He held his red canvas bag and swung it across his slender shoulder on the right and bolted like a Dalmatian found a good bone. Reaching the metal handle of the glass door, he strode in a haughty catwalk style. His jaguar stilettos hammered the concrete floor in a resonating sound at every even step he made. Random students in all-white, tucked uniform herded together at the Student Lounge glanced at him as if scrutinizing his stature. He is tall and lean, his hair almost gray, his lashes flutter and his voice shrills. He gazed at the uniformed students sternly.
I rushed to the glass door and called for him before he could cross the pavement to the Techno building. “Kling, come back. Hurry!” he pivoted gracefully and went back, gliding like a punk on his skateboard.
“Imbierna! I have a class at 3:00, it’s a quarter left. You’re keeping me late, you faggot!” he exclaimed. He’s always full of bravado and conceit when he speaks. Sometimes I take time to question myself how much backbone does this guy hold to produce such a scornful voice. He looks so different, almost unpleasant but he behaves like he’s on a platform and I on the ground floor.
I met him last month when I joined the University Student Council. He’s from the legislative and I’m from the executive. Though I’ve been seeing him around since last semester, it never occurred to me that we can be this close like we are now. Those times I treated him like a grotesque thing to behold. His skin looks like that of a long-tailed reptile – coarse and oddly white-spotted. For some time I thought he’s a nauseous thing to stand close by. But recently, my treatment of him has become warmer and more civil. I learned that his skin imperfection is a disease – not a communicable so it’s safe to allow my skin brushes his. He suffered a huge deal of sarcasm and humiliation growing up but it didn’t get the better of him. Instead he stood still and proud, intimidating the boneheads who ridiculed him.
“It’s just a matter of bravery and contempt,” he said once “if you don’t correct them when they upset you, they’ll never learn to treat you with respect.” True that. Sometimes you have to be brave even if it’s just pretended courage if that requires people to treat you their equal. The preamble did not speak of a humane society with savage people living on it. Life is not fair outside but you have to fend it off. Every time I look at Klein I think about strange things; strange but prevailing things. His guts hid his imperfections. It’s amazing how he did even that.
I remember him telling me about his embarrassing tete-a-tete with a college dean last year. “You are so dumb!” She cursed him. That’s what he prized after creating a fiasco as a facilitator in a Quiz Bee during the Intrams. He was shrinking like a balloon belching all its air. I can’t tell whether he told me the real thing that happened between them or not. But during that moment, I lost one strand of respect from the ex-dean. Never before have I thought such a high paid teacher brand a student as dumb. Kling’s condition already decimates his confidence and telling him he’s dumb would crush even more whatever amount of hope he had all his life. She is awful and I’m serious about that conviction. I have my own share of embarrassment once when I consulted her about my overlapping class schedules. She hasn’t driven me bonkers when she told me I’m a nuisance. I didn’t despise her for that but she scared the heck out of me. Klein must have felt the same terror.
“I gotta go. I’ll be back in a bit though. Bye girl,” he uttered. His eyes darted across the glass sliding window. He left the office; his stilettos hammered the concrete floor and echoed his steps outside the half-closed glass door.
He is oddly-looking. He flutters pulses when he talks. Certainly, he’s one hell of a daring guy.
Richard Cory: My Analysis
RICHARD CORY
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich – yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
“Richard Cory” is a very straightforward poem, almost literal. The three stanzas give the description of Richard Cory’s physical appearance, fame and wealth and the fourth stanza stuns the reader when Cory took his own life. The poem is very simple but despite the simplicity of its form, the mystery in Cory’s act of suicide shocks the readers.
Precisely, the poem speaks a lot about humanity and the basic and elemental things in the society. It tells us that the gleaming chimera projected in appearance by wealth and fame does not always bring permanent happiness because at times it leads us into isolation and emptiness.
The mystery in the poem reflects on the question, “Why did Richard Cory whom the townspeople thought possesses everything kill himself?”
The first line in the first stanza signifies the conflict that holds throughout the poem. The word downtown suggests of a busy place, probably the center of business where the working people stay. While Cory goes downtown, it is understood that he may come from the uptown – the place where the well-off people reside. For example, if Alabang is the downtown of Muntinlupa, Ayala Alabang is the uptown region. The second line suggests that the persona in the poem belongs to the group of people on the pavement in which case the “pavement” implies a lower class.
The third and fourth line describes Richard Cory’s physical appearance. Again, the two lines suggest the difference between the wealthy and the poor. The word “gentleman” is associated to the person who belongs to a higher socio-economic class. There’s quite a big difference in the word “gentleman” than simply a “man.” The latter signifies the common people.
In the second stanza the persona in the poem already wants to stress out that although Richard Cory is richer and better looking, he behaves like a regular guy. He was not haughty and arrogant. The line “he was always human when he talked” suggests that Cory is really a nice guy. He seemed very friendly and down-to-earth like the common folk in the town. The only difference is that Cory is a lot good looking. But whatever effort Cory tries to exert in becoming easygoing and sociable, he still make the common folks nervous when he speak to them. However, it is quite clear that the persona is a little obsessed with Cory’s personality and physical appearance as strongly suggested by the phrase “he glittered when he walked.”
While the previous stanzas plainly describe Cory’s behavior and appearance, this stanza clearly emphasizes about Cory’s wealth. The persona overstates Cory’s wealth as suggested by the phrase “richer than a king.” It is understood that a king is the richest man in his kingdom but in Cory’s case, he’s richer than any king. Therefore this line gives a clear example of hyperbole. The second line implies that Cory is educated in every style or in the modern notion, a professional in every respect.
The third and fourth lines now imply the assumptions and conclusions of the speaker who is apparently a part of the common folks as suggested by the pronoun “we.” They assume that Cory is a paragon blessed with good looks, fame and wealth – the kind of things they strive for. So they wish they were like Richard Cory.
In the first line of the last stanza, the speaker once more speaks of their poor social status as implied by the phrase “so on we worked.” However, the word “light” suggests of the spiritual guidance or a blessing from heaven. This suggests that the common folks as represented by the “we” are believers.
The second line, again, draws the distinction between the two socio-economic classes mentioned in the poem: the lower class and the elite. While the “meat” suggests the food of the wealthy, “bread” represents the food of the working class.
Then there comes the concluding lines which startle the reader. The caesura in the third line places an important pause that prepares an ironic ending to the reader. The fact that it was a “calm” summer night signifies that the suicide wasn’t something that was done in the spur of the moment but rather it was planned and rationally decided.
The Golf Links: My Analysis
A brief poem of a single sentence but too powerful that it speaks a lot of things. The first line mentions the golf links which suggests the luxurious game thus symbolizes wealth. The second line mentions of the mill which may suggest the rice mill that can symbolize food as basic necessity. The first two lines draw the distinction between the two socio-economic classes: the rich and the poor.
The last two lines is an example of irony: the laboring children and the men at play. Shouldn’t it be the men working and the children playing? It speaks of child labor, of course, and injustice. While children work in the mill for food, the lazy and wealthy men are in the golf links playing the game of luxury.
This poem is talking about child labor, injustice and the gap between the rich and the poor.
The Golf Links: Sarah N. Cleghorn
The golf links lie
So near the mill
That each passing day
The laboring children
Can watch the men at play.
Kangkong from the Mud Pool
I sat on an empty seat facing the small table on a corner near the curtained entrance to the pantry. I twitched the red and white checkered table-cloth as I waited for my order to be served. I examined the patrons sitting across the tables. There was a group of uniformed women chattering against the cold bottles of Coke and soiled china plates. One woman with a pony tailed hair was relishing the smoke she drew from her Marlboro lights. Another woman with a thick lipstick was biting the edge of the straw from her bottled soft drink. The bold SOLTEX print at the back of their green uniforms suggests that they are production workers in the nearby CAMINO Slippers factory. I shifted my eyes to the busy people and the honking cars and jeepneys outside the carinderia. It’s ten on the wall clock and the sun rose on top of the huge HSBC building in the Cyberzone at the west.
My order arrived at exactly ten minutes after a successful haggling with the Mona Lisa resembling counter lady who seemed so strained of persistence by the stingy customers.. As soon as the bowl of dish was set on my table, I smelled the brackish reek of shrimp paste on the sautéed water spinach and frowned at the stench of garlic, vinegar and soy sauce. My stomach felt scathed. I remembered I didn’t eat anything for supper last night except for a two hundred and thirty-seven millilitres of Pepsi. I devoured the cheap meal with a satisfying three cups of NFA rice cooked with pandan leaves without minding the people who might’ve been aware of my indolence for table etiquette. My spoon and fork clanked with the china plate creating a disturbing noise against the chattering voices and roaring jeepneys. I ignored how briny or bland the food was; all I thought of that moment was to satisfy my craving for sustenance.
I swallowed up everything on the china plate in just five minutes. I grabbed an empty water-glass from the tray behind the Coca Cola fridge and went to the nearby drinking fountain. I turned the knob of its faucet in a clockwise motion. A sudden thin push of cold water slowly filled my glass. Its coldness produced a sharp sting upon my gripping fingers that my throat felt dry in an instant. I engulfed a glassful and yearned for another. Suddenly, my stomach tightened. A limp of air clogged somewhere between my throat and esophagus. Without restrain, I let out a loud burp. It was catharsis. I went back to my seat and played the toothpick with my teeth.
I was about to leave when I felt a wrenching pain on my loins. I understood I ate a hefty meal so I had to dispose of some wastes. I rushed to the comfort room behind the pantry and opened the cubicle that hides the toilet bowl. I inhaled the acridness of Muriatic Acid from the tiled floor. A sudden prick of coldness wrapped my abdomen. There were perspiration on my forehead, on my noise and everywhere on my face. My palms were sweating and my stomach shivered in turbulence. My taste buds savored a faint taste of gastric acid coming from my stomach. Before I could hold it back, a rush of putrid fluid with bits of undigested food came out of my mouth flowing at once to the toilet bowl. I saw the overcooked leaves of water spinach still intact with its stems floating on the stagnant water. The regurgitated food appeared blurry and dim to my eyes. A cool wind struck my head painfully like a thick foliage and all of a sudden everything went dark.
Kitchen Twaddle
I tore the Business Gazette cover leaf and fanned the embers in the coal stove. The motion disturbed the subtle ashes, scared it away like a swarm of flies whipped by a stiff twig. I added cold coals in the stove and set the rice pot on it. Then I went on a corner of the kitchen and sat on a wood bench beside the kitchen table. I watched the boys intently doing a rough workout with dumbbells. I could see the moist of perspiration running down against their brown skin towards their half naked bodies. It gave me a grave feeling of nausea looking at their bodies wetted by sweat. I couldn’t bear the sight of them so I stood up and approached the stove again to examine the ashes interspersed among the cold coals and crumpled papers.
Jake stirred the noodles in his casserole with a large and elongated spoon, resisting the hot water vapor ascending from the boiling water. In our boarding house or maybe even in other boarding houses here, Lucky Me Pancit Canton is the staple food of the boarding students. You won’t find a room here without seeing a heap of pancit canton in the cupboards. You might also find the bold cans of tuna, corned beef, sardines and beef loaf but pancit canton is the dominant food supply. Apparently, it is because it’s affordable, quick and easy to prepare. I grinned at Jake as he wipes out the moist on his forehead – a mixture of water vapors, perspiration and dead skin cells. I turned halfway around and intended to sit back on the wood bench at a corner when a boy – his name I didn’t care to know – approached me with a handled rectangular box.
“Mayor, do you know cheese?” asked the boy with excitement on his face.
“What? Is that a food?” I replied with intentional sarcasm.
“Hahaha! Are you deaf? Can’t you see I’m holding a cheeseboard?” the boy asked irately.
It took me a moment to decide whether he meant that I’m deaf because I didn’t hear him say cheese or I’m blind because I didn’t see him carrying a cheeseboard.
“Silly boy! You mean to say, chess?” I retort with an evil grin rather showing a sneering response.
“Whatever you call it! Do you know how to play this game?” he asked again with a bit of indignation in his voice.
“I dunno… Sorry.” I answered bashfully.
He twitched his mouth showing an evident implication of frustration. He went to the rooms and looked for a willing playmate. I shook my head and went back to the stove. I lifted the cover of the rice pot to check the temperature of the water. It’s warm and there were tiny bubbles moving in random direction. I returned the cover and then looked at Jake with an expressionless face. He moved his head towards me and threw his arm around my shoulder.
“You are so mean.” he whispered.
I chuckled upon hearing the message because his breath created a ticklish feeling in my ear and butterflies in my stomach. I removed his arm from my shoulder and pinched him on his bare back as I let out a shrill giggle.
I cherish those moments – it happened just an hour ago – and while writing this journal entry, I am wearing a big smile on my face.
