The Poet is Persona Non Grata

The poet is persona non grata.

And he should be.

You see: a poet of our people

is not of this earth

not of a nobody's unthinking friend

or amorous liking or willing slave

not someone who flies

akimbo to the prosaic vision

or the on-the-bargain sale wishes

of writers of cheap speech that will soon

be forgotten like fresh flowers

that are only good for the elect

as long as the public show lasts

but never for the masses who want

to hear the song of freedom

when the pretenders stage a pop show

instead of writing what red protest is

instead of writing what immaculate revolution

gives birth to in swirling images of color

that in the road to life a poem emancipates

like robust sticks to chop off

the excesses of despotic discourse

in them are vague sounds that make you forget

the lonely crusades of poets rebelling

to plumb what is in the abyss

of our Ilokano writers' perennial grief.

Why would he repeat, this persona

non grata of a poet, mindlessly parrot

the same flattery for pretending honorable men

and women whose deeds will go with them

in their adulterous, sinking, shallow grave?

Why would he recite polygamous accolades

for those who seek honor and temptation

when honor is for those who keep

the truth of word, the integrity

of language, the peace of sentences

that tells us what life is

what liberating poetry

is for the work we do

to free our word from dictators

and those whose wretchedness

is learned by dancing the curracha

with the rest of pretenders

and dancing with everyone else

including robbers and thieves of greatness

when temptation is for those

who know where the good in art begins

and evil in life ends?

He accepts: I am persona non grata

as I am of another earth,

another geography of another poetics

the geography of our people's pains

the geography of our collective sadnesses:

these are what I write about

not the honor you so desire

that honor I truly cannot give.

I am persona non grata, he says,

this poet, who in his sleep,

dreams of freedom for all the oppressed

even as he dreams that he is oppressed.

No, he says, give me back my language.

No, he says, give me back my poem.

No, he says, give me back what justice

is in the arc of our public histories,

you who have come to defame,

you who have the temerity to call it quits

with truth and beauty and morality

of our deeds.

And so, he remains the persona

non grata of his people, in the margins

of the memory of those who are drunk

with the nouveau wine of self-deceit.

A Solver Agcaoili

Manoa/Nov 26, 2009

THANKSGIVING DAY