Chapter 14 - CARAGA

TRAHEDYA NG ISANG BIRHEN
by Genevieve Asenjo

walang dugong

umagos sa aking

mga hita sa unang gabi

ng kanyang paglusob.

umalingawngaw sabay

sa kanyang paglusong-

ahon ang mga hiyaw

ko't daing: sakit, hapdi,

pamamaga

ngunit nilunod ng kanyang

pagdududa ang kabanalan

ng aking kawalang-malay,

ala-Othello siyang naging taga-

hukom ng aking pagkababae:

birhen o puta?

walang dugong

umagos mula

sa aking hita.

lumabas ito sa bunganga

ko't sumalo sa nanunuyong

mga pawis at luha.

praevalet illicita
by Karen Pioquinto

perhaps, it now comes to me,

that was the attraction of it.

the off-kiltered sense of predestiny

that circled this chipped idea 

made whole by cups of adventure

we offered each other those few fleeting times.

it is likely that the keenness

was heightened by favors filched

from trusted confidants

and by the lightheadedness

that comes from defiance.

the likelihood made me cringe--

now, only pinpricks remain.

what is no longer forbidden

quickly loses its charm.

MORE MATH POEMS
by Eileen Tupaz

it's a game to me

to make metaphors

out of numbers;

to substitute

one simple

 abstraction

for another;

because math

[like life]

should never be taken

so seriously

and there are more

to figures

than ever meets

the eye

no solution

my mind is a matrix

that has been reduced

into row echelon form

and proven to be

        - inconsistent

KATOL
by Anonymous

As the twisting smoke

from a mosquito coil

gives up its shape

so it can rise,

I threw away my spear

and put on shoes

to join my world

of gray faces.

In time, a formless

haze filled both

my room and my world

and they became one.

FIVE MATH POEMS
by Eileen Tupaz

i'm tired of being a zero vector

i'm tired of being a zero vector

with no direction

  no dimension

and no magnitude;

what i need is another element

 - but that would be

     a contradiction

of my definition

 soulmates

we are all of us

nonsingular creatures

whose identities

must be affirmed

before our inverses

can be found

 conformity

why must life

be a diagonal matrix?

where every other path

that deviates from the main

is an unacceptable

 - zero[  ]

we are born

as identity matrices

[nonzero][nonempty]

a subset of the complexity

 that is the universe

until fate hands us a scalar

from the twin ends of infinity

and we grow in magnitude

to become universes

        - ourselves

breaking point

a vector

is a scalar

that has been pushed

     - too far

EARTH-MAN SONG
by Evee V. Huervana

1. Decrescendo

The rhythms have been set

in the distant blast, light years past

We knew the cadence of a jerking crust

even tempos in the swell of lava underneath

harmonious undulations of liquefied iron and ore

mixed precisely in the core

the lyrics waters murmur condensing

in the atmosphere or trickling from a spring

voices of surging or ebbing seas

--pulses of the earth once converged in

     our infant soul.

But our pompous blast in not too-distant past

     silenced the melodies

Too many refrains about our divinity

     shattered the symphony

How then do we propose to trap

notes traipsing with the four winds?

Wholes in the north, halves in the south

quarters in the east or dotted quarters in the west?

There is neither clef nor rest

to guide our unmetered steps,

no flat nor sharp to fine-tune falsetto laughs

in the three-four beat. Shall we waltz

or tango with the two-four beat?

Our choreographer is a master

but his choreography muddles our gait

we lose our footing, fall flat on

     our scared faces.

2.Crescendo

We leap and run after a maestro

desperate to string in the baton of a virtuoso

notes dripping from a drying fountain 

(this attempt paints a blush on our cheeks)

Arranged in non-dissonant meters 

these fountain notes will rise to a crescendo

Or so we thought...

--before a gold-rimmed stick mangled the tune of

     our mortal song.

To reassemble scattered pulses of the earth,

we lay our faces, right-ears-down

prostrate upon the ground--

awaiting the hard crust's deathless groans

the storm of sand and rocks,

earth's jerks: rain upon our cheeks;

blind our eyes; stuff our ears to deafness

--we sense rhythm upon 

     our singeing skin

The limbs learn to waltz and tango

Melody is resurrected in our torso

Though we've run out of choreographers

     and virtuoso masters.