In The Fields of Hate I Wandered

 

In the fields of hate

I wandered…

I counted severed skulls, charred bodies

mementos strewn about…

I smelled blood

way too fresh, too red

dark red…

I took two steps back.

 

We review and revisit the events and wonder – what has gone wrong? / hlntv.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only to catch a wider view

Nay, too vivid…

a field enveloped by dark despair

the sky’s too unforgiving to think —

salvation is at all possible.

Everywhere I looked

bespoke of trespass and horror —

everything is base, vile and low.

 

Why didn’t I think of it before

that anger could be sown

planted and grown?

That distance, discord and drift —

could be harvested, collected

placed in a neat vessel?

To be given back as revenge –

violence dressed as militance.

 

Humans are born alone

trapped in bodies too weak or too severe.

Raised by lingering doubts —

worked up, waned and warped by experiences

fueled by creeping sorrows.

Disappointments – too many for mention

dreams are woven and shattered

on a daily basis.

 

When does pain begin to petrify?

How is longing transformed —

into an image of the cold?

The path from gladness to madness

to tread that track –

rather too easily, a child’s play…

Want suppressed become pure hatred

to a man burdened – with murder at heart.

 

Everyone is suspect

everything is disposable

appetite for destruction revved up

with each step, with each conquest…

Lunacy is oft methodical

careful and systematic

wrath must spare no one —

to cut, to break, to slit into pieces.

 

What is it like to be in a battle?

Is it true – all those deafening sounds

the explosions, the confusion, the rush?

Do men gather to defend the borders

do women bewail and bemoan

the death of children and infants

are fences really driven over

do animals scamper about?

 

In the heart of hearts of men is the longing for peace/ celestonews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it happens, sadly so –

the burning, the shooting

the public display of the defiant

rape, pillage and plunder…

We’ve been taught

these are things of the past

we are civilized now – sophisticated

blood and gore belong to the barbarians.

 

But I looked around

and saw for myself

this vast incomprehensible creation

an artwork beyond compare —

ghastly, avant-garde, extraordinaire…

a cacophany of lives left behind in a hurry

a shocking display of things lying around —

to be erased, forgotten, never to be remembered.

 

Many young lives are suddenly over. Will we be able to explain the loss to the living  children? / http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the fields of hate, I wandered

and learned about fear and its companions.

Take my hand

there’s a chance, albeit slim

the way to peace is possible…

though

it maybe

far… 🙂

 

The way to peace is a hard, uphill road – for leaders and members alike/ jamaica-gleaner.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* This poem was written a year ago, a few days after Christmas after a very unfortunate incident. It is being published here as a sympathy post to the Connecticut shooting – condolence to the bereaved parents, siblings and to humanity – for the incalculable loss and sufferings…

 

** The piece is copyrighted. If sharing or republishing, please link it back here and give credit to the author. For permission to reproduce, please write to onholdcynicism@yahoo.com. Thanks. 🙂

 

*** The next post will be about gratitude. It will be a short one, promise…

 

Wishing everybody a peaceful Christmas on the day said to be the end of the world – as we know it…. 😉

 

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Happy First…

 

Hello, beloved bloggers and readers! Happy yuletide season. May the cold December be kind to us all… 🙂

 

Yesterday, I got a message from WordPress greeting the site happy first anniversary. It says 35andupcynicismonhold registered with the host site on December 14, 2011. Wait, I didn’t know that! Seriously, am only aware that I published the first post on the 19th of December, 2011. But what the hey, the WP record did remember, so much the better. Thank you, WordPress, for the kind reminder. So, this humble site is officially one year old this month, woot!

 

Happy first birthday to 35andupcynicismonhold site 🙂 / birthdaydirect.com

 

I thank all of you who kindly, patiently and encouragingly journeyed with me through the year – for reading, for visiting and for leaving those likes and the warm and insightful comments. Your presence and support saw this site and me through. I am grateful up to my chin, ahaha. Muchas Gracias, thank you, maraming salamat… 🙂

In one year, 42 posts have been published in the site, or an average of three (3) posts a month. I would have liked to post more often, but I also maintain another site in the Tagalog language. The topics covered at 35andup range from the mundane, to the esoteric, and on to the deeply personal. There are a few sprinkles of the political, but not so much.

Having this blog has helped me negotiate the wide, vast and complicated blog sphere of the English-speaking, writing and thinking world, a feat I attempted with my old Tagalog site but curiously failed. The English site, more or less, permitted me to swim in this interesting ocean of literary, artistic and philosophical folks who write intelligently, wittily and way better, too. But some of them, you, allowed me to think we’re equals and that has made me glad and proud. Ahaha. 😉

 

The first post I wrote in English was there’s always a rich relative, written maybe a year before it was published (May 2012). Then, When Love Comes A Knockin’, a write up  conceived in December 2011 but also before 35andup was born. It was originally intended for Feb. 2012 publication. Come Christmas day of 2011, nobody has visited the site and read the first post and the About page yet and yours truly was badly in need of affirmation, lol. 😉 I would say that the third post and fourth writing, Parking Lot View stood on a better ground. By January 2012, I have already come to terms with the idea that I would be blogging in English, hohoho.

 

Let me enjoin you to read some of the posts I truly enjoyed writing –

 

Of Valentines, Love and Other Falsehoods – sister and I just came from a trip to Hongkong. At the HK terminal going home, staff gave all passengers a rose made from red towel (cute), woefully reminding us of our Valentineless state, lol. 😉

Off to a Place – written because I was excited about the prospect of a first long-distance train ride South; an epic fail, I took the plane, haha.

My Happy Finds – a continuation of my reading journey and the authors whose works I truly enjoyed reading

Hunger Games: Popularizing Dystopia and the Accidental Heroine – my first attempt to review a movie in the blog

a silly, simple poem – a poem, a first try in English (borrowed heavily from the English, especially the phrase – jetsam and flotsam)

Firmaments –  first attempt at photography, sort of…

Impeaching – an attempt to analyze the ongoing impeachment of the Supreme Court Chief Justice

Atmospheric Pressure – am not sure but I guess, this was an attempt to copy the writing styles of Kerima Polotan-Tuvera and E.L. Doctorow combined.

Kinder and Gentler, conclusion – a write up on Thailand and Philippines’ comparative development, with a bit of politics…

that part of us…  – a take on forgiveness and the digital age

Kiss me in September – an attempt to be coy while waiting for the mood to write the next post

Writing Wounded – was written finally after listening to a hoard of Gothic music, ahaha

Two and a Half Smiles –  the first of the four-part series, I like this best as I did not know that the article would take that long; that I would have that much to say about our mother and be able to write her full story. The idea was triggered when my grandniece and I were playing at the garage, where I used to wheel mother around during her sick days.

The rain and quiet – another first attempt that is, to write about a crime. The story came fast, as though it wrote itself. The notion that it would all be about describing the atmosphere came from an old Filipino movie.

 

What I love about writing is, I usually begin with a blank page or a blank monitor and minutes or hours later, there are several pages of composition – a tale that seems to make sense somehow and tells me that a story has just been given birth – by my hands, mind and heart; by the whole of me.

 

Let me end with a quote from Shakespeare, my first time to quote him –

 

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

 

from Macbeth’s soliloquy (Act V Scene V)

 

Thank you very much, folks, for taking the ride with me. It has been beautiful. 🙂 😉 ~ San

 

Reading a Nigella Lawson post, the first time

 

Nigella? Yes, she’s the one. No other… The round, sexy woman from the TV food show who whips off delicious dishes in no time, makes to-die-for desserts and then, has friends over to eat them – with cool conversations and fun moments. She is no professional chef, by the way. Not a cook, either. She does not hide these facts. She celebrates foods and life… Curiously, I believe her.

 

This is the Nigella Lawson we usually see on TV/ http://www.nigella.com

 

Nah, I barely look like Nigella. Okay, we’re three poles and several continents apart… My hair is not the alluring kind, I don’t have hips and my boobs are a token set. I certainly do not have Nigella’s perfect teeth, her easy demeanor and her talent in being companionable.

But like the million other women on earth, I want to be her. Yes, her! Who wouldn’t? She looks charming, her body lies eloquently about her age (52, for heaven’s sake) and she appears like someone who knows what’s cooking on God’s end. Oh, cut it, you know what I mean… 😉

 

So, my sisters and I do watch her shows on the Lifestyle channel, on the Food channels and on whatever cable station happens to carry her series – Nigella Bites, Nigella Feasts, Nigella Kitchen and the Iron Chef America, where she was once a judge. We could never get enough of her recipes – how she makes them all easy and delicious and the preparations, always relaxed and casual.

She does them like it’s no sweat at all – being beautiful, competent in the kitchen and pretty much, all-around likeable.  She and I should trade places, really. ^_^

 

Before writing this post, I consulted Wiki for bits and pieces about her. After all, Nigella Lawson is dubbed the kitchen goddess. I should at least be able to say something decent about this celebrity I truly admire. She isn’t your usual, media-created persona different from the off camera person. She is the real deal, almost. She defies our stereotype impression of the English folks – formal, stiff and (in a whispered tone) boring… Nigella is warm, intimate and knows how to have a good time.

Daughter of a Member of the Parliament, Conservative that is, she voted Labor. Daughter of an heiress and socialite, she openly said she’d wear a fur from a bear she herself killed (I could picture the animal rights advocates doing her effigy). She declined the OBE due her and refused to be called Honorable. That to me, is a notch higher, renegade and more classy, than Prince William eating hamburger and hotdog from a stand…

 

So, anyway, I didn’t know before that Nigella Lawson, the esteemed, lovely idol, had a blog. My silly idea: she would have a Facebook and a Twitter account. But a blog? Blog takes time to write and it hardly matters that she was once an editor. She’s huge now – busy, right?Anyway, she does have one, started in 2009. It is called nigella dot com. It is a colorful site, full of recipes and stories, of course. It features recipes by other kitchen habitués…

How did I come across this information that is supposed to be common to netizens nuts about cooking and food shows? Through a site am subscribed to – PutneyFarm. Putneyfarm is a dad from California – plants and grows his fruits and vegetables, cooks and bakes for his family and friends and generally lives guilt-free and responsibly (everything that I don’t do, for sure).

 

By the way, Putneyfarm makes wines, too and his drink concoctions are mean, easy to follow and on the healthy side, of course… One day, I chanced upon Putneyfarm’s blogroll and lo and behold! There, on the upper right side of his webpage – Nigella Lawson’s site, whew… Nigella Lawson, wow! She’s for real and  present on the internet like most mortals. Dang, how could I not have thought of that?

Finally, here’s the chance to get to know the majestic Nigella personally, up close and in action. Here is the opportunity to be regaled by her kitchen antics sans the camera, to be mesmerized by her decadent, prodigal and perhaps sinful, recipe… And so, I held my breath, clicked on her site’s link to read on the first post, ever, ever – of the much-admired, almost unreal Nigella Lawson. And this is the first post of hers I had all the luck to encounter, watch and be awed about.

 

Nigella’s post I first chanced upon was about slicing ripe mango/ salon.com

 

Bloody thing is, I think I know about slicing mangoes since 30 years ago. But what the hey? As I said, Nigella likes things simple, easy and she defies one’s traditional expectations… And by the way, am not sure but I think that post falls under the category, Kitchen Wisdom. And wisdom does come in little bits, does it not? Splendid.

Besides, that’s the point behind idolatry, right? Anything, anything by and from your idol, a piece of her… She has other posts, not to forget. And they’re cool, swear. 😉