn
eurydice to shadow.


- Ralph Semino Galan

The Beauty of the Sea

The Beauty of the Sea


On a clear day like this,
the view of the sea
from the promontory
where you stand

is breathtaking,
its surface breaking
like a precious gem
into prisms of light.

So you scamper
to the beach below,
the sand crunching
beneath your feet

and scoop a cupful
of blue in your hands.
But already the humor
inside you changes,

since beauty betrays
always, making you sigh,
for once captured
it begins to slip through

your fingers, the way
water escapes your grip
no matter how long
or hard your try.

SPACE AND THE BELOVED

Beside you, my perception
of space transforms:
it contracts like a womb,
the whole world excluded
as other faces recede
in the background until
only your visage remains
in my range of vision.

Or it expands like a balloon,
barriers between you
and me broken, the walls
separating us from mankind
collapsing like a house
of cards, as we embrace
the universe in the sphere
of our inclusive affection.


-Ralph Semino Galan

TIME AND THE BELOVED

When I am with you
time moves differently
it accelerates
like a bullet train
a speed boat
a jet plane
the surroundings blurring
into a haze of faces
a labyrinth of landmarks
a whirlwind of words
as I focus my attention
on you and you alone.

Or it decelerates
into triple slow motion,
so that a second stretches
and lasts a lifetime,
a gesture takes forever
to accomplish, an utterance
becomes comprehensible
only several centuries after,
and I end up remembering
the timbre of your voice,
the texture of your arms,
the tint of your eyes.


- Ralph Semino Galán

Ariel

ARIEL
(after Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid")


under the piscean sea
of feelings, i live
princess of the deep.
my love is a turbulence
breaking near the water's
edge.

since what i long for
is an earthly prince
dry yet fertile like land
far yet warm as the sun
shimmering on the sea's
surface from my vision
below.

but this watery love
like the sea spray
is doomed, for i am
a mermaid forever caught
in the ocean's overwhelming
grip.

My Kind

MY KIND


I have no oven large enough,
Dear Sylvia, to roast
my head like a lamb for dinner.



Nor a brand-new car parked
in a garage, Dear Anne,
to etherize my soul.



Nor stones heavy with sin,
Dear Virginia, and a river deep
as forgetting to drown myself in.



Nor do I live in a building,
so high like the bluest
of skies, Dearest Maningning.



Sisters in rhyme, in crime,
how then shall I make my quick
and extraordinary exit?



Or shall I kill myself slowly
with beer and cigarettes,
bit by bit?

On a Boat to Puerto Galera

ON A BOAT TO PUERTO GALERA
(for Jun, Rommel and Donald)


the ship of fools
ferries us across the strait
that separates luzon
from the yearned for
shores of mindoro.

leaving our city lives
behind, we stand on deck
straining our eyes
against the glare of light
frolicking on water.

we sigh, imagining
the sand of white beach
crunching beneath
our feet, the sun bronzing
the skin of our backs.

passing by the islands
of verde and maricaban
we shiver, thinking
of the warm sea embracing
our bodies like a lover.

heaving with the heavy
cargo of our foolish
fantasies, we disembark thus
in puerto galera
way ahead of schedule,

long before our rusty galleon
has reached the safety of harbor.

Postcard Poem

POSTCARD POEM
(Maria Cristina Falls Reprise)


Picture-perfect,
I have seen your silent screams
tear across the pages
of my dreams. Two voices
streaming in unison
to some imaginary sea,
stopped short
by the edges of this paper
strengthened like a dam.


-Ralph Semino Galan

Islands and Icebergs

ISLANDS AND ICEBERGS
(Or, How to Read a Poem)


Imagine the paper
on which this poem is written
as an ocean.

Imagine these words
as either islands or icebergs
floating on the surface.

Imagine yourself
as an explorer, a cartographer
of heart and mind.

From the safety
of your imagination’s ship,
what do you see?

A mountain peak;
perhaps a ribbon of smoke
from an old volcano?

A drifting glacier;
a pair of polar bears frolicking
on thin ice?

You ask: Where
is the connection, the link
between each to each?

You ask: Must I hop
from this island to the next,
feeling after feeling?

Or must I move
from one iceberg to the other,
thought after thought?

And I answer,
take a deep breath and dive
into the dead calm.

Taste, feel, smell;
see what was once invisible
listen to the silence ---

Read again.


- Ralph Semino Galán

Fortune Telling at Ora Cafe

FORTUNE TELLING AT ORA CAFE


You arrive all alone
full of fear and apprehension
in this cafe that promises
to foretell your future, as if
your goddamn life with all
its complexities can be reduced
to a pack of cards, the twisting
path of your destiny as clear-cut
as a crystal ball, your strange fate
a text written in the stars.

And so the psychic-seer
reads the signs of your chosen
form of oracle, predicting events
that may or may not happen,
depending on how you see things
as they occur; the accuracy
of his third eye a matter yet
to be seen, his prophetic words
a cipher yet to be decoded
in the succeeding days to come.

But you believe him,
at this particular point in time
yes, you completely believe him:
the major and minor arcana,
the alignment of the planets;
so you leave this cafe with a sense
of certainty that disappears
the very next day, in the tumult
and turbulence of tomorrow's
unpredictable unfolding.


-Ralph Semino Galan

Magician

MAGICIAN


I wave my pen like a wand
and cast a spell to conjure images
of the past: the silk of your skin

I had touched a thousand times,
the impish smile in your eyes,
your firm thighs. Athame in hand,

I slash the veils of illusion
one by one, and stab my devoted
heart with the dagger of art.

I let the blood spill like music,
tears flowing like the solemn lyrics
of a dirge. I let everything go.

I remove my robes and remember
that the path to wholeness
is not in safety but in vulnerability.

Star-clad, I offer my wounds
to the universe, faith transforming
pain into poetry, suffering into song.


-Ralph Semino Galan

Naming the Trees

NAMING THE TREES
(Dumaguete City, May 1995)


Héloïse and Abélard ---
On the boulevard, we baptize
two acacia trees
by pressing our palms
on their ancient boles,
like wizened priests.

Héloïse, with her wimple
of leaves, lifts her branches
wildly to a cruel sky;
her virginity intact, the fruit
of her desire unpicked.

Abélard, in his castrated
glory, hides his shame
beneath the brown habit
of bark; his roots shaken,
his seeds unspread.

Héloïse and Abélard ---
On the boulevard, we name
two trees after the tragic
lovers of Medieval times,
secretly hoping not to repeat
the same sad fate.


- Ralph Semino Galan

A Crepuscular Scene

A CREPUSCULAR SCENE
(After a photograph by Al Dimalanta)


Watch the sun setting,
an overripe orange of light
sinking into the darkness

of the sea. Watch the ship
sailing to distant shores,
destinations and destinies

you can only dream of.
Watch the seconds slip by
like the wind whipping

your face. Watch and weep
for these transitive things
inevitably disappearing

before your bloodshot eyes.

For Maningning, Seven Years After

FOR MANINGNING, SEVEN YEARS AFTER
(September 29, 2007)


If I do it now, somersault
headfirst into the river of concrete
from the rooftop of the building

where I teach, will it create
a scene: a semi-abstract painting
of pain slightly obscene, face

distorted, body contorted, almost
Cubist, but with clots of red
darkening the impromptu canvas?

What lesson is there to learn
from the freefall of my leave-taking,
the picture perfect trajectory

of my utter failure to survive?
Will poet-friends revive me in songs
and elegies, words transforming

my rotting flesh into parable,
legend, myth? Or will I be forgotten
after the tabloid's rabid headline,

shame on my name, the anguish
I relish: a mad troubadour
plunging into inevitable oblivion

without your star's redeeming light?


Note: The late Maningning Miclat was a young and talented poet-painter of the Philippines. She had won many national and international prizes for her poems and paintings.

The Southern Cross

THE SOUTHERN CROSS


Four stars transfix my fate
like a miraculous medal.
It is up there for me to see:
a crucifix. Around it,
a scapular of stars.

Like Christ, I too must bear
a cross: a plastic cross
around my neck, across my soul.
Beads of sweat and prayers
dangling like rosaries

And each time I stargaze
light pierces my hands, my feet:
like a stigmatist.
And then I bleed, profusely,
Red and lovely like a rose.

Southern saints are crucified
in this part of the southern sky.

Two Tinago Falls poems

Tinago Falls
(Buru-un, Iligan City)


Hidden, like everything beautiful
is this waterfall. In the heart
of this forest, she is here:
cascading gracefully like a lady,
virginal, the lacy drop
a veil covering her face
in myth and mystery.

I have combed her hair,
a leafy crown of emeralds,
to witness her majesty
as she free-falls forever
from the deep ravine of discovery
to the calm, collected waters
in the ice-cold basin
of memory.


Tinago Falls II
(for Ted and King)


clinging to cliffwalls
are the vines of our destinies:
tiny tines, shaped
like fingers, tenaciously
grasping granite rock.

the cascades of our passions
are laced with fear,
dropping whitely, like sheets
of silk, covering
our secrets and desires.

hovering over the azure pool
of our impure delights,
deceitful dragonflies like men
are urging us to swim
in the shimmering skin of sin.

Baguio, the Return

BAGUIO, THE RETURN

Cold
I whisper to the wind
as I fold myself
like a fan.
I have no one to hold:
No fingers fusing
like candles melting
in the dark.

In Burnham Park
I walk
with nobody to talk to
but myself.
Shadows
of my own making
stalk me in silence,
repeating everything
I do.

Is it your absence
I seek
among the pines?
Or the reek
of your presence
like the needles
pin-pricking my senses
with their scent?

Are you heaven-sent,
an angel invisible
but omnipresent?
Or the devil
come to torture my soul
with the mist,
like dragon's breath
that shrouds
Baguio with myths?

December Rain

December Rain
(for Edith L. Tiempo)


A sudden downpour
drenches the City, washing it clean
of sin and residual memory,
quenching its thirst
for water and renewal.

Likewise, my parched soul
craves for benediction, the surge
and splurge of inner rain
watering the landscape of the heart,
a new Self flowering.


-Ralph Semino Galán

Tartanilla

Tartanilla

I miss the sound of hoofsteps
pattering on the pavement like rain.

How I long for the sweet scent
of summer rain between late dusk

and early evening, the croaking
of the frogs, evoking memories lost

in the stars. Perhaps the horses too
have flown to the skies as comets

acquiring pegasic wings no carriage
can resist, no memory can recall.


Note: Tartanilla is the horse-drawn carriage that used to ply the streets of rustic towns in the southern part of the Philippines prior to rapid urbanization.