Manila Madness

i.

the dirt, the dust

the diesel in the air

the dodging crowds

the gaudy jeepneys;

the daring clashes

the space claiming

the street crossings

the suspension of fears;

the dance of wants and musts

the "have to's of dogs and men

of poor and upper class:

this is Manila Madness

its struggle to be

its laughter and pain

of being without 

and getting by

in the zany liveliness.

ii.

i wonder about 

the happiness we wear:

our vulgar wants

our slow suicides

our premature deaths

our money madness

our lives being scrubbed

antiseptically clean! 

*As the stories of our lives unfold, conflict is inevitable and even essential in the attempt to achieve balance. Countless plots are possible.  We move from narrative to poetry, from farce to tragedy, where according to Aristotle, there must be a purging if one is to be purified and prepared to accept the hero's fate.  We move from equanimity to despair in search of an elusive wholeness, knowing it is not possible to chart one's own course with assurance.  As obstacles confront us, we are called on to find our way.

-Editors(Parabola)

*The bridging action of healing appears to be not an isolated act but an ongoing process.  Another way of envisioning this process is as call and response: the Divine, the ultimate expression of wholeness, emits a call or a pull towards itself.  The sufferer, the one who is ill  or incomplete, yearns to respond to that call.  We are all such sufferers, and we are all heroes when we admit that we are incomplete and at the same time accept the pain of being drawn out, through healing, toward the Divine.  We see that healing is not passive; on the contrary, it demands the most active participation and a willingness to suffer.

-Editors(Parabola)

Lazarus at the friary gate

a mountain of silence

Lazarus squatted at the friary gate

a mute beggar

hands tuck within his lap

his mind fixed on a gesture

a blessing pressed upon his head

that he might kneel 'pon gracious knees

before me with my folded hands

with eyes fixed above, toward the perceiving God

i lifted then his pressing hand

raised his arm to touch my head

saying forgive me please for all my sins

wanting the blessing that he could give

held within his out-stretched hand

The rickshaw man rushed through the streets

pulling the tree budding new leaves

blood-red as if on fire

He ran as if fixed on a goal

Was he Christ racing toward the Hill

bearing wood that wound form his cross?

It seemed that ev'ry jeepney that followed

was a nation longing to taste his blood

*...some things simply aren't going to get better.

-Sidney Poitier

*I want to feel good about what goes on around me.  I want to feel good about the way I'm thought of.  The way I think of myself.  Good about how my friends see me and how they feel with me and how they accept me.  I want to feel good about the things I do.  For myself and for my children, for my wife, my friends and my community.  I want to feel good in other ways too.  I want to feel pleasurably good.  Ideally, I would like life to be as close to an orgasm as it can get.

-Sidney Poitier