Everything is Distant

Fallen, pen & ink on paper by Danny C. Sillada, 1999

My soul is gliding
among the falling leaves
this summer.

i long for repose
in a far-off place
where there is

no more tears
nor hunger
or sorrow…

© Danny C. Sillada

Virginal Encounter

Iza, india ink on paper by Danny C. Sillada (c) 2006.

(For N. Lo Sia)

We only met once in her hometown before we exchanged letters that grew into a romantic, distant love affair while I was studying for priesthood in the city. Several years later and on the last days of my seminary life, just few months before my ordination to the priesthood, I decided to take a leave of absence before committing myself to the Church.

At that time, I was beginning to date my woman (my wife) when I was still asking for signs if I was really meant for priesthood. Then, one day, the Filipino-Chinese girl, now a grown-up lovely woman called me on the phone telling me that she was in the city. My heart was pounding and I didn’t know what to do. Finally, we met and it was the most exciting moment of my life when we finally consummated our distant love affair.

She was now real in person; I could smell her breath and touch her warm body closer to mine. But those passionate encounters lasted only that particular summer of 1992; we parted ways broken and bitter. Those hundreds of letters that we exchanged for years dissipated like withered, fallen leaves in summer…


When I Wake Up this Morning (Summer 1992)

My sleepy eyes journeyed
around your disheveled room

frames and loosened curtains
dangling in awkward position

smell of spilled wine
lingering on the cushion

crumpled underwear still tucked
beneath the Chinese lampshade

this morning on your bed
our warm bodies left an indelible mark

on ruffled white linen
still fresh of our virginal encounter…

© Danny C. Sillada

COFFEE SHOP

Coffee Cup, ballpoint on paper by Danny C. Sillada (c) 2006.

Sitting alone
waiting for the unknown
amid the cacophony of dry conversations…

The sound of drumbeat
is swelling with my own heartbeat;
the singer’s voice is digging a hole on my fretful soul.

The burning cigarette is like an iron chain –
inhaling and exhaling,
restless… unrelenting …

The atmosphere is naked,
wet and placid;
an evening rain has just fallen from the ridge...

The passing of time is like a bitter liquid
receding inside the darkened wall
of my coffee cup…

© Danny C. Sillada

UPON WAKING UP

Eyes of Reality, ball point on paper by Danny C. Sillada (c) 2006.

Everything here is a hollowed space;
remnant of harsh, pungent words
still lingering…

Your sweet-scented breath has turned
into a rotten rose, thorns growing on my chest,
poisoned blood decomposing…

Perhaps, the bluntest error I ever committed
is to fall in love to a woman in my dream
without knowing that loving

is also about waking up –
rousing from the castle of one’s inanity,
and soaking one’s feet on brazen reality.

You cannot peel me like an onion skin
or cup me with your invidious hand,
drown me inside your cold brassiere

or dissect my brain, for instance,
to see if there is something
more peculiar and breakable

other than my wounded wings…

© Danny C. Sillada

UN LUGAR SIN NOMBRE (A Nameless Place)

Solitudo, pen & colored ink on paper by Danny C. Sillada (c).

How we once dream of unknown and distant place,
where everyone is unfamiliar, everything is nameless –
a distant place to unravel our own time and space.

Oh how I remember your guiltless eyes – dazzling,
whose gaze is infinitely calm and reassuring…?
For a while, our trail emerges within a timeless dream.

But, then, our longing slowly liquefies into a bitter silence,
everything that we build as if it were built on the moon,
it swiftly comes and passes away like a summer storm…

There can never be us, you said, and that is certain!
And this dying heart, this sad flapping of truant wind,
this bare window – I look into a distant, nameless place…

© Danny C. Sillada

THE FREEDOM OF LOVING

Waiting, 1993, pencil on paper by Danny C. Sillada (c) 2006.

The freedom of loving
is as helpless as
a condemned prisoner
if not being loved
in return…

© Danny C. Sillada

ESTRANGEMENT IN MY LAND

The Warring Tribes, The Silent Gods, Pen & Ink on Paper by Danny C. Sillada © 2006.

(Para kay Luzviminda sa gitna ng aking paghihinagpis…)

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations)


I am losing my hungering soul
among the burdened faces of my broken people,
breathing and excreting the anguish
of destitution and irrational anxiety…

I could no longer feel the heat
of warm bodies down the bus and train stations,
or see the glow of faces at the crowded park
and shopping malls…

Everyone is tired, I suppose;
everyone is thirsting for authentic freedom
and happiness amid the pervading maze
of social unrests and unresolved issues…

And I, for instance, am already tired of being human
unable to grasp the absurd reality of being a Filipino:
what it means to live and exist in this particular country
in this cold and politically troubled society…

© Danny C. Sillada

DEATH OF A NATION (Luksang Bayan)

Pen & colored ink drawing by Danny C. Sillada

"Evil prevails in our society because some good men fail to act…” – from the movie Lord of War


(In honor of the 20th anniversary of EDSA Revolution; para sa aking bayan sa gitna ng aking paghihinagpis)

It happens that everything is boiling up to the brim;
all the systems fail, people suffer from constipation;
burdened faces, delirious freedom: society’s misfortune.

No lesser evil to choose from, only a two-edged
sword to hold on; cemetery of suffering souls,
ravenous politicians: barking at each other, licking their drool.

The system that binds the people, the same system
that breaks the people. Skeleton of fish, destitution;
corrupt leaders – the symbol of rotten constitution…

It happens that everyone is hopelessly despairing:
abscess, decadence, indifference infected the nation,
abysmal nightmare replaces dreams and aspirations.

The gods are mourning: everyone is tired and disillusioned,
neither Saint nor Rebel could change this irrational condition;
muted cry of workers, hungry children: death of society!


Luksang Bayan

Nangyayari na ang lahat ay kumukulo, napupuno at umaapaw;
Lahat ng sistema’y lagapak; taong-baya’y nakalugmok sa kahirapan;
Larawan ng pagdurusa, naghihingalong kalayaan: kasawiang-palad ng lipunan.

Wala ng pagpipilian, doble-talim na tabak ay nasusumpungan;
Libingan ng mga kaluluwang naghihinagpis, tumatangis;
Mga buwitreng pulitiko: nagkakahulan, naglalaway sa sariling kapakanan.

Ang sistemang nagbibigkis sa sambayanan ay siya ring sistema
Na nagbabaklas sa pamayanan. Kalansay ng isda, banig ng karukhaan,
Nangungurakot na mga lider – sagisag ng bulok na konstitusyon.

Nangyayaring ang bawat isa’y suko na ang pag-asa:
Nagnanaknak na katotohan – kawalang-pakiramdam – impeksyon ng lipunan
Walang hanggang bangungot ang lumamon sa mga pangarap at kalayaan…

Pati mga diyos ay nagluluksa: ang bawat isa’y pagal at nauumay ng mangarap,
Santo man o Rebelde ay di makapagbabago sa kalagayang walang kaparam;
Siniil na panangis ng mga maggagawa, kumakalam na sikmura: kamatayan ng lipunan.


© Danny C. Sillada
Republished from a chapbook of poems “Songs of My Troubled Land” by Danny C. Sillada.

Filipino translation by Lorina M. Javier (Poet, Performance Artist & Fashion Designer)

Black Christmas

Anatomy of Despair on Black, Pencil on paper by © Danny C. Sillada.

(For my Woman: I’m waiting for your return…)

Burdened footsteps
rootless... forlorn...

Torrent of tiny lights
flailing... glaring...

Dangling faces adrift
cold, blank, dreary

Girl’s smile on a passing car
pure, placid, guiltless –

I stole
and wrapped it in a box!

My path has no trail…

© Danny C. Sillada

The Burial

Anatomy of Despair 011, Pen & ink on paper by © Danny Sillada.

(For John Daniel)

Standing on his kitten’s burial ground,
his tiny frail eyes began to fall,
his mind drifting, searching for reasons
he could barely understand…

The distances of everything,
his desolate longings;
that naïve feeling toward death
is shattering, breaking his delicate soul…

The loss of a kitten is like the loss of everything:
the loss of innocence –
a bitter-sweet encounter
in the real world!

© Danny C. Sillada

Hollow

Anatomy of Despair 2, Pen & ink on paper by Danny Sillada.

Emptiness is like a skeletal tree –
the wind blows quietly
on shrunken twigs,
harsh, bitter…
The void of silence
is immense and distant –
disquieting, despairing…
Fleeting moments, hollow space –
drifting, precipitating
until nothing is left
but a desiccated existence!

©Danny C. Sillada

A Temptation to Live

Anatomy of Despair 017, pen & ink on paper by Danny Sillada.

“Why don’t I commit suicide, because I am as sick of death as I am of life?”
-E.M. Cioran, On the Heights of Despair

The divine wind is
whispering
over this arrogant precipice, seducing
like an irresistible woman
inviting
to unshackle the unspeakable pain –
this persistent illness…
this frail existence…

But today, unlike this jagged cliff,
the pellucid sky is more
tempting
like a fragile womb, soft and warm;
the maya birds from a distance
are like hoyden girls, bubbling…
this jaundiced heart soaring…
the divine wind whispering…

©Danny C. Sillada