English, World, Filipino, Asian American, Philippines, Poetry, Collection, Languages, José García Villa

#136 [The, hands, on, the, piano, are, armless.] by José García Villa

By T.

11 October 2005

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#136 [The, hands, on, the, piano, are, armless.]
José García Villa

The, hands, on, the, piano, are, armless.

No, one, is, at, the, piano.
The, hands, begin, and, end, there.

There, no-one’s, hands, are, there:
Crystal, and, clear, upon, the, keys.
Playing, what, they, play.

Playing, what, they, are.
Playing, the, sound, of, Identity.

Yet, how, absurd, how, absurd, how, absurd!

MARGINALIA

1.
Some mornings I feel like I’m moving through the world without a body. Just gestures. Just habit.

2.
I wonder if my life takes on the shape of a hand repeating itself over the keys. Day after day after day.

3.
What does it mean to play something when no one’s listening? To create without an audience, without ownership, without arms? Maybe that’s the truest kind of making. Maybe it’s the loneliest.

4.
How absurd, how absurd, how absurd—

5.
The hands keep playing anyway.

KEEP READING

SHARED WITH GRATITUDE

This poem appeared in The Anchored Angel: The Writings of José García Villa by José García Villa, published by Kaya Press, 1999. (Available on: Amazon • Bookshop)

DESCRIPTION

“This republication of Villa’s writings both recovers and rediscovers the work of this fierce iconoclast for a new generation. Oscar V. Campomanes of the University of California writes, “To say of José García Villa that he made English ‘strange’ to native English speakers—as Jean Paul Sarte once said about Frantz Fanon and French—is no extravagant claim…Villa hungrily embraced colonial culture even as, like Fanon, Villa sought to transform its impositions into highly novel, even unrecognizable, verbal artifacts and art forms. This volume is bound to dramatically recast our considerations of American modenism, Asian and Filipino American literary history, and the rise of ‘englishes’ in colonial and postcolonial studies. Anyone interested in the least-understood cultural underside of the U.S. colonization of the Philippines or in the colonial aspect of American cultural assimilationism would do well to read and enjoy this book.”” (Source)

ABOUT JOSé GARCíA VILLA

José García Villa was born in Manila in 1908. He attended the University of the Philippines. He won a short story contest through the Philippines Free Press and used the prize money to travel to the United States, where he studied at the University of New Mexico. In 1933 his Footnote to Youth: Tales of the Philippines and Others (Charles Scribner’s Sons) became the first book of fiction by a Filipino author published by a major United States-based press. In 1973 he was named a… (more)