my anthologized poem featured as guest poet at Prose Posies for National Poetry Month
Thanks so much to Cara Holman for inviting me as Guest Poet at her blog, ‘Prose Posies’, for National Poetry Month on April 10, coincidentally the date when I first wrote this poem as a not-quite-sonnet, which I later worked on for submission to the Magnapoets Anthology. (Click on Prose Posies in my blogroll for Cara’s wonderful page of me and for the other daily guest poets).
To this We Wake
*
Scraps of purple on winter dawns
slung on arms of mornings
a sun awaiting for us
in between strutting seagulls
pigeons braiding shadows–
we snuggle.
*
We trace our days in dreams we
birth at dawn
when swatches of light
tickle us out to walk
on grounds of endearments our steps
have marked engraved by winds.
*
We step on
shredded blooms the seasons
gift us, stealing kisses, time on
halved imperfect whispers, wishes we rip
off the day, their ends we spangle on
skies, our secret into stars.
*
Yet we wake to another day–
what lies deeper than frost farther
than slumber, closer
to the core where
seasons sleep: to this, to this
we always wake.
*
Butterfly Away, Magnapoets Anthology Series 3, 2011
About Me from Cara’s questionnaire: (in parenthesis, what I wanted to add but changed my mind as my words started to tangle)
Alegria ‘Alee’ Imperial
Originally from Manila, Philippines now from Vancouver, Canada, (quite a simple deceiving shift of footstool in the globe)
I met you at NaHaiWriMo (where we daily shared a haiku for the same prompt for a year among many other poets. Touched by your spirit, I left parts of me in brief phrases on your space.)
Seriously into poetry in 2005, (shortly after workshop courses in fiction writing, years after writing nothing of me in media work and journalism, years of dreaming only in verse)
(I used to write more lyrical prose,) now mostly haiku, some tanka, and recently, haibun and also free verse when all three fail
my bilingual haiku, tanka and free verse for National Poetry of the Month guest post at haikudoodle
Excerpts from Margaret Dornaus’ blog today
http://haikudoodle.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/national-poetry-month-guest-post-6-alegria-imperial/
(or click on haikudoodle on my blogroll)
haiku
(Iluko with English translations by the author)
batbato iti
kapanagan
sabsabong ti sardam
stones
on the riverbank
dawn flowers…
LYNX XXIV: February 2009
tanka (Iluko with English translations by the author)
ayuyang-limdo
diay aripit ballasiw
ditoy a sumken
sinit a nalidliduan
nagtinnag nga anem-em
a haunt for sadness
the dried creek at the crossroad
here they recur
those untended flushes
turned chronic fevers…
LYNX XXV (June): 2, 2010
agsapa (in Iluko with translations by the author)
by Alegria Imperial
naimayeng
dagiti bituen idi mangngegda
ti as-asug
dagiti bulong iti sipnget
narba
dagiti pinatanor ti lawag
iti danarudor
dagiti agam-ammangaw
Bannawag, the Ilocano vernacular magazine of the Ilocos region in northern Philippines, May 16, 2009
dawn
(a loose translation with some nuances substituted as in some verbs, which in Iluko already imply a subject, and nouns that need no adjectives)
startled,
stars fell in the dark
among leaves
pining over lost suns–
loves
that light birthed
drowned in the roar of the
faithless….
http://haikudoodle.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/national-poetry-month-guest-post-6-alegria-imperial/
dawn, a bilingual poem in English and Iluko for One Shot Wednesday (re-post)
In the spirit of first anniversaries that One Shot Wednesday is celebrating, I wish to share an exhilarating moment I’ve had when my poem in Iluko, the dialect I was born with but never wrote with until now, was published, my first ever in the dialect, in Bannawag, a vernacular magazine of the Ilocanos in northern Philippines I read as a child.
Writing from the spirit for me is true writing. While I’m re-learning my tongue like a child, I find in it each time the soul of my expression. The source of my anguish must be its imprisonment in the tangled web of borrowed thought and language. But kneading them together now as in this poem has allowed me bouts of sheer joy. I seem to be writing through this ‘duality’ since then–the borrowed cultures or cultures that impinged on my birth or even in my mother’s womb. And my anguish has lessened since I acknowledged who I am and of what I’m woven.
(as featured poem in winningwriters.com Newsletter, Spring 2010, a loose translation in English by the author with some nuances substituted as in some verbs, which in Iluko already imply a subject, and nouns that need no adjectives)
startled,
stars fell in the dark
among leaves
pining over lost suns–
loves
that light birthed
drowned in the roar of the
faithless
unbidden
a freeze crept,
swaddling
the newborn
leaves whirled
onto a fractured cloud,
stars splattered, blinding
the lost
jasmine blossoms
curtsied
as if penitent
shedding their petals
in the palm
of the newborn blossoms
bloomed into a garland for
dawn
(Iluko version as edited and published in Bannawag, the Ilocano vernacular magazine of the Ilocos region in northern Philippines, May 16, 2009)
agsapa
dagiti bituen idi mangngegda
ti as-asug
dagiti bulong iti sipnget
dagiti pinatanor ti lawag
iti danarudor
dagiti agam-ammangaw
awan pakpakada
ti yuuli ti lam-ek
kadagiti di pay nabungon
a kaipasngay
nagkaribuso
dagiti nayaplag a bulong
bayat ti isasangpet
ti ulep a makapurar
nagkurno
dagiti hasmin
kas man la agpakpakawan
narurosda
iti ima
ti maladaga
nagbukelda a kuentas
ti agsapa
Copyright (c) 2010 by Alegria Imperial
Re-post from 9/22/2010 for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, the inimtable gathering place for poets and artists that celebrates its First Anniversary today (tomorrow?) Wednesday! I joined in only halfway in November last year after I stumbled on it in patteran’s page. It’s been a blast to get to know the most amazing, the most talented, and gifted poets and artists here. Check us out!
transmutation (for One Shoot Sunday)
Photo prompt by Adam Romanowicz.
trapped in a shell
of dreams, the night careens
into an abyss–
the paradise of mollusks
unknown to stars
alien, Night
drowns in crystal tears
engorging shell hearts
layering an encrusted
stone
the sea lashes
the mollusks and turns
Night into strands
of sea spray
Night, the alien
grows eyes
globules of crystals
floating as froth
a veil to hide the birthing
mollusks
Night, the witness
in paradise becomes the sea
as heaving shells open
to let breathe the pearl
they birth
startled
in the blinding brightness
Night leaps and grows wings
springing off its eyes
jewels of sparks
an ocean breath
exhales Night back to dying stars
Night, the prodigal
now smithereens of tears
rain on cupped leaves
frozen as
bejeweled Dawn
on leaf strands
en-clasped like it were
its heart
a shell
Composed from a photo prompt by Adam Romanowicz and
posted for One Shoot Sunday at One Stop Poetry, the inimitable gathering place for poets and artists. Come immerse yourself, better yet share your work and your ideas about others’. Check us out!
zenith at noon (for One Shoot Sunday)
Photo prompt by Fee Easton
rain combs the strands
of our adagios:
expanse of thoughts
farther than the ends of flights
wings aching for home
a sight among stars
we tread the waves
sink in whirlpools deeper
than the heart of the flower
a hummingbird chooses
lighter
than marrow-less limbs
skimming skies
bending the spheres
constellations pirouette
on mid-strains cresting to slope
to skid onto silken lilies
our bed of seasons
in our clasped hands
the sea regurgitates the sun
froth fizzes a tickle
on our kissing toes
the sea breeze binds horizons
our eyes delude a sunset
our dawns begin
the night
the zenith at noon
the depth of our dreaming
Copyright (c) by Alegria Imperial 2011
From a photo prompt by Fee Easton this poem is posted for One Shoot Sunday yet another challenge at One Stop Poetry, the inimitable gathering place of poets and artists, winner of the 2011 Shorty Awards for the Arts. Come join us. Share your love for your art. Be thrilled over what others say and what you discover of others’ works.
Song (my first lyric poem for OSP Saturday)
In dreams as in wakefulness,
bands of air swirl between us–
thoughts spinning in flight,
words but dust in the eye.
In dreams as in waking
I trail the wind, your thoughts
lost in longing, your moaning
a storm tearing at my heart.
I float hidden in dreams
as when awake like a wisp
I hover but a shadow
light sweeps with but a wave.
Once, awake as in a dream,
I painted my eyes like Circe–
the wind my voice for your eyes
knowing the magic lies there.
But in the dream as in waking,
the wind but died, failing–
the song I played my heart the lyre
for you, but a hiss among shadows.
first published in 2007 at PoetsHaven.com
For One Stop Poetry Saturday “Share a Past”, the community of poets and artists I belong to. We share and nurture each other. Check us out, pr better yet, join us. How? Easy steps are in the website. Click on it on my blogroll (Sorry, I have yet to learn how to make a link work.)
Abrazos (for One Shot Wednesday)
If your lips open
as if in awe, and purse
for a light trill, if a tiny whisper
escapes through your smile, a
soft hiss as you breathe
you have said,
Abrazos.
Say it again
and feel your
breast caving in
as your arms curve
like an open arc, an arc
the size of your aching.
Then when your palms
clasp, feel how your heart
gasps, as it curls
in hers.
first published in http://www.poeticdiversity.org, April 2008
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, a community of poets and artists community whose love for what they do sustains their being together.
The Birthing (one shot Wednesday)
I was told an island
rises to its toes when love is
spoken:
waves mount clouds
birds turn dolphins singing.
Flowers bedded on
corals spew beads at
sunrise, winging up as
galaxies mutely
winking at words.
When love is
spoken, Earth shifts axis, faces
eyes limpidness had irked,
takes flings nudged out of
madness—shards shooting as if
aimed though swirling–
and breathes:
first, a shroud shields the pain, next,
a rainbow clears those eyes
for birthing.
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry blog. Join other poets who write verses for love, read those of others, leave a word of encouragement and/or insight with the same love and respect. Post your piece on your blog and sign up in the Mr. Linky list.
Lullaby (yet another lyric poem from haiku-strays)
I wrote this poem on one of the early days when obsessed with learning haiku, the form seemed to shape my brain–wherever that part is where words run into lines. This thought, this memory sparked after I wrote a personal essay that I submitted to Passager about my grandmother’s bath-hair washing ritual (“Digos: a ritual” also posted at my other blog, http://filipineses09.wordpress.com). The rhythm apparently timed in with my measured strides during my daily walk at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore where I lived then. Water, birds: seagulls, ducks, robins, ravens, orioles, sparrows; trees: conifers, chestnuts, magnolias; weeds: dandelions, clover, jewel weeds co-inhabited the dome–a span of sky. I walked daily toward dusk, which is why perhaps this poem—or haiku that strayed—is a lullaby.
grandma on a swing
flying on a lullaby–
a smile thin as breath
combing her hair, my fingers
the teeth untangling silk knots–
her tiara
cheeks I kiss–once
a cushion of veined organza
now loose ripples
Paloma, she warbles–
a dove, my name, alights
on her lips, flapping wings
moons chasing suns
sprout wings–in the darkness
whispers grow eyes
in her flight
the kiss (for One Shoot Sunday)
*composed from a picture prompt, a photo by Lisa Michelle Arhonditis, at One Stop Poetry blog’s One Shoot Sunday
among the willows we waited
for the wind to calm down—
the wind sometimes listens
to our whispers
and steals from ripples of the lake
our secret sighs
on our way back
a ruckus of the sparrows
in the lilac bush
sunk into the twilight—
we waited for the darkness
to open up for the moon
the night slipped in
more silken than cherry blossoms
more fragile than a wing tip
as innocent as a star–
then your kiss birthed a galaxy
swirling us to infinity
I posted this poem for One Shoot Sunday at the One Stop Poetry blog.
Join us – throw in your verses. Here are the rules (taken directly off their blog):
1. Write a poetic piece & post it on your blog
2. Then let us know about your post. Link back to One Shot
3. Sign up in the Mr Linky list, linking directly to your post, AFTER you’ve posted it.
4. Go visit others who have signed up! Offer support & encouragement. Share your love of words and insight respectfully. Please try to visit as many participating poets as you can. We all could use and appreciate kind feedback.
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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