The Midnight Journal

The Midnight Journal is the first ever Bikolano community resource and social media blogzine, launched in order to keep you in the know of the happenings, events, gigs, meet-ups, workshops, calls for submissions, and artist work opportunities within and around the region, showcase the latest creations of Bikolano artists, and feed your hunger for quality content with a weekly dose of musings, poetry, and artwork features that depict or relate fragments of life in living the Bikolano pride.

It is published through the efforts of the Musings of the Midnight Writer core team. Fresh releases every second Saturday of the month.

Please support our digital journal by sending in article contributions, artworks, and community event updates! 

Please visit The Sweet Street for more information.

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We're moving on!

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It is with both a big sigh and a big smile that we will soon be leaving this blog--the only one among so many that I've had all these years and the only one that really got me going.

It is this blog that kept everything that I just wanted out of my brain, all the dirt and the unnecessary thoughts, and those overflowing from my cup that needed something to catch, lest they fall back into the earth unused. It is also the same blog that showered in the cries of my heart and perhaps it has gone deaf of my whinings.

But my heart could not contain as much this gladness that is raining down on me. Finally, after years and years of wanting and planning, we launch our own website. Perhaps in a way this is symbolic as it could be about how I am moving on with my life.

Close friends and I love to refer to me as a "Goldy Bear", but where have I been all these past years? "Hibernating!" But then I have awakened. And I come to rise with that slow and full stretching, a little nudging, a little wanting to go back to bed and curl up again...

But with the magnificent thoughts of the sun shining outside, of the fresh air, of the flowers and the trees, and all the fruits and nuts and honey that await, I am in the waking up of a lost consciousness, the momentous redemption of a lost pride, and the continuation of a journey that was commenced and halted for sometime, in order to claim the glory of a life that earlier in my youth I have deferred through the prostitution of desires. (Don't bother asking, my musings are carrying my words away from my thoughts today!)

Yes, I have already compromised a lot of "what could have beens", so today, we move on, to a whole new adventure of the Midnight Writer.

Set sail with me. Life goes on. Cheers!

Passer-by

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The wind caressed his tall, lean, and frail body as cold droplets of rain drizzled. Starkly dressed in his overalls, the man dutifully swept the fallen leaves along the gray alley of the Fourth Street. He gathered the dirt with his near-bald broomstick and thrashed them onto his wheelbarrow. As he did so, a brood of youngsters haggling and cajoling in the prime and zest of their libertarian shower in the rain sprang from one side.


"Dada!" The shrill voice of a  a six-year old echoed in his mind. "I'll be home soon," he spoke as he turned to one of the boys in the street. Thoughtfully, he was filled with visions of home. A little while later, the boys have gibe and he was on his own once again. His feelings were rounding up for his family that his seemingly overdue enterprise waylaid till sunset.

As the prismatic rays evaded the facade and the silhouettes began to shape, he readied himself for home and walked along the alley towards their station to get his week's pay. "I'll buy them pansit." A fair grin was on his brown skin as he turned by the corner. He held close to him a bag of grocery and pansit, then patted his pocket. Just then, a flashy red car passed and the road was smeared rich with the color. The awaited eve came close.


In a tin shack, a young woman grinned and curtsied as she welcomed to their humble home an androgynous figure. The man handed the woman a bag of grocery and pansit. "Dada!" A young boy called out as he emerged from the inside. The man shook his head in a hesitant swing, "No".

They all went inside and the boy was made to sit on top of a covered pail by the dirty kitchen. The young woman and the man stayed by the table and conversed in cautious whispers. A curtain made from katsa was the only thing that divided the tiny shack into parts and the boy could half-hear what they were uttering. At first, the boy was hesitant that he pretended not to hear them but soon, he heard her weeping.


"What is happening?" "Why does she weep?" "Did he hurt her?" Questions filled his mind. And curious enough, he slipped out f the kitchen and he saw her mother pushing the man away. There were tears in her dark deep eyes. The boy, without fully understanding why she was crying, threw his slippers against the man and cried that he should go already.

The man raised his hands in a pass. He drew a thin fold of five-hundred peso bills from the pocket of his crisp polo shirt and handed it to the young woman. She wanted to refuse, but then, she took it anyway. The man bid them a farewell and left, promising to return within a few hours.

Later that eve, Dada arrived--pale, cold, and gray. The man, they never saw again.

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"Passer-by" by GF, D'Mentedz Literary Folio.
(c)Musings of the Midnight Writer, 2004. 
Legazpi City, Albay, Philippines 4500

an tula

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pa'no naging tula? kadalasan sa lagatik, maski mayo ki kuwit, buda sa tanog na gari nagpaparagubdob sa laog. Bilanga an silaba, sundi man an rima. pa'no pinutol, susoga an sukol...

kadakol ki mga tataramon na naghihidaw sa himate buda ideya, kundi an poeta na kugos kan tema, nalalapag an mga iyan na naghihidaw, ngani mabilog an mawot sabihon sa pagkadakop sainda sa sinusurat na rawitdawit man o osipon.

pa'no pag dae masukol an mga linya? bako sa dae tatao an masukol, ni bako ta kulang o sobra sa pangaipo, kundi ta nagdudulag an linya sa pagsukol ta ngani ini magin kun ano siya.

bako sa kakulangan ki tataramon kun nata iyo an ginagamit, kundi sa pangyari kan sintesis na hale sa mga bagay na bako sanang kaagid, kundi nagpapaguiromdom, kan himate kan boot, kan ideya, asin tinutubod kan tataramon,

sagkod na magibo na itong dae, maging iyo, sosog sa kun ano an iyo, ta ngani an nagbabasa, an naghihinanyog, biyo man magtubod, mamatean itong paghimate kan boot, asin makua an ideyang boot saiya maipaabot.

dae natatapos sa pag-aagid. dae natatapos sa metapora. maski sa metonomy o synechdoche, o kun anu pa man na taktika na kaito pa nangaranan na.

labi pa sa porma, labi pa sa rima, labi pa sa sukol na nagpupugol, orog labi sa tataramon na nagkukulong digdi.

an tula, iyo.