Rants and Ruminations from Pasckie

LIKE a phantom in life’s opera, the raven on window’s ledge—writers woo, coax, persuade, flirt, inspire, convince an audience with words. Without an audience, writers cease to be. Writers tend to operate like actors on a stage: they project a certain persona beyond their calling. What they write doesn’t necessarily mean what they are—one has to scrape through layers to be able to get through the writer’s heart and soul beneath the words. [--PPascua, from “Monsoon Letters”

THERE’s ALWAYS mystery that shrouds a writer’s life… They live a life that is traditionally labeled as nomadic or “outside the frame.” A choice or consequence more than a reality. A perennial need to explore life and humanity—and throwing themselves right in the mouth of the dragon, out there, seems to be their thing. That’s the only way to know life, deeper. Hence, they are often misread and misjudged. They are not ordinary human beings. [--PPascua, from “My Life as a Greyhound”]

WRITING PER SE is not the problem. Getting into a consistent writing groove—in a ferociously fluid and insanely undistracted manner is the harder part in the writing process. Consistency, focus, grip: How to get a handle of the many thoughts and ideas that march in my head in eccentric cadence—that’s the issue. Once I get started with one story, there go 15 other stories piercing in my mind, even in my sleep. I don’t have any problem with a subject matter; my problem is there’re so many subject matters to write about… [--PPascua]

A POEM THAT SPEAKS TO THE NIGHT: "Love Serenade, 100th Movement"

Don’t ask me what is love--
no, I can’t: the magic of my poetry
has been muted by the endless
howling in my beaten chest;
but I could whisper the meaning of love
on top of a roaring waterfall
and awaken the moss
that sleeps upon a dead rock
and coax the rapids to exalt.

Don’t ask me where does love roam--
no, I can’t: heat and desire have been
provoked and crushed in a thousand
beds of roses and dusty couches;
but I know where passion stokes fire
and lights our darkest nights
and warms our coldest days.

Don’t ask me why I love you--
no, I can’t: just look me in the eyes
and see how an ocean of rage
and a mountain of calm
met and built an island
from the day that life started
to move in my heart; it was
the day when the wind
ushered your scent across
my wounded world.

 
--Pasckie Pascua