Sangre Immaculada

Blood immaculate.
As if our eyes do not know color
In war as in peace, if at all there is.
Today the arguments for rumor-mongering
Are different. Jail is jail time as in downtime
So you can write about PTSD, this sickness
Of warrior and soldiers in the name of freedom
And say a quick hello and goodbye
To red ants that go come give you company
In your solitary confinement minus the sun
As in the revolutionary Monico Atienza
Many years before he died.

Sangre immaculada,
And this is blood sacrifice
And we offer everything in rushed oblation
Kind words, rare wisdom, joyous wit.
But not our fellowmen's blood, blue in the fashion
Of the monarchs in Manila and Marikna
Where only those of the same bloodline
Rule, now and forever more.
As if the red blood of vampires matter much, really.
Who cares about colors when money is tight
And your wage is not enough to pay
A night of boundless love?
Sangre immaculada, dios mio, as if
In this film you watch, this Blood of My Brother,
All about America going to war, or Iraq not knowing
What to do with its own blood on cement floors
And walls and mosques and religion.
And those arms going akimbo, as if in a dance
Like coffins going to waste on graves
Of stone, away from the earth
That gave the dead life and lust.
We think of wine here, this Christmas night,
Red and sparkling, and you know
You can never be drunk.
Like a Canon camera work, your mind's
Eyes pan: excess of noche buena meal
For those in the Forbes, the nothingness
On the tables of the poor in whose name
The priests and their churches rejoice.

We can never go wrong with this sangre
Immaculada if we talked about our own people's
Sad sad songs, in mangers or in mansions
In reality as in illusions, in the homeland
Or in the stretches of our springing hopes.

A Solver Agcaoili
Hon, HI
Dec 24/07