It is combo de numero
that gives him luck,
one final hit with the jackpot
to build a dream church
for the poor. He promises
this to his gods, his friends,
poor poets and sincere pretenders,
but dear friends who understand
the urgency of his need to imagine
what is it to have enough of ironies
to hope even if famine becomes
the language of the broken soul.
Some of his friends,
of course, do not understand
the parallel vision of his wish:
what on this unhappy earth will put
two and two meanings together
such that this writer of verses
would need the matter for
that is not what verses reveal
that is not what tropes unconceal?
So: each day he goes, his gait confident,
to a superlotto store by the S-malls,
make small talks with the smiling clerk
and buys himself one, just one
freaking number combination that will,
he hopes it will, give him some hope
the break to break free at last
from all these that make him work
endlessly still and forget how poems
are supposed to decipher
the mysteries of a lucky pick
the numbers in a combination
in the quick.
A Solver Agcaoili
Diliman, QC/Jan 4, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment