By: Iris P. Concepcion
In a superlative mix of the Edgar Allan Poe-ish twist of the off-kilt macabre world, I found myself stuck in a church (I take seriously my church visits: I had been reared this way by both my dead parents) to attend a necrological service for a revered poet I had written about in this blog.
I was her student in Literature in college but she never knew me. Her name: Ophelia A. Dimalanta.
I had ostensibly missed her service attended by real "poets" the night before and instead caught the day after affair with members of the academe.
I wonder how the poet, with her frank and erotic word domains, would assess the people around. There were words of apology, of word celebrations, of poetry. I knew the names of some speakers. It was later a literary eureka realization though.
In a church filled with hundreds, people are actually magnified via persona mixes: my favorite authors assumed several faces draped in bodies of people familiar to me. Neil Gaiman (who I suspect would have been a protege of the revered poet had he been Filipino) would have written, pronto, a novel of the supernatural kind in this live ouvre of the bewitched.
I think I saw the person in the casket viewing her own remains.
That is the convoluted, nickly, brilliant but cryptic foray into my real friends' lives.
One sang: he was not a tenor alright but how can you miss his confessional backdrop: the appeal to the sensible for singing the tunes of the times. And I too cried a tear for this sacrifice. They were apologizing for the deeds committed by those who are too proud to accept that their transgressions had severely crippled creative spirits. Their greed is a given; their compunction to commit it, a big no. It would have been a path taken by the poet herself, this smirk to all that mediocrity.
I am a believer humanity and of free choice and these are the people who had given me an avenue to make sure I go by this path.
I had seen the best of errant creatives; those that only Tim Burton can spruce. I had been accustomed to greatness thus far, brilliancy rare. But when I do, these people make sure I do not get them via commercial mediums: just as I like it.
What I do know is geniuses are not plucked from trees overnight. The wards of this easy path often chime in irregularity in that balanced psyche of creativity. Alcohol is not an excuse for mastery unless you are a Ginsberg or a Joaquin. Then, you have all the bragging rights in the world despite that booze bubbling bubbles in the head. And yes, they can be better and that is why the eulogy speakers are around: to improve the substandard box-office hits into best productions as what that lady in the coffin would have demanded herself.
It is a hand helping, even when uncalled for. It shall continue to reach out until you give something seminal and innovative to a country that you had bled dry of its impressive originality, sapped its creative vibe via myopic visions and late night karaoke singing. It is a wide play for collaborations. You need not travel to be inspired for this.
Beware though: these people only want perfection. When avenues are not made available, they shall create one. They wouldn't irk, annoy nor push to find their own, better, niche.
Geniuses are products of the pavements and unselfish nurturing (or the absence thereof). The shallow coercions do not count in their growth. That is the reason why you see their products as people possessing with unwavering strength: they had bettered my creative curls without hatred for the world that I am living in.
Cowards hurl demeaning words when trapped: real men create and they do create big, masterful, almost perfect renditions of the craft.
Do meet these lady poet's wards: a mere second with them is a lifetime of experience.
And she, as truthful as the swishing wind, might have smirked at the little spaceships of light surrounding her resting house.
I wondered if she had seen little aliens inside them and allowed them to, well, f*ck.