"A revolutionary poem...

...will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you (for you have known, somehow, all along, maybe lost track) where and when and how you are living and might live---it is a wick of desire. . . . It is not programmatic: it searches for words amid the jamming of unfree, free-market idiom, for images that will burn true outside the emotional theme parks. A revolutionary poem is written out of one individual's confrontation with her/his own longings (including all that s/he is expected to deny) in the belief that its readers or hearers (in that old, unending sense of the people) deserve an art as complex, as open to contradictions as themselves."

---Adrienne Rich, "What If?", What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics

(Thanks to Maita for returning my copy; I kind of missed it all these months.) =)

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A warm HAAAPPY BIIIRTHDAAAY to all friends who are celebrating their natal anniversaries this week! (Hmm, wala pa akong natitikman na libre dyan a...)

15 - Nikko
17 - Robin
19 - Rissa
20 - Mitzie
21 - Baryon, Tarie
22 - Ali, Winkle
23 - BJ C.
24 - EJ
26 - Elmo
28 - Popa
30 - Allan L.

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I promised Ian and Joel an update--but there are still too many things I'd rather keep silent about, for now. An hour ago there was rain the equivalent of pelting stones from the sky. I was coming from Aeon where I'd bought a new blank journal (my fourth volume for 2004!) when the raindrops attacked. Good thing I had my trusty blue Fibrella with me (phallic umbrelli! phallic umbrelli!) to keep the world's white television static at bay. Anyway, I can't wait to write on real white pages again.

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A couple of nights ago, after checking students' memoirs, I was walking from De La Costa along the dimly lit pathway to gate 2 1/2. It had just rained, and frogs of all sizes were croaking and leaping all over, reminding me of Egypt in the time of the plagues. They jumped out of the path as I approached. It's been a month since my heart last lurched.