The Poet’s Letter to His Editor

Do you always have

to moderate

my necessary intercourse

to the external world?  

`

You who always strain

thrust back, clash

my instincts

my impulses at check,

and my pleasure of words

you denied

`

from me

you strain

you question

you hold back

you condemn

the thrill of words

from the pen I sucked

for concentration! 

`

I am a hungry organism

a thirsty predator

and you cannot cloak

the spontaneous sputter

of my ink, I release them

I swerve to my pleasure

of using the words I want

I indulge

I engage

deeper and

deeper

in my

drive  

`

and you cannot –

and you should not

break down

restrict,

replace

and put another word from the world

of which I’m not prepared

and cannot adapt. 

`

`

 [Note: this is my poem for psychoanalytic criticism.  I can’t think anymore of someone to embody my idea of the Id and Superego except the Poet and the Editor.  Well, the editor is like the superego that censures, inhibits, and corrects some of the poet’s/writer’s ideas for them to reach the mass.  If your looking for a phallic symbol – it’s the pen *smirks.]

The Revenge of the Cook

I watched you as you devoured

the food I gave you

I waited until you’re finished

so that I could serve

the blood-red wine. 

`

You looked at me

Your eyes, they spoke

the word ‘vermin’ you mouthed

in your blood-red lips

I remained passive on the corner

I swallowed your sneer

like you swallowed the wine

I did

many times

for five years

you never seemed to bother. 

`

Then

The pain is etched across your face

as it slowly broke out from me 

`

You grope for something

You held out

that trembling hand

The very same

that etched the dreadful scar

on my cheek. 

`

And you’re dying on the floor

and I buried my grudge with you.

With a laugh at your twisted face, 

`

I watched you

as the pain devoured your throat

I wished to cut… 

`

The blood-red wine laid there

like puddle of blood

on the floor. 

`

And I stepped on your helpless hand

as I held out the knife

for the final blow.  

`

`

Note: This is the poem in which I incorporated the reader-response theory.  The difficult thing about this is that it is the reader who would give meaning to this poem because the theory is too subjective.  For my part, I tried to incorporate two views or two possible responses – someone who is living morally and decently would disagree with the cook killing his master.  But to someone who had already experienced what it is like to be in the shoes of the cook, they would approach it as karma.  Bloodthirsty people will find it different too.  It’s all a matter of who the readers are, and how their minds interpret the text.  This is the plurality characteristic of the text. 

To my Perfectionist Husband

You can’t drag me in your drive for perfection

like making a plan of action

to every household chore

and planning my time right

to get things done 

`

even if you always check the fire extinguisher

or the dogs for fleas

`

even if you pay the bills on time

even if you haven’t miss a work schedule

(except in our honeymoon) 

`

I’ll tell you:

I want to mix our shirts.

I refuse to fold my underwear.

I won’t hang my pants.

You think pairing up the socks is easy? 

`

I’ve told you

remember 

`

I am your lifetime project.   

`

`

[Note: This is what I made for post-colonial criticism poem.  What I did is to make the Feminism criticism post-colonial such that the poem portrays the woman here as modern, ready to fight the struggle of patriarchal oppression and independent, contrary to women as “passive” and “voiceless person”.]

Split

You have the bed; then I’ll take the bathtub

It is the last division of the house

We decided that – so no more hubbub

or help: I have the living room to rouse

and sleep my furtive desires of satin

sheets of your bed, and you have the shower

when you don’t have the tub coated with tin

to lay with me like you used to either.

So would this set-up help you realize

that the bed and the bathtub are nothing

but inanimate things? – they don’t suffice

without us in it, bathing and playing.

Because every night we both come undone –

dreams of beds and tubs merging into one.   

`

`

[Note:  I intended to make this poem with a Marxist touch in it: how capitalistic interests such as money and goods (bathtub, bedroom) over socialist interest such as justice and morality (the idea of marriage) meet.  The base can represent the economic goods such as bedroom and bathtub and the superstructure model can take the idea/philosophy of marriage and divorce in the poem.  It reveals who is dominant, and oppressed.]

Un-ended

As students of creative writing we have been told that

the beginning of your story or fiction should be striking

to be able to capture your reader’s attention.  I think

it also goes the same with the ending.   

It should be able to inculcate the ideas and the new insights

successfully to the minds of the readers, so that

the ending renders the insight whole and absolute. 

The ending should be prominent enough, it should give

the readers the writer’s last impression.   

The ending is the   

 Note: How did I incorporate my idea of structuralism here? I kept on talking that the ending should give a lasting impression, so that’s how the meaning of the text is constructed and understood – with its structure, it’s not completed, and with this, the new structure gives new impression to the readers.