Aliens:::Unalienated

Earlier, words attacked you, "If words won't stop, with that, maybe, you can be a writer." And it was her words, not yours. And the uncertain maybe intimidated you.

You looked up them like they were Marsians wearing the suit of a human face, pretending to be human. Like you were eating pandesal, and yet they were eating Neruda for breakfast, Carolyn Forche for lunch and sensibility for dinner, and death, love, stupidity, and sexuality for midnight debauchery.

Somewhat, they were detached, not walking the same streets you were walking, and yet your rational mind said that was too sentimental, and you argued, right, maybe, they were walking the same street, but it didn't arrive to them like the same street. Had you seen the same moment there? —the same "symmetry", and how you interpret such, whether symmetrically or not?

And here the word arrived, "smitten", of how battered it was like somebody you didn't personally knew, but they rumored that she was. And she was smitten too. And she turned her life into a poem whether it was a compliment or a bad criticism. Poem—to be modified with determiner a, or the imposing the, or just a. Take your pick.

They were loud, and you were too and even louder after gulping two bottles of redhorse, which was an act of abnormalcy.

Had you known earlier that they were more human than anybody was, you should have delved into their realm earlier than "earlier". Was it Atwood who said, it was a misconception labeling writers as omniscient when in fact, they didn't know everything, that's why they write.

And it was three in the morning, and my head was full of Redhorse.

Forgive my harangue.

Balak:::Ang Mawad-ag Kinabuhi

Ang Mawad-an ug Kinabuhi


ni Jona Branzuela Bering



unyag abli nimo

sa imong planner,

mosugat ang mga linya

nga nagbuwag sa mga adlaw

ug ang mga adlaw mismo

nga nagyaga-yaga 

kon unsa sila kahilom.

Balak:::Jogging

ni Jona Branzuela Bering

I started strong. Too strong. Rule #1 of the marathon is to hold plenty back at the beginning so you have it left at the end.

—Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Ang kabanha sa kabuntagon
madungog taliwala sa gilay-on

natong duha.

Kanunay tang magsugat,
maong ningsulay ko'g kuyog sa panon

sa imong mga tunob.

Ningreklamo ka kay hinay ra
kaayo ko. Apan nagtuo ko nga ikaw

ang nasobraan sa kapaspas.

Wa ko kaagwanta, ningba-iwas ko

nangitag dalan nga mohakop nako—

hinay man o paspas.

nahipatik usab sa Kabisdak.

Pornography:::Metamorphosing Kafka

Granted, it’s not as bad as waking up and finding you’ve become a big bug, as memorably happens in his novella “The Metamorphosis.” But somehow, even in 2008, Franz Kafka himself keeps morphing, inspiring generations of fans to imagine him anew.

Franz KafkaBeloved writers often get reclaimed for a new readership. Oscar Wilde, best known for being a wit in his own time, would become a gay icon in ours. Long after his death, the Romantic poet Lord Byron would receive the diagnosis of manic-depression. Rudyard Kipling would be embraced during the British Empire and then criticized as imperialist and sometimes racist as the Empire collapsed. Ernest Hemingway, a beloved, swashbuckling figure in his day, would later fall out of favor for a time as a chauvinist.

Now it’s Kafka’s turn. In a new book, “Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life” (St. Martin’s Press), James Hawes, a British lecturer and satirical novelist, considers the man behind the literary myth. According to Mr. Hawes, the myth is all penniless failure and tubercular despair, struggle and saintliness. The man is more dashing. He held a high-paying job, visited brothels and enjoyed some popularity, romantic liaisons and literary admirers in his lifetime.

Oh, yes, and smut. A bit of a provocateur, Mr. Hawes, whose book is titled “Excavating Kafka” in its British edition, explores a hitherto uncelebrated “porn” stash kept in a locked bookshelf by the great writer. No, the magazines in question haven’t been hiding in a Prague garret. As academics already knew, they’re archived at the British Library and the Bodleian Library at Oxford. But no one mined them for publication until Mr. Hawes chose to now — which probably says more about who we are today than it does about who Kafka was.

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by JENNY LYN BADER