from a poem about a mother:
"She makes me read Shakespearean plays
while waving a long stick to drawings set aflame.
Then she goes about lightly
making black fried eggs over blazing wood.
Her stringed laughter extends to the neighborhood
as I lose a milk tooth she keeps track of."
From a poem by the same student:
"If in the night
a silver stallion appears,
it would redeem the drowned stone
from the falls, cascading and savage.
Out of the somber water
against the blackish dawn is a silver stroke
See the stone and the stallion
together evading
night's eternal woe."
Galing no. Meng Chiaoish.
from another class:
"Now, it is as if
life lines
never existed in this lifetime
and suddenly the ink
of tattoos fades away
mornings like
2 am seems, still too early
to get to bed
to toss and turn
Your ship sails back
to the coast
of my childhood
It was a daydream, or a
night-tale,
now, washed out by a flickering
of city lights."
from another student:
"Passing by the old maple tree,
we slowed down
and watched as the tree reluctantly shed,
the last of its leaves.
Then slowly my body drifted,
gently settling itself on your soft, warm back.
You never stirred.
But as we moved again,
I could feel the touch of your hands,
your fingers slowly slipping into mine."
yet another student:
"The greatness of my intellect
wasn't able to comprehend a thing
this has turned the night black
No matter how many candles I light now
Earth, without the sun
will just be an iceberg of sorrows."
Marami pang maganda. Si Kris saludo sa final poems ng mga 'to, especially this one student who has a penchant for Simic-ish endings.
These are freshmen, by the way. But even then, there is so much to learn from them.