The Philippines Graphic Reader
The first and only magazine on Philippine literature in English
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Philippines Graphic Reader
One Little Less
One little less of me —
a hand, an awe, a feather falling free.
one little much an eye; one too little, still more
to be.
One too...
Fiction
The Desert
Roel alighted the taxi he took from Ulaanbaatar’s train station to his guest house. He immediately felt the biting chill of the city’s subzero...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Washout
I
So in a fit of righteous anger
I washed the pots pans
plates bowls knives spoons glasses
even cleaned the kitchen sink and the drawers,
which I haven’t...
Fiction
Threads of Courage
The night the war reached Cebu, Maria woke to the sound of distant explosions. It was April 1942 and she had just turned fourteen...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Encounter at the S.C. Field
Mornings do not rise
Above this leafy prison.
Time hangs midnoon
Over sharp sugarcane leaves,
Striking against the downpour
Of cruel sunrays.
All the sounds enclosing
Are the rustle of the...
Fiction
WHERE FLOWERS BLOOM
Today is the last Friday of March, and it is stifling hot over here on the island, its jungle mountains overlooking the Pacific seaboard....
Philippines Graphic Reader
Price of a Dream
“You’re free to dream,” is what’s often heard
For wishful thinking seems to be done daily
And nobody had to pay a dime to keep it...
Fiction
An Affair to Remember
Monsignor Sullivan was seated at his glass-topped desk, the letter from Vikings Cruise on a linen stationery before him. Should he take up the...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Sometimes, I Am the Leaves
Aimless and astray—“I won’t go far”But most times, I am lost in the intricate streets and manmade blocks
Not knowing the way back to your...
Fiction
The Decision
Guido hands the large envelope to Bea. She accepts it with two hands, but he doesn’t let go of it, suddenly hesitant. She looks...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Nautilus
I walked barefoot on the Pacific beach,the sand a chill, the sun a dying coal.Waves whispered secrets to the rocks,and there it was—a spiral...
Philippines Graphic Reader
The Photograph
Here my mother, who must have been
in her early forties, sits on a stone ledge
at Fort San Pedro overlooking the Guimaras Strait.
The sun must...
Fiction
The Cold War Aswang Incident
In the year 1950, my village knew little of the Cold War although its geopolitical tremors reached even our mountains. The Philippine national government,...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Sisyphus, Rockstar
One last time, my forgotten friend,
poise your calloused hands
and dig your battered heels into the dirt.
Left behind by the new world.
The others, glam dolls...
Fiction
The Gunner of APC 314
In the main gate opens at 0500H. My smart sports watch reads 0438H. Emerging from the shadows of the mango trees fronting the women's...
Philippines Graphic Reader
Another War
I was seven
a war marred my hometown
Tíyo and the fishermen
soldiers
the deep sea
battlefield
a compound
of the sea’s little bones
of sable sands
in a wicked bottle
their arsenal made
the...
