The Philippines Graphic Reader
The first and only magazine on Philippine literature in English
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Philippines Graphic Reader
On Session Road, Remembering Mike de Leon’s Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising
The projector hums. In the theater’s dusk, a flicker unspools
a world. The scent of rice wine and stale popcorn grounds him,
a shadow of a...
Fiction
Echoes of the Blue Fire
Our ancestors believed the butat-iw were bad omens.
They appeared when I was alone—wild orbs of floating blue fire, the size of my Baba’s fist....
Philippines Graphic Reader
Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers, after Scrolling
Van Gogh’s sunflowers —
all twelve of them —
so lively, lush,
standing, bending;
they do not submit
to ikebana’s poise
and posture —
golden — no — bronze —
beautiful yet...
Fiction
The Weight of Small Things
Fear is at the back of her mind, a shimmering heat in the distance, a glowing ember in the dark. Silently acknowledged but never...
Philippines Graphic Reader
GUERILLA DOWNPOUR
There is no warning—
the sky, a sudden insurgent,
opens with
guerrilla downpour.
Torrential rain,
an unrelenting witness,
assaults the fragile spines of trees
and the quiet bones of houses.
Water...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Salt Prayer
"There must be something strangely sacred about salt.It is in our tears and in the sea."from SAND AND FOAM (1926) by Khalil Gibran
Matthew 5:13—...
Fiction
Something More
BY THIS TIME next year, Teresita could be elsewhere, unmindful of the biting cold. She could see herself walking along a cobblestone path strewn...
Fiction
House of Lola
Notwithstanding its idyllic ambiance, Dumaguete City in the early '70s was a cheerful city overflowing with enigmas and desires. Amidst the brackish environs of...
Philippines Graphic Reader
On Sundays…and Belonging
On Sundays and belonging,And when I used to mess around with Lolo’s typewriter:Clicking and clacking the worn-out buttons, it is legacySounding against my stubby...
Fiction
Autumn Song
He was there again tonight. Seated at the last table of the small, dark bar, a lighted cigar in his hand, looking at me...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Tropical Sundews
this is the timewhen the greens are greener than beforeas above so belowthe midges regret worshippingthe false god of all false beingsthe dewdrops and...
Fiction
The Room Next Door
FICTION — I never really knew Eric. He was the kind of neighbor you saw often but never truly saw—a blur of dark shirts and headphone wires, slipping down the stairs with his phone in one hand and a plastic bag of instant noodles or soda in the other. Always alone.
Philippines Graphic Reader
Naked
I’ll wear nothingbut my trembling desirethe wild beat of my pulsethe lingering whispers of my past.
I’ll wear nothingbut the ache of my lost love the...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Grandma
Her hands quiver
from sustained pressing of the beads.
When her voice starts to rise,
the light of the kerosene lamp amplifies
from an entirely lambent glow,
illuminating the...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Inverted Horizons
The sea and the sky
Swap their eternities
The waves with the clouds
And everywhere
Fishes fly birds swim
Farmers cast seines
Fishers sow seeds
Waterways counterflow
Waterfalls go into reverse
All of...
Fiction
By the Brook
I
Nina’s eyes peer above the cover of a nameless book. She wasn’t reading, no. Her eyes are fixed on the distant figure of her...
