I just finished reading this anthology of love poems in English from Filipino poets, yesterday. From 1905 up to now, a hundred years in the making. I received this book for my 23th birtday from dear friends. Not so much a long read, but mostly I was taking my time with each poem. I really enjoyed it!
The aim is not so much the concept, or abstraction of love, but the experience of love in our own time and place. "'The only reality' says Jung, 'is the individual': that is to say the reality that every man or woman knows in her heart and in his bones, and central to that reality is the experience of love."
There are so many poems I like, and want to share. Among The Imperfect Suitors by Federico Licsi Espino, We Kept a Jarful of Keys by Merlie M. Alunan, You Tell Me by Marra PL. Lanot, The Winning of Mariyang Ganda by Erwin E. Castillo, Las Ruinas del Corazon by Eric T. Gamalinda, In Language by J. Eugene Gloria, Driving to Katoomba by Merlinda C. Bobis, Rings by Lisa Igloria, Bedtime Story by Sid Gomez Hildawa, Uncommon Denominators by Patrick Rosal and Bedtime by Conchitina R. Cruz. But that would have bored most people ^_^;; So I picked up this one :D
Sid Gomez Hildawa
Bedtime Story
I lie on my side, on my side
of the bed. Yours is vacant.
I could say the blankets are
like waves because they're
ruffled, but you'd proably say
that's a cliché. Well, here's
another: our blankets are like
hills and dunes when as a child
I'd press my cheeks against
the springy surface, imagining
my matchbox cars are traversing
a desert where dinausors and lions
crouch in caves and crevices
the folds make.
I may have then fallen
asleep on a linen omelet of toys,
skipped a breakfast of scrambled
eggs. But growing up is never without
creases, make-believing never
without deceit. I have seen how we
uncover beds and cover up lies; spanking
pillows to sleep, then embracing them under
the sheets. While our toys awaken.
2001
it's an ocean of infinite waves 