Jan Gresil Kahambing is an Instructor of Philosophy and Museum Curator of Leyte Normal University, Philippines. He holds the following degrees: Master of Arts in Philosophy (summa cum laude) in 2019 at Holy Name University, Philippines, Bachelor in Sacred Theology (magna cum laude) in 2016, Licentiate in Philosophy and Bachelor in Classical Studies (Rector’s Award, magna cum laude) in 2013, and Bachelor in Philosophy (magna cum laude) in 2011 all at the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines. He was awarded Best in Poetry last 2012 at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Santo Tomas. Some of his poems in print are as follows:
- The Faces of an End (The Owl, 2016)
- One Vanguard as Two (The Owl, 2015)
- The Dangers of Falling in Love (The Owl, 2015)
- These Emblems of Love (Benavides, 2014; republished, 2015)
- Thy Arced Evangel (Inter Nos Magazine, 2014)
- When in a Manger (Inter Nos Bulletin, 2014)
Special Collection: Creativity in the Time of the Pandemic 2020>>
Ode to a Thought
I thought about you today. As I did yesterday.
I guess I’m still going to think about you again tomorrow.
A day in the life of an abandoned over-thinker
Do I tell you? Nah, you don’t even care
My free trial was over anyway.
Tightrope-walking on Elm Street, you know.
Because you never sleep, quite the night Adarna,
luring men over your charms
but cannot lure your broken past.
You like it.
“I am an unreachable star in the dead of night,” you say
Men marvel over your brightness,
daunted while you remain secretly flattered,
flustered, feeding on their vibes of servitude and bewilderment.
And every night you keep on
haunting, coming and going
But no you’re no ghost, nor a trophy, nor a star.
It takes a little distance to realize that disappointment.
You’re just like anybody else.
Mediocre, average, and a mimic of all your favorite TV shows and books.
Memories gather in this background
No mountains, skies, and hues of majesty
only sheer abyss and vacuum
As if I am writing from Uranus and you from Pluto
Stars somehow spread our dust of words
brought them all together.
Interstellar with little and no interaction.
All I have are the specks before you left.
What is even the point
of talking to someone from a former planet?
You’d only tell me random things,
patronizing, casual, like all others.
Some are lies. Some are half-truths.
Some even recycled things from your recycled world,
photos of your bewitched image
– but an image nonetheless.
You’re dying, of course, from a virus of your own making
a void of nevermore, inciting nothing out of nothing
Your only recourse is to seek accolades
from those you trust and thrust.
You lie in the comfort of your own prison,
which is slowly growing and expanding
as you suck everyone around you in it.
All the while as you keep on
haunting, coming and going.
But no you’re no illusion, nor a prisoner, nor impassive with life.
It takes a closer look to realize that disappointment.
With the hopes and dreams of your favorite TV shows and books,
you have them too.
Like a true politician on TV,
you also rub shoulders and appear concerned to some,
representing the insignificant.
“I am with you in this”
“We have the same taste”
“You are more beautiful”
– seem like the mediocre
and average mimicry of human affairs.
There is brilliance in your synthesis,
modifications of evidential truths,
regurgitations of folk wisdom.
Seems like what an embodiment
of what an after-thought would be
You’re just like anybody else.
A fraud, a commoner, and a part of the bandwagon of indecisive fools.
The hypocrisy of your leadership reeks
of havoc in your bewitched image
You want to be ideal, or was it a “pure orb of consciousness”?
You fight for your kind, of course
You lead a battle with no assurance of winning
so you keep on
haunting, coming and going.
All roads lead to one,
but you roam in labyrinthine expansions,
as you maintain your prison,
schizophrenic, bipolar, solipsist
You look into other ways,
the roads that lead to paradise,
the land of the free, or a Victorian land
with free teas and ubiquitous watchmen
You struggle to detach from your place
a place where the sun also rises
Yes, the path to salvation, you yearn
But your indecisions only bring forth the best intensions
that lead to hell, of no eternal return
I keep overthinking about
what had happened to us
I thought about
how I could also blame myself
I was haunted
as you came and went on
I thought you were with me in this
I thought we had the same taste
I thought I was special to you
Turns out, I put myself in zugzwang
I didn’t realize what a waste of time it was,
investing in a wrong gamble
amidst the shortness of this life
this tightrope existence in a pandemic
It was a perfect game and jest,
played only by the most committed
of players and jesters
They say romance only lasts for 5 years
4 years for me was enough
A perfect quartet for four holy weeks
You had words I hadn’t known,
a Scrabble match set for me to fail.
Turns out I couldn’t play schadenfreude in one turn,
but you could.
But no you’re no player, nor regret, nor a wizard of immortal words.
It takes a closer look to realize that disappointment.
So I thank you for being kind
You had the pleasant niceties of an acquaintance.
You were always nice, unperturbed
until one disturbs your fragile “orb of consciousness”
or was it your messianic ego?
You are the duality of water.
The essence of a woman was it?
– saint and slut, smart and senseless?
You had the honesty of a dead person.
The double-edged sword to arty meta-narratives.
You had the humanity of a bored Lady Pegasus.
That was it.
You had the audacity
to call your men names and assign them characters
from your favorite TV shows and books.
I thought I could be N but I am not
I couldn’t even be J
But you were the alphabet
You were E, L, M, and B
Boorish on Elm Street
You were all these
Until you left
Until you were petrified into something else
Until you vanished
This is beyond disappointment
Fortune, of course, is a woman
Machiavelli was right
Fortunately, you couldn’t turn it around
This opportune time
When you couldn’t handle my naivety
So I’m sorry for not turning in
If you hadn’t shown me the fortune
I wouldn’t also turn myself in
Aside from the mediocre moments
of our sparse and veiled conversations
From a distant universe
Where I couldn’t sing “If these sheets were states”
And the barrel of tears I had already shed
which were not enough to say love in a time of corona
not enough to push my giddy heart
not enough to say some logical sense
These are my thoughts since the day you left
The same thoughts I had yesterday. The same thoughts I have today.
I hope I am not going to think about you again tomorrow.
Published on April 15, 2020. © Author.