The Next Table

C. P. Cavafy, 1863 – 1933

He can’t be more than twenty-two.

And yet I’m certain it was at least that many years ago

that I enjoyed the very same body.

This isn’t some erotic fantasy.

I’ve only just come into the casino

and there hasn’t been time enough to drink.

I tell you, that’s the very same body I once enjoyed.

And if I can’t recall precisely where—that means nothing.

Now that he’s sitting there at the next table,

I recognize each of his movements—and beneath his clothes

I see those beloved, naked limbs again.

Author’s Biography

Constantine Cavafy was born Konstantínos Pétrou Kaváfis in Alexandria, Egypt,

on April 29, 1863, the ninth child of Constantinopolitan parents. His father died in
1870, leaving the family poor. Cavafy’s mother moved her children to England,
where the two eldest sons took over their father’s business. Their inexperience
caused the ruin of the family fortunes, so they returned to a life of genteel poverty
in Alexandria. The seven years that Constantine Cavafy spent in England—from
age nine to sixteen—were important to the shaping of his poetic sensibility: he
became so comfortable with English that he wrote his first verse in his second
language.

After a brief education in London and Alexandria, he moved with his mother to
Constantinople, where they stayed with his grandfather and two brothers. Although
living in great poverty and discomfort, Cavafy wrote his first poems during this
period, and had his first love affairs with other men. After briefly working for the
Alexandrian newspaper and the Egyptian Stock exchange, at the age of twenty-
nine Cavafy took up an appointment as a special clerk in the Irrigation Service of
the Ministry of Public Works—an appointment he held for the next thirty years.
Much of his ambition during these years was devoted to writing poems and prose
essays.

Cavafy had an unusually small social circle. He lived with his mother until her
death in 1899, and then with his unmarried brothers. For most of his mature years
Cavafy lived alone. Influential literary relationships included a twenty-year
acquaintance with E. M. Forster. The poet himself identified only two love affairs,
both apparently brief. His one intimate, long-standing friendship was with
Alexander Singopoulos, whom Cavafy designated as his heir and literary executor
when he was sixty years old, ten years before his death.

Cavafy remained virtually unrecognized in Greece until late in his career. He never
offered a volume of his poems for sale during his lifetime, instead distributing
privately printed pamphlets to friends and relatives. Fourteen of Cavafy’s poems
appeared in a pamphlet in 1904; the edition was enlarged in 1910. Several dozens
appeared in subsequent years in a number of privately printed booklets and
broadsheets. These editions contained mostly the same poems, first arranged
thematically, and then chronologically. Close to one-third of his poems were never
printed in any form while he lived.
In book form, Cavafy’s poems were first published without dates before World
War II and reprinted in 1949. PÍÍMATA (The Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy)
appeared posthumously in 1935 in Alexandria. The only evidence of public
recognition in Greece during his later years was his receipt, in 1926, of the Order
of the Phoenix from the Greek dictator Pangalos.

Perhaps the most original and influential Greek poet of the 20th century, his
uncompromising distaste for the kind of rhetoric common among his
contemporaries and his refusal to enter into the marketplace may have prevented
him from realizing all but a few rewards for his genius. He continued to live in
Alexandria until his death on April 29, 1933, from cancer of the larynx. It is
recorded that his last motion before dying was to draw a circle on a sheet of blank
paper, and then to place a period in the middle of it.
 A Queerification

Regie Cabico

—for Creativity and Crisis at the National Mall

queer me

shift me

transgress me

tell my students i’m gay

tell chick fil a i’m queer

tell the new york times i’m straight

tell the mail man i’m a lesbian

tell american airlines

i don’t know what my gender is

like me

liking you

like summer blockbuster armrest dates

armrest cinematic love

elbow to forearm in the dark

humor me queerly

fill me with laughter

make me high with queer gas

decompress me from centuries of spanish inquisition

& self-righteous judgment

like the blood my blood

 that has mixed w/ the colonizer

& the colonized

in the extinct & instinct to love

bust memories of water & heat

& hot & breath

beating skin on skin fluttering

bruise me into vapors

bleed me into air

fly me over sub-saharan africa & asia & antarctica

explode me from the closet of my fears

graffiti me out of doubt

bend me like bamboo

propose to me

divorce me

divide me into your spirit 2 spirit half spirit

& shadow me w/ fluttering tongues

& caresses beyond head

heart chakras

fist smashing djembes

between my hesitations

haiku me into 17 bursts of blossoms & cold saki

de-ethnicize me

de-clothe me

de-gender me in brassieres

& prosthetic genitalias

 burn me on a brazier

wearing a brassiere

in bitch braggadocio soprano bass

magnificat me in vespers

of hallelujah & amen

libate me in halos

heal me in halls of femmy troubadors

announcing my hiv status

or your status

i am not afraid to love you

implant dialects as if they were lilacs

in my ear

medicate me with a lick & a like

i am not afraid to love you

so demand me

reclaim me

queerify me

Cabico is a critically acclaimed performance poet who has won top prizes in the
1993, 1994 and 1997 at National Poetry Slams. His poetry appears in over 30
anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word
Revolution and Slam. He was also featured in MTV's "Free Your Mind" Spoken
Word Tour. Regie is the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts
Fellowships for Poetry and Multi-Discplinary Performance.[1] He is a regular
performer at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and the Bowery Poetry Club in New York
City. He was artist-in-residence at New York University, and De Anza College.[5]
He was a collaborating artist in Rhythmicity at The Humana Festival of New
American Plays (2002–2003) season.[6]

Cabico is of Filipino American descent and is an out and proud gay man who has
been called the Lady Gaga of spoken word poets.
The Quiet World Related Poem Content Details
BY JEFFREY MCDANIEL

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear

without saying hello. In the restaurant

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

 The End and the Beginning
BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
TRANSLATED BY JOANNA TRZECIAK
After every war

someone has to clean up.

Things won’t

straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble

to the side of the road,

so the corpse-filled wagons

can pass.

Someone has to get mired

in scum and ashes,

sofa springs,

splintered glass,

and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder

to prop up a wall.

Someone has to glaze a window,

rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,

 and takes years.

All the cameras have left

for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,

and new railway stations.

Sleeves will go ragged

from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,

still recalls the way it was.

Someone else listens

and nods with unsevered head.

But already there are those nearby

starting to mill about

who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes

sometimes someone still unearths

rusted-out arguments

and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew

what was going on here

must make way for

 those who know little.

And less than little.

And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown

causes and effects,

someone must be stretched out

blade of grass in his mouth

gazing at the clouds.

Sagada Stills in a Floating World
By: Marjorie Evasco

If with images If with words

I You

could catch

on photographic film on silk paper

a likeness

of You of me

in Sagada

I would have You would have

to sit a thousand years

with master of austere

Light Measure

Masferré Shikibu

To learn the process

of rendering of staining

Silence Sound
 ABC
By: Robert Pinsky

Any body can die, evidently. Few

Go happily, irradiating joy,

Knowledge, love. Many

Need oblivion, painkillers,

Quickest respite.

Sweet time unafflicted,

Various world:

X=your zenith.
 What We Own
Our men do not belong to us.

Even my own father left one afternoon, is not mine.

My brother is in prison, is not mine. My uncles, they

go back home and they are shot in the head, are not mine.

My cousins, stabbed in the street for being too or not enough,

are not mine. Then the men we try to love say

we carry too much loss, wear too much black,

are too heavy to be around, much too sad to love.

Then they leave, and we mourn them too.

Is that what we’re here for?

To sit at kitchen tables, counting

on our fingers the ones who died,

those who left, and the others who were taken by the police,

or by drugs

or by illness

or by other women?

It makes no sense.

Look at your skin, her mouth, these lips, those eyes,

my God, listen to that laugh.

The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night,

for even then, we have the moon

 Footnote to Youth
by: Jose Garcia Villa
The sun was salmon and hazy in the west. Dodong thought to himself he would tell his father
about Teang when he got home, after he had unhitched the carabao from the plow, and led it to
its shed and fed it. He was hesitant about saying it, he wanted his father to know what he had to
say was of serious importance as it would mark a climacteric in his life. Dodong finally decided
to tell it, but a thought came to him that his father might refuse to consider it. His father was a
silent hardworking farmer, who chewed areca nut, which he had learned to do from his mother,
Dodong’s grandmother.

He wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework.

I will tell him. I will tell it to him.

The ground was broken up into many fresh wounds and fragrant with a sweetish earthy smell.
Many slender soft worm emerged from the further rows and then burrowed again deeper into the
soil. A short colorless worm marched blindly to Dodong’s foot and crawled clammilu over it.
Dodong got tickled and jerked his foot, flinging the worm into the air. Dodong did not bother to
look where into the air, but thought of his age, seventeen, and he said to himself he was not
young anymore.

Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely and fave it a healthy tap on the hip. The beast turned its
head to look at him with dumb faithful eyes. Dodong gave it a slight push and the animal walked
alongside him to its shed. He placed bundles of grass before it and the carabao began to eat.
Dodong looked at it without interest.

Dodong started homeward thinking how he would break his news to his father. He wanted to
marry, Dodong did. He was seventeen, he had pimples on his face, then down on his upper lip
was dark-these meant he was no longer a boy. He was growing into a man – he was a man.
Dodong felt insolent and big at the thought of it, although he was by nature low in stature.

Thinking himself man – grown, Dodong felt he could do anything.

He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility. A small angled stone bled his foot, but
he dismissed it cursorily. He lifted his leg and looked at the hurt toe and then went on walking.
In the cool sundown, he thought wild young dreams of himself and Teang, his girl. She had a
small brown face and small black eyes and straight glossy hair. How desirable she was to him.
She made him want to touch her, to hold her. She made him dream even during the day.

Dodong tensed with desire and looked at the muscle of his arms. Dirty. This fieldwork was
healthy invigorating, but it begrimed you, smudged you terribly. He turned back the way he had
come, then marched obliquely to a creek.
Must you marry, Dodong?”

Dodong resented his father’s question; his father himself had married early.

Dodong stripped himself and laid his clothes, a gray under shirt and red kundiman shorts, on the
grass. Then he went into the water, wet his body over and rubbed at it vigorously. He was not
long in bathing, then he marched homeward again. The bath made him feel cool.

It was dusk when he reached home. The petroleum lamp on the ceiling was already lighted and
the low unvarnished square table was set for supper. He and his parents sat down on the floor
around the table to eat. They had fried freshwater fish, and rice, but did not partake of the fruit.
The bananas were overripe and when one held the,, they felt more fluid than solid. Dodong broke
off a piece of caked sugar, dipped it in his glass of water and ate it. He got another piece and
wanted some more, but he thought of leaving the remainder for his parent.

Dodong’s mother removed the dishes when they were through, and went with slow careful steps
and Dodong wanted to help her carry the dishes out. But he was tired and now, feld lazy. He
wished as he looked at her that he had a sister who could help his mother in the housework. He
pitied her, doing all the housework alone.

His father remained in the room, sucking a diseased tooth. It was paining him, again. Dodong
knew, Dodong had told him often and again to let the town dentist pull it out, but he was afraid,
his father was. He did not tell that to Dodong, but Dodong guessed it. Afterward, Dodong
himself thought that if he had a decayed tooth, he would be afraid to go to the dentist; he would
not be any bolder than his father.

Dodong said while his mother was out that he was going to marry Teang. There it was out, what
we had to say, and over which he head said it without any effort at all and without self-
consciousness. Dodong felt relived and looked at his father expectantly. A decresent moon
outside shed its feebled light into the window, graying the still black temples of his father. His
father look old now.

“I am going to marry Teang,” Dodong said.

His father looked at him silently and stopped sucking the broken tooth, The silenece became
intense and cruel, and Dodong was uncomfortable and then became very angry because his
father kept looking at him without uttering anything.

“I will marry Teang,” Dodong repeated. “I will marry Teang.”

His father kept gazing at him in flexible silence and Dodong fidgeted on his seat.
I asked her last night to marry me and she said… “Yes. I want your permission… I… want…
it…” There was an impatient clamor in his voice, an exacting protest at his coldness, this
indifference. Dodong looked at his father sourly. He cracked his knuckles one by one, and the
little sound it made broke dully the night stillness.

“Must you marry, Dodong?”

Dodong resented his father’s question; his father himself had married early. Dodong made a
quick impassioned essay in his mind about selfishness, but later, he got confused.

“You are very young, Dodong.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“That’s very young to get married at.”

“I… I want to marry… Teang’s a good girl…

“Tell your mother,” his father said.

“You tell her, Tatay.”

“Dodong, you tell your Inay.”

“You tell her.”

“All right, Dodong.”

“All right, Dodong.”

“You will let me marry Teang?”

“Son, if that is your wish… of course…” There was a strange helpless light in his father’s eyes.
Dodong did not read it. Too absorbed was he in himself.

Dodong was immensely glad he has asserted himself. He lost his resentment for his father, for a
while, he even felt sorry for him about the pain I his tooth. Then he confined his mind dreaming
of Teang and himself. Sweet young dreams…

***

Dodong stood in the sweltering noon heat, sweating profusely so that his camiseta was damp. He
was still like a tree and his thoughts were confused. His mother had told him not to leave the
house, but he had left. He wanted to get out of it without clear reason at all. He was afraid, he felt
afraid of the house. It had seemingly caged him, to compress his thoughts with severe tyranny.
He was also afraid of Teang who was giving birth in the house; she face screams that chilled his
blood. He did not want her to scream like that. He began to wonder madly if the process of
childbirth was really painful. Some women, when they gave birth, did not cry.

In a few moments he would be a father. “Father, father,” he whispered the word with awe, with
strangeness. He was young, he realized now contradicting himself of nine months ago. He was
very young… He felt queer, troubled, uncomfortable.

Dodong felt tired of standing. He sat down on a saw-horse with his feet close together. He
looked at his calloused toes. Then he thought, supposed he had ten children…

The journey of thought came to a halt when he heard his mother’s voice from the house.

Some how, he was ashamed to his mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if
he had taken something not properly his.

“Come up, Dodong. It is over.”

Suddenly, he felt terribly embarrassed as he looked at her. Somehow, he was ashamed to his
mother of his youthful paternity. It made him feel guilty, as if he has taken something not
properly his. He dropped his eyes and pretended to dust off his kundiman shorts.

“Dodong,” his mother called again. “Dodong.”

He turned to look again and this time, he saw his father beside his mother.

“It is a boy.” His father said. He beckoned Dodong to come up.

Dodong felt more embarrassed and did not move. His parent’s eyes seemed to pierce through
him so he felt limp. He wanted to hide or even run away from them.

“Dodong, you come up. You come up,” his mother said.

Dodong did not want to come up. He’d rather stayed in the sun.

“Dodong… Dodong.”

I’ll… come up.

Dodong traced the tremulous steps on the dry parched yard. He ascended the bamboo steps
slowly. His heart pounded mercilessly in him. Within, he avoided his parent’s eyes. He walked
ahead of them so that they should not see his face. He felt guilty and untru. He felt like crying.
His eyes smarted and his chest wanted to burst. He wanted to turn back, to go back to the yard.
He wanted somebody to punish him.

“Son,” his father said.

And his mother: “Dodong..”

How kind their voices were. They flowed into him, making him strong.

“Teanf?” Dodong said.

“She’s sleeping. But you go in…”

His father led him into the small sawali room. Dodong saw Teang, his wife, asleep on the paper
with her soft black hair around her face. He did not want her to look that pale.

Dodong wanted to touch her, to push away that stray wisp of hair that touched her lips. But again
that feeling of embarrassment came over him, and before his parent, he did not want to be
demonstrative.

The hilot was wrapping the child Dodong heard him cry. The thin voice touched his heart. He
could not control the swelling of happiness in him.

“You give him to me. You give him to me,” Dodong said.

***

Blas was not Dodong’s only child. Many more children came. For six successive years, a new
child came along. Dodong did not want any more children. But they came. It seemed that the
coming of children could not helped. Dodong got angry with himself sometimes.

Teang did not complain, but the bearing of children tolled on her. She was shapeless and thin
even if she was young. There was interminable work that kept her tied up. Cooking, laundering.
The house. The children. She cried sometimes, wishing she had no married. She did not tell
Dodong this, not wishing him to dislike her. Yet, she wished she had not married. Not even
Dodong whom she loved. There had neen another suitor, Lucio older than Dodong by nine years
and that wasw why she had chosen Dodong. Young Dodong who was only seventeen. Lucio had
married another. Lucio, she wondered, would she have born him children? Maybe not, either.
That was a better lot. But she loved Dodong… in the moonlight, tired and querulous. He wanted
to ask questions and somebody to answer him. He wanted to be wise about many thins.

Life did not fulfill all of Youth’s dreams.

Why must be so? Why one was forsaken… after love?

One of them was why life did not fulfill all of the youth’ dreams. Why it must be so. Why one
was forsaken… after love.

Dodong could not find the answer. Maybe the question was not to be answered. It must be so to
make youth. Youth must be dreamfully sweet. Dreamfully sweet.

Dodong returned to the house, humiliated by himself. He had wanted to know little wisdom but
was denied it.
When Blas was eighteen, he came home one night, very flustered and happy. Dodong heard
Blas’ steps for he could not sleep well at night. He watched Blass undress in the dark and lie
down softly. Blas was restless on his mat and could not sleep. Dodong called his name and asked
why he did not sleep.

You better go to sleep. It is late,” Dodong said.

Life did not fulfill all of youth’s dreams. Why it must be so? Why one was forsaken after love?

“Itay..” Blas called softly.

Dodong stirred and asked him what it was.

“I’m going to marry Tona. She accepted me tonight.

“Itay, you think its over.”

Dodong lay silent.

I loved Tona and… I want her.”

Dodong rose from his mat and told Blas to follow him. They descended to the yard where
everything was still and quiet.

The moonlight was cold and white.

“You want to marry Tona, Dodong said, although he did not want Blas to marry yet. Blas was
very young. The life that would follow marriage would be hard…

“Yes.”

“Must you marry?”

Blas’ voice was steeled with resentment. “I will mary Tona.”

“You have objection, Itay?” Blas asked acridly.

“Son… non…” But for Dodong, he do anything. Youth must triumph… now. Afterward… It
will be life.

As long ago, Youth and Love did triumph for Dodong… and then life.

Dodong looked wistfully at his young son in the moonlight. He felt extremely sad and sorry for
him.
 The Bangkok Masseur
Nonfiction by Miguel Antonio Lizada | September 20, 2015

1.

Celebrated on the 2nd weekend of April, Songkran is a three-day holiday befitting Bangkok, the
city of rivers and waterways. The city returns to its true form: children with blue and red water
rifles counterflow the gray pedestrian logic of the streets, laughter bubbles from the streaming
alleys, jets of water crisscross and cloud the scrapers spiked to the earth. For many foreign gay
men, the holidays are exciting opportunities to flirt with locals and fellow tourists. Siam Square
becomes an open playground. The dynamics of Silom are a different case: wet the cute ones with
your colorful phallic object, aim true, and do not forget to smear each other’s faces with white
chalk dust. These are blessings. Bless the body with the element of rebirth.

My companions simply wanted see how Bangkok would dissolve in its wet and wild
carnivalesque of a basin on a Songkran weekend. I shared their excitement too, but there was an
equally important goal for this trip.

When the story is not finished, return to the place.

2.

He was the finest twink in the set.

Outside and downstairs, the canned singing voice of Jennifer Lopez urged the denizens of the
Christmas lights -draped streets of Silom to “dance the night away and stay young on the floor.”
Coming to this place, an American grabbed my twig of an arm and pulled me to his table where
his friends raised their beer bottles in my direction. I freed myself from his tan-haired grip
forcefully and bumped into a local who gave me a buck-toothed smile and a pinch on the cheek.

The masseurs, uniformed for fetish –white undershirt, schoolboy shorts, and sneakers — lined up
in front of us. He was different. He did not have the same red-eyed tiredness that others had. His
lips that curved into a bright red smile matched his ivory skin. An easy choice.
I did not plan to have sex, especially here in the HIV capital of Southeast Asia. We were here on
a dare. The malls were closed, the clubs were crowded, our legs were beat from the shopping,
and it was summer.

3.

Like all eldest children, I was the subject of my parents’ experiments. Every possible theory on
child rearing (milk brand, the color of the crib, the right preschool) they tried on me.

When I was five, they enrolled me in the Milo Best Basketball Summer Program at the old
Ateneo de Davao Grade School building. On the very first day of the program, we were taught
that masculinity had a hierarchy, determined by age, basketball experience, and leg hair count.
First rule. In fact the only rule I remembered: whenever a coach would blow his whistle, all boys
would have to stop, bend our knees, raise our open hands shoulder level, shout “Deeeeeefense!”
and stomp the ground several times – how that would have made me a better basketball player, I
still do not know. All I remember was that I was terrible at dribbling the ball using fancy
maneuvers and converting shots at the freethrow line. I was so awful that the ever-smiling Coach
Raldz demoted me from the freethrow line to the biodegradable trash can. Either my parents
realized that I was truly hopeless or Coach Raldz who was my father’s colleague at the high
school secretly told my parents that the sport was not for me. I was not stirred to suit up for the
culminating 5-on-5 exhibition game in the distant, uncharted land of the high school covered
courts.

While freed from the ordeal, the hours of sleep and play I regained would eventually cost me my
place in the inner circle of Alpha male coolness. Every recess, the boys would disappear to play
downstairs while I had Butter Coconut biscuit chats with my girl classmates about Land Before
Time 2.

I did try to be one of the boys. I started watching WWF in Grade 6 only because all the guys in
the class did. While my classmates were fascinated with the fancy wrestling maneuvers, I was
more interested in the storylines. Free periods were converted to Wrestemania main events. We
pushed the armchairs to the corners of the classroom and started the match for the world
championship. I insisted on playing the role of The Undertaker, the tattooed “dead man” with a
penchant for smoke and mirror entrances. The boys did not agree with me, called me Mr.
McMahon, the bullied boss of WWF, and made me the receiving end of their Stonecold
Stunners.

Among the wrestlers in class, my nemesis was a short and feisty classmate who idolized and
played the cocky wrestler, the Rock. As in all wrestling feuds, my rivalry with him started a few
months back – I defeated him in a class debate and he in turn outclassed me in the elocution
contest. After months of banters and passing snide remarks, The Rock challenged me to a one-
on-one match. The fight did not last long: he tripped me with a leg swipe and schoolboy-pinned
me to the floor and forced me to say “I Quit” in front of my then girl crush.

What hurt the most in that indoor playground brawl was not the desolation before peers and
friends or the bruise that patched the side of my leg hours after; it was the experience of being
pinned. With his shoulders and back on the ground, a young boy is emasculated. Pinned to the
floor in muscled humiliation and forced to acknowledge defeat through eye contact and speech,
it was my first bodied experience of frailty and of being feminized.

4.

“No extra service. No extra service,” I insisted as he led me up the stairs, holding my hand.

“Yes, yes,”

He laughed. My pale-faced plea must have amused him. Here we were in the central plaza of the
flesh night market of Bangkok where white men sought solace from the work-then-play linearity
of Western modernity and from the script of fatherhood. You go to Bangkok to lose yourself, a
Thai friend told me as he led me to this alley of queer fantasies. Casual sex with a masseur, a
temporal carnal relationship you would eventually lose to the sewers of urban oblivion, was one
such way to lose yourself. And here I was insisting on not getting any.

I was not here to break away albeit temporarily from anything. In fact, my trip to this city was
the fulfillment of a cinematic fantasy. Watching the film Love of Siam was an important rite of
passage for many young Filipino gay men. The film is a story of childhood friends, Mew and
Tong (played by pre-Penshoppe Mario Maurer) who are reunited after a decade of separation in
the bustling streets of Siam Square. They eventually fall in love and their touchy-feely middle
class romance is rendered against the backdrop of Bangkok during Christmas. To travel to
Bangkok then was a pilgrimage, a homage to the Adam and Steve of Asian cosmopolitan
kabaklaan. To be touched and if lucky kissed by a local twink was a corporeal culmination of
this utopian narrative. The Bangkok of this masseur was gray, with the mixed scent of canal
water, incense, and a puffed black blast of vehicular waste.

He had the occasional forceful tug of a playful child. His hand was petals on my palm. He looked
excited.

“Are you new?”

“Hmm?”

“Um. New in the job?”

“Hmm?”

I wished for subtitles.

“First time? First month?”

“Oh, oh yes, yes.”

The third floor was a different realm. The walls felt like cool jade. The harp instrumentals and
the murmuring water from the artificial Zen fountain drowned the carnivelesque screams and the
Pussycat Doll songs outside. He led me to the farthest room and closed the door behind us. A
white mattress rested neatly on an elevated platform corned by burning scented candles. I turned
and looked at him, this masseur of Bangkok, in that virgin moment of intimacy.
“Okay, take off” he said

I unshirted and dropped my pants.

“That too” he said, pointing at my underwear. He was already naked.

“Okay, I lie down now?”

“No, no,” he unhooked a towel from the rack and held my hand. “We shower first.”

5.

After failing to build a successful marriage between my hands and height, my mother decided to
rectify a childhood frustration through me.

“Because those who know how to play the piano are also good in Math!” my mother insisted.

I was introduced to two teachers who used the same text book: John Thompson’s Easiest Piano
Course, a picture book with gnomes and dwarves pointing at notes with their sharp fingernails.
Back then, the goal was to reach and open what I called Red Book, the second part of the
“easiest piano” course. My first teacher Teacher Menchie was a tall, curly-haired woman whose
owl-like eyes would grow bigger every time I missed a beat. Every Saturday morning, the long
doorbell ring was a banshee’s shriek that signaled the return of the owl to the house. If the piano
book dwarves were alive, they probably would have joined Teacher Menchie in hitting me with
their thorny fingernails. After spending one and a half sessions on “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and
three on “The Chimes,” the owl decided that enough was enough; the Red Book was shelved.

In high school, my grandfather rounded up all his grandsons and dragged us to Conpinco. There
were five small piano rooms and each boy was assigned one teacher for an hour of enclosed
encounters with John Thompson’s gnomes. I no longer remember her full name; I simply called
her Ybiernas because it sounded a lot like imbyerna. Ybiernas, like Teacher Menchie, had big
eyes. She had a mole on her cheek and had a eureka moment way of saying “Yes!” every time I
got a piece or a note right. I only learned one thing from her: curve your fingers when you play.
We would spend more then ten minutes doing the warm-up exercises because my fingers would
often slide down the keys.

The piano no longer interested me at that point; my hands were already interested in doing other
things. Four years after I was pinned to the floor, I avoided any physical activity that had to do
with sweat and dirt. I joined the school paper team, read and wrote poems for my girl crush, and
looked forward to doing and writing class plays. Writing for me became the opposite of
drumming the keys; it was the pleasure of easy, quick finishes. The poem on fate and love and
why you were the one meant for me was there immediately after an hour of sitting with a cup of
3-in-1 coffee. Playing the piano was about prolonged control – about the notes, the beats, and
Ybiernas telling me what I could do with my fingers; writing for me meant having my own
stroked rhythm. Ybiernas released me a month later – an arrangement that satisfied us both. She
said goodbye to one incompetent student and I was happily unshackled from the keyboard and
from the land of black and white gnomes.

Living an intensely hormonal but cerebral adolescent life, I had forgotten that underneath the
white polo and khaki pants was a body thinning with neglect. Schoolmates around me were
losing their virginity, or at the very least, getting their first kiss. I courted two girls and failed
miserably.

I did regret my aborted basketball and piano lessons. More than inscribing me into the
mainstream narrative of masculinity, mastering the art of ball handling could have taught me
how to hold shapes – curving the hand in communion and cooperation with what was familiar
and different, and learning how to retract it back to its original, flattened state at the point of
release. Music, I learned, was not just the language of notes and beats; the labor of bending one’s
fingertips meant recreating the cadence of the world’s pulses . Obedience to the order of the
pulsing world was grace. Had I stuck with these, I would have learned that dexterity was simply
about familiarity with the body and how such familiarity would come to embrace the malleability
of things.

6.
The bathroom was different. While dim like the corridor and the service room, it did not have the
same smooth aura of comfort I found in the rest of the floor. The small white tiles marked with
the mildew of browned encounters reminded me that we were bodies in processed labor, herded
to this room by a script penned by someone well-versed with the vocabulary and syntax of
fleeting intimacies. A yellowing curtain smeared with polka dots of neglect partitioned the two
showers. We entered the first cubicle and removed our threadbare towels. I stiffened and he must
have sensed it as he reached for the hand shower.

It was only in my second encounter with him a year later that I realized that there was sincerity
in the way he handled me. The fingertipped touches were indistinguishable from the spatter of
cold shower water.

“Weh you fwom?” he asked.

“Philippines”

“Oh Filipin” he smiled as he soaped and fondled my crotch.

“How long you stay in Bangkok?”

“Four days”

“Turn, turn, wash yoh back,” his feather voice drowned the moans, grunts, and what seemed like
light spanking in the other cubicle.

I reached down and covered my ass with my two hands – how sure was I that he would not
attack me from behind? He laughed.

“What’s yoh name?”

“Miguel”

“Hmmm?”

“Migs”

“Too complicated”

“You can say complicated, but not Migs?”

He did not understand.

“Yoh tuhn. Wash me.”

It was like a bad rehearsal for a porn film, if ever there was one anyway, with an amateur model
playing the lead role: right hand trembling on the hand shower (accidentally watering his face
and hair), my left one aimlessly soaping his enamel chest in awkward counterclockwise
movement, marking him with water and erasing my awkwardness with each imperfect stroke.

“This okay?” I wanted to appease him by affording him with the same equal amount of
gentleness he afforded me.

“Yes,” he replied as he knobbed the shower shut. “Come, come. Back to room”

7.

I was a late bloomer.

There was something about living two years in the university male dormitory and growing
accustomed to the stink and clutter of men day in and day out – the flies that nest on that empty
cup of instant noodles, the ecosystem that develops from the mountain of unwashed clothes, the
sight of toweled men that accompanies the ringing of the alarm clock – that makes one want to
partner with that kind of mess for the rest of his life.

A gay toddler at 19, I colored what was then a series of discreet desires with a creative kind of
compartmentalization. I called it my Magical Rainbow of Men: The Blues were my favorite
crushes (there was Simply Blue, Sky Blue, and Blue Plus – my ultimate crush!), the Reds were
those whose faces turned red when they laughed or when they had too much to drink, the Greens
were obviously the Lasallians, the Yellows were my Chinese crushes, there was one Indigo and
one Orange, only because those was the colors of the shirt they were wearing when I met them.
But rainbows I realized were not just signs of hope and symbols of beauty, but they were also
exclusively visual and intangible things – one can only enjoy rainbows from a distance. Of the
many colors that lived in the horizon of my fantasies, only two colors eventually knew about
how I felt about them: Simply Blue who immediately turned me down by pulling out and playing
everyone’s favorite rejection card: “We’re better off as a friends” and Orange who ran away with
someone else after he brought me to Club Government. Simply Blue and Orange could not be
blamed. I was truly still a young gay man. I still had to know the distinction between “top” and
“bottom,” learn about notions like “versatile” and “discreet,” the chenelyns and the chorvas, the
pleasure of having straight men making patol.

Being gay also meant loving your body. Fabulous was not a word to describe the glitter and
glamour of queer life. Neither was it a word you would simply assign to drag queens and their
song numbers of planet-sized earrings and gold sequins. The purple-tinged impetus to be
fabulous referred as well to the will to love one’s own body, to drape it with the necessary cloths
of self-love that shields one from stigma and the frequent boon and bane of impermanent desire.
With only three pairs of pants, baggy shorts, hangers and hangers of large-sized shirts, it was not
an issue of sporting branded things but one of disrespecting and neglecting the vessel of my
desires.

Losing my virginity then was not a rite of passage; it was pathetically a creaturely desire to be
affirmed. Here now were a set of trembling hands that remained untouched and an ass that
wished to be entered only because it was the node to a body that desired that liberating rupture.
8.

I closed my eyes and drank the scent of tea leaves and incense, the fountain water whispering
outside. There I was, flattened again like that grade school boy pinned to submission in a contest
of playground manhood. On my belly, the initial sprawl-eagled fear gradually turned into a
generous, corporeal utterance of supplication: break me.

He first minted my left thigh while kneading the lower part of my leg with his penis; his breath
was gentle, his skin smooth, cool, even refreshing as milk tea on the street. He did the same to
my right leg. His strokes, the streaming feel of white water, had their beautiful violence.

“Turn” he whispered.

I turned and faced him. The room was now soaked, drenched with the silver scent of oil. His
palms glittered in the darkness; my body minted with every instant of his touch. He held my right
hand – it was still – as he worked on my left. Without meaning to, I closed my right hand and he
responded by gripping it tight. We exchanged gazes for the first time since the start of the
service. In that moment and perhaps only in that moment, he appeared ethereal, the singular
white presence in the room, the summation of everyone I ever liked and even loved: the perfect
twink, an imperfect chest, a pair of droopy eyes that bore the kind of everlasting melancholia I
wanted to fill. He held my hand gently, caringly as he pulled me up to finish the service and to
lead me to the rack.

“Shower again”

He led me out and back to the shower room, still holding my hand. No extra service.

9.

It was the eve of Songkran and we were there for drinks to welcome the Thai New Year. The
alley was now familiar the second time around. It was still dark and orange, perfumed by
cigarette smoke. The Christmas lights were still there. The invitations were the same; the
doormen dragged us to see the nightly live show of blank-faced fucks. This time, my refusal was
firm, polite, and for some reason, respected.
A surprise ice attack from the chalk-faced manager of the pub drenched us and before we knew
it, our tipsy selves were pairing up and dancing with local and foreigner guests.

The massage parlor was just across the pub. My gaze bounced from one masseur to the next until
it settled on the leader of the pack.

A year soured his face. His hair was no longer boyishly unkempt; it parted neatly to the right. A
black and green tattoo slithered around his arms.

I approached him and asked, “Do you remember me?”

He looked puzzled.

“No, I don’t believe so,” he spoke in his improved English.

“Last year, you and me? Last March?”

“I have many.”

10.

I slumped to my seat, the evaporating oil created an aura of dazed peace around me, the post-
massage service tea cupped patiently on the table.

I felt someone tap my knee gently. I turned and smiled at him. He was once more wearing his
schoolboy fetish costume. He reached out, gave me a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek, and
proceeded to join his fellow masseurs downstairs for the next round.
“He like you.” the manager said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“He not do that if he didn’t.”

11.

“No, no, I already showered”

His tattooed arm stopped my hand as it reached for the shower handle.

“Oh, okay. Let’s go?”

“Yes.”

We were back in the same room. There were no more instrumentals, the fountain was muted.
The whole thing was finished in less than the set hour. The ringing of his iPhone punctuated the
whole thing. I read one message. It was in English: “Wer r u?” There were no streaming strokes
this time, just careless slipping, sliding. The oil did no minting; it merely made my skin greasy.

“You still don’t remember me” I asked as he beat my back.

“Just a little. Okay, done.”

“Shower?” I asked
“No, we shower only if we did it. Like last year, remember?”

12.

When the story is not yet finished, return to the place.

What conclusion did I seek? The deed was done. The service was complete. The fees were paid.
Still I saw his face plastered everywhere: drinking fraps by himself in coffee joints, a jolt of a
disappointing surprise in UAAP basketball games, the passing grin in clubs, Mario Maurer
suddenly having chinky droopy eyes and lips the color of fresh, raw blood.

Between that first encounter and this April weekend of wet festivities, I started lifting weights,
developed friendships with nice folks I met, gained 15 pounds, and renewed my gym
membership.

In the end, it became clear to me that the story was not his or even about our encounter; it was
my story of being broken. The story was not incomplete; it only felt incomplete. In our second
encounter, in his arms permanently stained by the marks of his city, I learned that the
impermanence was necessary. The summer service was a paragraph of an encounter – each
stroke was a syllable, each press and clutch, a word dependent on the next and the last, each
bending a punctuation – one which culminated when I looked at the mirror the next day, saw
myself and said, “I see you.”

13.

Still carrying his scent, I stepped out into the street. I passed the pack of masseurs who were now
ready to call it a night.

I found him, tucked like a sleepy child in the corner.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He told me.

“I will come back to Bangkok for you,” I said.

He gathered what energy he had left and stood up.

The alley was now quiet. The Christmas lights in summer started flickering off as I curled my
fingers and curved them around his nape, closed my eyes, and touched his lips with mine, as the
streets of Silom prepared to dream.
 Max Ehrmann
Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain and bitter;

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs;

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals;

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
 Especially, do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.
 AN AESOP FABLE
(THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF)

There once was a boy who kept sheep not far from the village. He would often
become bored and to amuse himself he would call out,

"Wolf! Wolf," although there was no wolf about.

The villagers would stop what they were doing and run to save the sheep from
the wolf's jaw. Once they arrived at the pasture, the boy just laughed. The naughty
boy played this joke over and over until the villagers tired of him.

One day while the boy was watching the sheep, a wolf did come into the fold.
The boy cried and cried,

"Wolf! Wolf!"

No one came. The wolf had a feast of sheep that day.

 HEAVEN AND HELL
By: Paulo Coelho
A man, his horse and his dog were traveling down a road. When they were passing by a gigantic
tree, a bolt of lightning struck and they all fell dead on the spot.

But the man did not realize that he had already left this world, so he went on walking with his
two animals; sometimes the dead take time to understand their new condition…

The journey was very long, uphill, the sun was strong and they were covered in sweat and very
thirsty. They were desperately in need of water. At a bend in the road they spotted a magnificent
gateway, all in marble, which led to a square paved with blocks of gold and with a fountain in
the center that spouted forth crystalline water.

The traveler went up to the man guarding the gate.

“Good morning.”•

“Good morning,”• answered the man.

“What is this beautiful place?”•

“This is heaven.”•

“How good to have reached heaven, we’re ever so thirsty.”•

“You can come in and drink all you want.”•

And the guard pointed to the fountain.

“My horse and my dog are thirsty too.”•

“So sorry, but animals aren’t allowed in here.”•

The man was very disappointed because his thirst was great, but he could not drink alone; he
thanked the man and went on his way. After traveling a lot, they arrived exhausted at a farm
whose entrance was marked with an old doorway that opened onto a tree-lined dirt road.

A man was lying down in the shadow of one of the trees, his head covered with a hat, perhaps
asleep.

“Good morning,”• said the traveler.

The man nodded his head.

“We are very thirsty – me, my horse and my dog.”•

“There is a spring over in those stones,” said the man, pointing to the spot. “Drink as much as
you like.”•

The man, the horse and the dog went to the spring and quenched their thirst. Then the traveler
went back to thank the man.

“By the way, what’s this place called?”•

“Heaven.”•

“Heaven? But the guard at the marble gate back there said that was heaven!”•

“That’s not heaven, that’s hell.”•

The traveler was puzzled.

“You’ve got to stop this! All this false information must cause enormous confusion!”•

The man smiled:

“Not at all. As a matter of fact they do us a great favor. Because over there stay all those who are
even capable of abandoning their best friends…”
 THE RAVEN
By: Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—

Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—

This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door;—

Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—

Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—

’Tis the wind and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—

Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—

On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”

Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,

But whose velvet-violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

 “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—

On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted—nevermore!
 SUICIDE NOTE
By: Janice Marikitani
. . An Asian American college student was reported to have jumped to her death from her
dormitory window. Her body was found two days later under a deep cover of snow. Her suicide
note contained an apology to her parents for having received less than a perfect four point grade
average. . .

How many notes written. . .

ink smeared like birdprints in snow.

not good enoughnot pretty enoughnot smart enough

dear mother and father.

I apologize

for disappointing you.

I’ve worked very hard,

not good enough

harder, perhaps to please you.

If only I were a son, shoulders broad

as the sunset threading through pine,

I would see the light in my mother’s

eyes, or the golden pride reflected

in my father’s dream

of my wide, male hands worthy of work

and comfort.

I would swagger through life

 muscled and bold and assured,

drawing praises to me

like currents in the bed of wind, virile

with confidence

not good enoughnot strong enoughnot good enough

I apologize.

Tasks do not come easily.

Each failure, a glacier.

Each disapproval, a bootprint.

Each disappointment,

ice above my river.

So I have worked hard.

not good enough

My sacrifice I will drop

bone by bone, perched

on the ledge of my womanhood,

fragile as wings.

not strong enough

It is snowing steadily

surely not good weather

for flying—this sparrow

sillied and dizzied by the wind

on the edge.

not smart enough

I make this ledge my altar

 to offer penance.

This air will not hold me,

the snow burdens my crippled wings,

the tears drop like bitter cloth

softly into the gutter below.

not good enoughnot strong enoughnot smart enough

Choices thin as shaved

ice. Notes shredded

drift like snow

on my broken body,

covers me like whispers

of sorries

sorries.

Perhaps when they find me

they will bury

my bird bones beneath

a sturdy pine

and scatter my feathers like

unspoken song

over this white and cold and silent

breast of earth.
 ITHAKA
By: C. P. Cavafy
As you set out for Ithaka

hope the voyage is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians and Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.

May there be many a summer morning when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you come into harbors seen for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

 and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you are destined for.

But do not hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you are old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you have gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you would not have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

 THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO

by Edgar Allan Poe

(1846)
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult
I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that
gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but
the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only
punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its
redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him
who has done the wrong.

It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my
good will. I continued, as was my in to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my to smile
now was at the thought of his immolation.

He had a weak point --this Fortunato --although in other regards he was a man to be respected
and even feared. He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true
virtuoso spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to
practise imposture upon the British and Austrian millionaires. In painting and gemmary,
Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines he was sincere. In
this respect I did not differ from him materially; --I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and
bought largely whenever I could.

It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I
encountered my friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much.
The man wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted
by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never have done
wringing his hand.

I said to him --"My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking
to-day. But I have received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."
"How?" said he. "Amontillado, A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!"

"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without
consulting you in the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."

"Amontillado!"

"I have my doubts."

"Amontillado!"

"And I must satisfy them."

"Amontillado!"

"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will
tell me --"

"Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."

"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.

"Come, let us go."

"Whither?"
"To your vaults."

"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement.
Luchresi--"

"I have no engagement; --come."

"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are
afflicted. The vaults are insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre."

"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed
upon. And as for Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."

Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and
drawing a roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in honour of the time. I
had told them that I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not
to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate
disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.

I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through
several suites of rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding
staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the
descent, and stood together upon the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
"The pipe," he said.

"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern
walls."

He turned towards me, and looked into my eves with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of
intoxication.

"Nitre?" he asked, at length.

"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"

"Ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh! --ugh! ugh! ugh!"

My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

"It is nothing," he said, at last.

"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected,
admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi --
"

"Enough," he said; "the cough's a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."

"True --true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily --but you
should use all proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon
the mould.

"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.

He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells
jingled.

"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."

"And I to your long life."

He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."

"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."

"I forget your arms."

"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are
imbedded in the heel."

"And the motto?"

"Nemo me impune lacessit."

"Good!" he said.

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc.
We had passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling,
into the inmost recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize
Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's
bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late.
Your cough --"

"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc."

I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a
fierce light. He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement --a grotesque one.

"You do not comprehend?" he said.

"Not I," I replied.

"Then you are not of the brotherhood."

"How?"
"You are not of the masons."

"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."

"You? Impossible! A mason?"

"A mason," I replied.

"A sign," he said, "a sign."

"It is this," I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us proceed to the Amontillado."

"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned
upon it heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range
of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the
foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined
with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris.
Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the
bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a
mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a
still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It
seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval
between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of
their circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the
recess. Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi --"

"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed

immediately at his heels. In niche, and finding an instant he had reached the extremity of the
niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more
and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other
about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock.
Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too
much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very
damp. Once more let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must
first render you all the little attentions in my power."

"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.

"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."

As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken.
Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these
materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.

I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of
Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low
moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a
long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard
the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I
might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the bones.
When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the
fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I
again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the
figure within.

A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form,
seemed to thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my
rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I
placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the
wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I aided, I surpassed them in
volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.

It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth
and the tenth tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single
stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined
position. But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head.
It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that of the noble
Fortunato. The voice said--

"Ha! ha! ha! --he! he! he! --a very good joke, indeed --an excellent jest. We will have many a
rich laugh about it at the palazzo --he! he! he! --over our wine --he! he! he!"

"The Amontillado!" I said.

"He! he! he! --he! he! he! --yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be
awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

"For the love of God, Montresor!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew impatient. I called aloud --

"Fortunato!"

No answer. I called again --

"Fortunato!"

No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came
forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the
catacombs that made it so. I hastened to make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its
position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the
half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat!
 THE TELL-TALE HEART

by Edgar Allan Poe

1843
TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I
am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was
the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things
in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you
the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day
and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never
wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye!
yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell
upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the
life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me.
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with
what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole
week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and
opened it --oh so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a
dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you
would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly --very, very slowly, so
that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the
opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so
wise as this, And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so
cautiously --cautiously (for the hinges creaked) --I undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell
upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights --every night just at midnight --but I
found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man
who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the
chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring
how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to
suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute
hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own
powers --of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I
was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I
fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if
startled. Now you may think that I drew back --but no. His room was as black as pitch with the
thick darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that
he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin
fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed, crying out --"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the
meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed listening; --just as I have
done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan
of pain or of grief --oh, no! --it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul
when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the
world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors
that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I
chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he
had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to
fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself --"It is nothing but the wind
in the chimney --it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made
a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had
found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black
shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the
unperceived shadow that caused him to feel --although he neither saw nor heard --to feel the
presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open
a little --a very, very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it --you cannot imagine how
stealthily, stealthily --until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out
the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye.

It was open --wide, wide open --and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect
distinctness --all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones;
but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by
instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? --
now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when
enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It
increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried
how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror
must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment! --do you mark me well I
have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror.
Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I
thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me --the sound would be heard by a
neighbour! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped
into the room. He shrieked once --once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled
the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes,
the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard
through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined
the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there
many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eve would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took
for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of
all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the
scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his
--could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no
blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell
sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light
heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with
perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the
night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office,
and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own
in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the
house. I bade them search --search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his
treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the
room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of
my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of
the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat,
and while I answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting
pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat
and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct: --It continued and became more distinct: I
talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness --until, at
length, I found that the noise was not within my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale; --but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet
the sound increased --and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound --much such a sound
as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath --and yet the officers heard it
not. I talked more quickly --more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and
argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if
excited to fury by the observations of the men --but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what
could I do? I foamed --I raved --I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and
grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder --
louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not?
Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a
mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!
Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer!
I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It
is the beating of his hideous heart!"