Poemas Politicas-2012-01

I, Mohamed


"Mohamed suffered a lot. He worked hard. But when he set fire to himself, it wasn't about his scales being confiscated. It was about his dignity." —Mannoubia Bouazizi, mother of Mohamed, Tunisia, in K Andersen, Time, Dec 14, 2011


I, Mohamed, am about
to do what is right.
I am going to set fire
to myself, and now,
and extinguish what I can
from my soul. This is Tunisia,
and its moon and sun
were my life, or what
passes for one. Its air
was my breath, its stars
my guiding light.

I walked the streets,
peddled what strength
can be vended from door to hope,
from the gawking eyes
of those who can manage
to give out what mercies
can be given each day.

The cart was my life,
its rusty wheels
in slow motion leading me
to a dream of food for mother,
an uncle who lost the courage
to go on in life for another day,
siblings desiring to dream
like the Pharaoh’s or sphinx’s
in every act of pushing
that leads to a ritual riddle
of want and more
while those who have the riffle
the strength of their voice
the baton to whip out what
honor has left of our sinews
beat us up to send the message
that we are not what we are.
I am a child of these claims
to life and faith,
and here I am, an orphan
of many promises
even as I look for no one
who has done before,
not in these streets,
not in this homeland
of my forefathers. It is this
fire that will bring out the gold
from this mulct of our lives,
and we will have pride,
on the table as in our prayer,
in our shrines, mosques, temples
as in our search for truth
we can feed on and on,
the good that comes out
of our death, given in freedom,
given for freedom.

Honolulu/
Dec 15, 2011

Wayaway, Maysa nga Araraw

Sika ti pul-oy manipud iti taaw,
Wayaway, angin-daya, mangiparparabur
Elemento a mamagtignay kaniak. Ita ket
Ti panagbettak ti bannawag
Ket daytoy a tagainep tinagikukuanak
Idinto ta addaka nga agwaywayas,
Aprosam ti kalachuchi,
Bulong nga adda iti tawak iti daytoy
A kutimermer iti panawen ti lam-ek.

Kadagiti kabambantayan ti Makakilo,
Idiaykan ita, agkumkumpas iti aweng
Dagiti kumaripas a biag, adda kadagiti lugan
Tapno mangibienes iti oras
Kadagiti dadakkel a tattao iti Waikiki. Daytoy
A ritual ket tapno makaidasar
Iti makan iti lamisaan, ket daytoy ket madagdagullit
Kas iti panangpanawpanawmo kaniak.

Kumutukot ti lammin kadagiti tultulang
Ti baniaga a kas kaniak,
Gapu ti iyaalusiisko a mangiyebkas
Iti daytoy a kararag iti maminsan pay
Iti sulinek nga altar ti aldawko:
Dinak tallikudan angin, anges
Ere, pul-oy. Agtalinaedka iti nabaybayag
Ket iyarasaasmo kaniak ti anag
Ti maysa a bigat iti Honolulu
Ken ti wagas iti seremonia
Ti panangselebrar iti sao
A maisurat iti daytoy a pagina, a daytoy
Ket maipapan kadagiti pakarigatanmi.

Ita nga aldaw, isayangkatmi manen
Ti maysa a pannakigasanggasat
Tapno matimudmi ti bukodmi a timek.

Baliksenmi iti nangatngato a timbre,
Nalawlawag itan. Masapul a mangngeganmi
Ti isawangmi. Kas iti panagbettak ti agsapa,
Makitami a sumangbay
Ket iti di agbayag ket ti agmatuon
Nga agbalin nga adu a sagrado nga oras
Kadagiti biagmi nga agbalbaligawgaw.

Wayaway, pul-oy-daya, agbalinka koma
Nga Amian, ti pul-oy-amianan, ket punuem
Dagiti pusomi. Ayabam met ti Abagat, ibagam
Nga agindeg kadagiti nabartek a rabiimi,
Ikkannakami iti pannakausaw,
Sipupuot kadagiti duayya ti Pangagdan,
Tapno sadiay, iti ilelennek ti init,
Umay kadakami ti pannakapnek
Iti darepdep ti ballailo a gapu
Ti panagbayanggudaw ditoy.

Translated from the English original/
Honolulu, HI/ Dec 26, 2011

Budubudo iti Dakulap

Ita a Paskua ket daytoy ti pasamak:
Ti panagbudubudo ti dakulap.

Kas iti aginaldaw a Paskua dagiti pulitiko
Pulis, dagiti agpulpulpog iti aso

Ken bantay. Isu nga ita ket daytoy:
Ti layus a kasta unay a mangigibus

Iti anges ti amin a nabiag.
Saan nga umuna daytoy a pasamak

Iti Cagayan de Oro, ken saanto a
Maudi a rason ti dung-aw.

Versikulo a madagdagullit daytoy
Ta kanayon a nakaungap

Dagiti agbudubudo a dakulap
Dagiti agtagtagainep a pulitiko,

Agar-arapaap kadagiti barato
Pasuksok, pakimkim, aminen

A pangnochebuena, rabii man
Wenno aldaw, panaglamut a din

Sa ketdi agleppas iti sinam-it
No di ket iti adu pay nga am-amangaw.

Litania ketdi dagiti sainnek
Ngem saan a pulos ti babawi

Ta kasano nga agnakem dagiti anak-ti-diakes
No iti didigra ti danum ket addada

Kadagiti kastilio a fuerte
A kinabite dagiti adu a panagbudubudo

Ti dakulap iti bannawag ken agpatnag.

Hon, HI/ Dec 26, 2011

Kagun

Sabali nga ulimek daytoy.
Adda kadagiti sulinek
Dagiti kuadrado a balikas
Ti babai a mangiyaw-awan.
Isuna ti pader, ken ti sabali,
Babai kas lalaki dagiti sao
Nga iti silo ket pangal
Tapno iti panagtalappuagaw
Ket ti galut kadagiti ramay
Dila, saka, santo ti puso.

Kadakami a saksi kadagiti
Adu a patibong, kas iti silo
Nga iti warnakan ti puli
Ket matuontuon, adda bendision
Dagiti ulimek a nabunniagan
Iti takrot, panurdurog, lamlammiong:
Sika iti teltelko, siak iti teltelmo
Tapno iti awan patingga a kinnudkod
Ket ti awanan ressat met a
Panag-urisay baboy:
Urisay, baboy, urisay, baboy
Iti kakaisuna a ringgor
Dagiti mayat a maturturtor.

Madunggiaran dagiti rabii
Kas ti sipnget nga iti sennek
Ket ti oras nga agbalinsuek
Tapno ti kannag ket iti patibong
Ti babai nga agrennek.

Urisay, baboy,
Urisay, baboy:

Kagun daytoy
Ti daniw ni Ilokano a maibarbarayuboy.


Tacloban City/
Julio 14

Ukkuag

Samira dagiti oras.

Awan panawen a pinerdim
Tapno agperdika iti panawen
A koma ket nailatang para kadakami
A sangsangailim.


Ipatom a tagikukuam dagiti pitik
Ti aldaw ngem adda aldaw
Iti kada pitik ti nakem a sudakem.

Pagayam, kunam kaniak.

Ngem pagayammo a dadaelem
Tapno ti korona nga iputongmo
Iti ulom ket kukuam laeng, sika
Nga iti agkabsat a darikmat

Ket lansetaka iti kanito
Ti maat-atangan a mangyaw-awan.

Sika dayta, babai iti ukkuag.

Sika ti kasingin ti kumaw

Ti agabalbalay iti mannibrong
Tapno iti kada pammutbuteng
Ket ti agraraay a panagkumbawami

Kenka, babai nga agindadaniw
Iti verso nga Ilokano a verso a naiyaw-awan.

Dua a tawen ken adu a sennaay.

Dua a tawen ken adu pay a pannakapaay.

Dua a tawen ken adu a panangmulit.

Dua a tawen ken adu a puggaak.

Dua a tawen ken ti maniobram
Iti pudno tapno ti falso ket matagikuam.

Awan bagnos kadagiti rabii
Nga iti sidir ti rikna ket ti manglimlimo

A leddaang. Kukuak daytoy, naminribu
A tinagikuak.

Nagmanto dagiti bannawag a maipasngay
Iti kada bigat dagiti naunday nga aldaw.

Sika ti adda kadagiti panes a dagdagullitek
A karkaragan iti orasion ti ballatek

Tapno dagiti rurog dagiti ukkormo
Ket iti tanemda nga agbanag.

Ditoy, iti pagpumponan dagiti ulpit,

Ditoy ti ukkuag ti baro nga aldaw.

Ita ti rugi ti panangsamira
Kenka ti impaidammo nga ayat.


Julio 12, 2011/
Marikina

Bong Dies Alone Away From Home

From a call this early morning, June 29, 2011, a migrant dies alone of heart attack at his rented place somewhere in the West Coast. He was a spouse's classmate years back, and he will come home, in a coffin or in an urn, either way, as the law and money permit. This is a poem to honor his life, and to honor his sacrifice. Rest in peace, co-pilgrim in the United States of America, and in life. Go in peace.



Your death is familiar.

It is every person of this homeland
Trying to make sense of what exile
Can bring to those wishing
To make amends with what
We all can change. We make

Vagabonds of ourselves,
Our deep and dark desires to
To witness what can be seen
From other places, like
Winter giving in to spring

With the all-color flowers,
Wild and in technicolor abandon
Carpeting the hills and mountains
Of our dreams to climb life's peaks
To reach the pinnacle we have not

Been too and seeing from there
What can be seen from the heights
What is deprived of us from below.
We walk through the same path,
Peregrine people that we are

Making sense of this non-sense
That we do to eke out a life
Or what passes for one, in places
We do not know but we dare go.
You died alone with your dream

And this makes us grieve for you
Even as we grieve for ourselves.
We inherited a land that pushes us
To other shores, driving us crazy
To go find the stump of the rainbow,

Like this tree that grows dollars
On twigs, stems, and trunks
As if all we do is pick the monies
Dump these into our knapsack and send
Them all to our home and country.

What could have been the last hours
Of your mortal life? Did you cry for
Help one last time? Did you remember
The names of your children and the sad
Smile of your awaiting wife?

You are a memory now, and if you were
Ilokano, you could have become
An atang, the food offering we give
To all the dead we still remember
To all the dead we have begun to forget.

What were the streets of exile looked like
The lonely paths you walked on and on
To look for that one fat chance of a job
You could never get? To hide, and hide,
And hide, in a land you are not from

Is one story without any beginning.
But is a story that does not last,
As it ends in dying by your lonesome
Like you did to us, dying on us,
And dying without telling us

What is it to live alone and away
And from the far reaches of where you have gone,
Tell us what is it to have a holiday with your
Blankets covering your body to forget
The meaning of laughter and fun.

Go now, go in the peace of life.
Go where dreams come into fruition
Where life is complete, and the hiding
Becomes temporary as in our fight to run,
Run where salvation finally is ours.


Marikina/
June 29, 2011

Panic Sets In

Panic sets in,
panic sets out
to look for you.

You welcome
the meaning of the oath you take,
this new one you rehearsed before
the cold morning wakes up Waikiki.

It is death staring you in the face.

The guns, deadly and
coming from the States,
are turned against life,
and the scene is somber,
like the dark taking its place
as you walk down Farrington
to build your road.

It is the deadly dollars
that free you, the mantra is all over,
like a piped-in announcement
for every journeyman everywhere.

It is our dollars that in all time
will screw you. Bullets, and more,
this is one language
they know. Rulers and emperors,
they are brothers,
and together they plan
how to commando
the best means to murder
our desire to dream
our dream
of food and freedom,
this last one breaking
our back.

You look for these dreams
in their gossamer form.

You see them in paid banquets,
at fifty dollars a night the equivalent
of a day of backbreaking labor,
the Dionysian dinner
you go to out of ritual and rite.


You have prosperity laid out
on your long tables.
The accents are there:
a centerpiece of
a white orchid, living and blooming,
springs forth from a mantelpiece
of Hawaiian hibiscus and plumeria,
the colors coming alive from death,
and the concerted moves
of uniformed servers
giving you black coffee
or hot tea, green or jasmine,
the taste you have acquired
to inaugurate your new self.

You live in a new world
now you have wanted
to come into. Here
democracy has been defined,
and will always be, between
those who can and
those who cannot
come to celebrate
what life, abundant and filled
with promises, can offer you.

The contradictions, countless
as your immigrant blunders,
are there, the same ones
you knew, the same ones
you do not know.

It is everywhere,
like Waipahu wind, traitor
and friend, that,
in the loneliness of exile
you can never come into.

To be here and not here,
to be there and not there:
this is one question you will
have to respond to all
through your days.

In the meantime, you count
the years of longing
to be somewhere
between life and living.

It is panic setting in,
and you will have to swear
you will need to be patient
like the morning sun making a
peek-a-boo from
the Diamond Head
each wintry morning.


Waiapahu
May 15, 2011

Exile, 3

We do not have to leave to live,
The son, in his insolence, says,
His words a knife lodged in my heart.

I have come back to run away seven thousand miles
More from my shadow, each sunset I see
A promise of morning the colors of which
I do not know.

I have become blind to all
The colors of misery.

I have become
Unhearing to all the sounds of pain
In my country.

Never mind the people
Who stretch their hands in each
Corner of earth they know, the dirt
Of the streets in their smiles, perfunctory
And rehearsed as tears are natural
To their sunken eyes.

I can live here, and stay afloat,
Says the insolent son who had come
From the Mendiola with his banners
In times past when a woman housesat there
To count what mysteries she could find
Her prayer beads gleaming in the candle light
Even as she repaired her broken heart.

He fought her, this insolent son,
And now he gives me the same stance,
Arguing from the falsity of his youth
That to stay put in one's homeland
Is the glorious sacrifice of his kind.

He taught college one time,
Led young people like him dream
Of reason and of the world.

Now he commands calls, gets the beating
From somewhere with their English tongue,
He with his acquired Texas drawl, them with their
Arrogance devoid of wit and grammar.

What shall I do there? he asks,
And I look at the sun after the deluge
These two days past.

What shall I do there?

What shall we do here?

June 26/11
Marikina

Exile, 2

For Jeffrey Acido, in response to his accusation that I do not write poems anymore


Yours is a question I have asked myself
again and again. I do not write poems anymore.
Not the kind that kills the wasp stinging
what conscience is left in my grieving heart.
I have come to the end of the road,
And my identification card has been replaced
With something else I could not have wanted
If given one fat chance to choose between
Being a traitor and a holy man. Even words
are not true to us, you see, even as we
Are not true to our words. The lie is somewhere
Between desire and intent, and the need to watch
The spectacle of what we all have become.
We ran away, and we keep on with the running
Only to come back in the full circle of our
Exilic lives, stories, narrations, depositions
Of bounded covenants we keep to insure
Us of the corner we have got.
In the strange country, our language
Gives us away: it is the Ilokano of our soul,
And the accent, however much we try,
Will reveal the loyalties we have, not a lot,
But include the case of our people,
The case for food and freedom,
And the case to speak of our failures and dream
In the syllables that can only come from our hearts.
There is no abbreviation here, no contraction,
No slang, but the blood of each letter we sound off,
Each combination of vision and want
As concrete as the Ilocos sun rising fast
Streaking through the dense forests
Of our unforgiving mountains that hide
The souls we keep to save our bodies
From becoming an exhibit of terror
One more time. We cannot be history
as yet. We must make history with this exile
That is us. I do not write poems anymore,
Not the kinds that lead to a hundred lies.

June 26/11
Marikina

Exile, 1

You cannot take it back,
This betrayal. It is your
Story now as you queue up
Fall in line with the rest of 'em,
Presenting yourself as someone
Else you are not. The document
In your hand is something new
You have become.
It comes from your years of exile,
Wintery nights of wanting to fly back
To where you should spend
The dark hours of tembling and dread
Until you get to confront your lonely god.
Visitors here, says the immigration
Man who has forgotten to smile,
Who wears sorrow on his face,
A regret you have of your birthland.
You are back into your home country,
The harsh realities of living reminding you
You are home to where you are a stranger.
Visitors here in this line, says he,
This man with the badge of a drunk,
His little power the equivalent of a mound
Where dwarves dwell to recite about
Lost loves, like those part-time Ilokano
Poets who have learned to lie a thousand times
And sleep with whores who write to deceive
Them who cannot figure where symbols
Begin to cheat you of your sense of truth.
Visitors here, he repeats, and you fall in line,
Right where the others you are not are.
You swallow what grief is left
In your heart. You summon the saliva
In your dried mouth, the fluid now sour
To make the swallowing easier,
To make the betrayal complete,
Perhaps on its way to the eternal.
You recite in silence the mantra
You can make out of fuzzy words,
Welcome, welcome home,
Fake foreigner, sweet stranger,
Homing exile.

June 25/11
Marikina

A Poem Without a Reader

For Ie, for asking that question


The son says, why write poems
No one reads? We are in the middle
Of a storm, its eye some kilometers
Away, unto the eastern part
Of our dreams where we will take root.
One raging wind and the stalk
Of a tree the poet planted years back
Comes to earth, away from the spaces
That do not know borders and land.
I write for myself, he says,
For healing and for naming
My wrath, virulent as virulent
Can be until healing comes.
My homeland has wounded
Me so, and life too, the lacerations
In the mind refusing to let go
Of memories of blood and gore
The roads filled with the tears
Of my people, bodies too,
Lying cold on pavements
Or what passes for home
In shanties animals do not dare go.
Tell me if there is a poem
In all these, the images
Haunting me so.
He has his son's silence,
And the storm comes one more time,
Secretly preying on their words,
Ripping apart what conversation they can have.

June 25, 2011/
Marikina

Night Wakes Up

Night wakes up after the storm.
It is the Falcon, this wind
Coming in to rip what hope
We have in this wretched land
The priest's bible talks about.
Having nine children, like
The nine lives of a cat is all right,
Alright. We have people to send
To shores away, send in the dollars
Back to us, like tornados
Whirling back to define what
Lives in flooded streets we
Can have. We go with the life
Of a promise, political or otherwise.
In the meantime is the threat
Of pandesal rising, in truth
And in fact. The former president
Appears to us in the apparition
Of her lies, and we begin to believe
One more time that prayer is all
We have got. The revolution is none
On the breakfast table even if
After the fact, after the hunger,
This is all we have got.
The night wakes up.
It is morning here, the morning
After the day that unleashed
The wrath of drunken gods,
They in their habit of punishments,
Us in our delight for spectacle
And sacrifice. Lives have been lost
As rivers swell, and we begin
To rebuild dreams demolished
By the long night.

June 25/11
Marikina

Night Sleeps

Night sleeps in his corner of the world.
The hours go by, as the verses in his head
Take turns in looking for their own corners
Of his world. Tonight is not the same
As the other nights of terror and truth.
Some days, just some days, the minutes
Speed up to catch up on him, and in
The betweenness of sleep and song
Is the long wait for home.
At last, home to where the hours
Get tired as the bodies that live
In the entrances of temples he will never own
Like that one church where the Black Christ
Dies to watch him from post-mortem stillness
Like the sirens that have found the way
To stop making warnings to riverbank
Dwellers from his sleepless city where lives
Are subsidized by the people's prayers to absent gods.

June 23/11
Marikina

Nalabaga a Bulan iti Kaltaang

Isu daytoy ti nalabaga a bulan iti kaltaang.
Ti tagainep ket ti ipupusay tapno agbiag nga awan ressat.
Nalabaga, kas iti revolusion iti panagmayana
Kas iti ayup a tinaraken
Biniag manipud kadagiti bagitayo
Kadagiti linabag dagiti daniwtayo
Uray ti tured iti kinaagtutubo.
Agleppasen ti panawen ti kalgaw ditoy
Kas kadagiti rikna iti ili
A dati ket pasetnatayo a kas pul-oy
Ken angin ken lawag. Kasta met kadagiti bagiw.
Ken ti pakasaritaan dagiti eklipse
No kasta a ti pulitika ket tinapaytayo
Ket addatayo ditoy tapno lalo a mabisin
Tapno lalo a mawaw iti laksid
Panangpakalma kadagiti nerviostayo iti kaltaang
Ti nalabaga a bulan nga agsublinto
Kadatayo, ti obituario ti leddaangtayo
Ti resesion dagiti ayat.

Junio 24, 2011/
Marikina

Red Moon at Midnight

It is this red moon at midnight.
The dream is dying to live on and on.
It is red, as is revolution in heat
Like this animal we have reared
Brought to life from our bodies
The lines of our poems too
Even the courage of our youth.
It is past summertime here
With our feelings for a land
We used to be part of as wind
And air and light. Storms too.
And then the story of eclipses
When politics becomes our bread
And we are here to hunger for more
To thirst for more even as we
Calm our nerves at this midnight
Of the red moon that will come back
To us, its obituary of our grief
The recession of our loves.

June 24, 2011/
Marikina

President Forever, My Wish

A child's wish, this, beyond innocence,
a nation's curse, lifetime
and forever the source of our ills:

for her reign to last a minute longer
and last forever, to be president
of murderers, allies in the massacre

of what we are, who could we be,
cheats of the highest caliber,
they who can even lie chanting the lauds

so priests and bishops can hear her
so her god can give her indulgence
so her thieving sons can defend her

tell of her immaculate heart and her novenas
to the Lady of Piat and the black Nazarene
her daily appointment with her small heart.

Never mind that this nation
erred in Error's name
wrongly gave her the mandate to govern

this land without the home, bleeding
as it has always been, ever since,
does not have any need for her lies

one like her, drunk as drunk
she can be with power, as she
has become, with her capacity

for greed while she smiles while she clings
to her prayer beads, dark in their sheen,
strung together by a gold wire

that could have strangled
the neck of those who refuse to die
those who fight to make life

better for this country now bitter
for exiles, men and women who have
to go away to send in their love

from boxes and boxes of sorrows
from memories of remittance receipts
even if all these mean dying a thousand times.

It makes her big, special, important:
huge and large for her swollen sense
of self, her presidency for her allies

like Ilokano writers elsewhere pretending
greatness borne of conjugal anomalies
desires, deceptions, demented claims

to a simile of their empty adulterous lives.
A minute woman, she, this president,
her stature is what compensates

what she cannot do: do, do
the right thing for a people
long in need of living full lives.

She promised a lot of blessings
and she stole what honor
we can have in slaving for others

even as coffins, cold and frozen,
come back to us in increasing number.
Her logic is that of a convent girl:

she knows the prayer's power repeated
over and over and the enchanting capacity
of waltzing with grinning, scheming courtiers.


A Solver Agcaoili
Honolulu/Jan 3, 2009

President Forever, My Wish

A child's wish, this, beyond innocence,
a nation's curse, lifetime
and forever the source of our ills:

for her reign to last a minute longer
and last forever, to be president
of murderers, allies in the massacre

of what we are, who could we be,
cheats of the highest caliber,
they who can even lie saying the matins

so priests and bishops can hear her
so her god can give her indulgence
so her thieving sons can defend her

tell of her immaculate heart and her novenas
to the Lady of Piat and the black Nazarene
her daily appointment with her small heart.

Never mind that this nation
erred in Error's name
wrongly gave her the mandate to govern

this land without the home, bleeding
as it has always been, ever since,
does not have any need for her lies

one like her, drunk as drunk
she can be with power, as she
has become, with her capacity

for greed while she smiles while she clings
to her prayer beads, dark in their sheen,
strung together by a gold wire

that could have strangled
the neck of those who refuse to die
or those who fight to make life

better for this country now bitter
for exiles, men and women who have
to go away to send in their love

from boxes and boxes of sorrows
from memories of remittance receipts
even if all these mean dying a thousand times.

It makes her big, bigger, biggest:
huge and large for her swollen sense
of self, her presidency for her allies

like Ilokanos elsewhere pretending
greatness borne of conjugal anomalies
desires, deceptions, demented claims

to some similes of their empty lives.
A minute woman, she, this president,
her stature is what compensates

what she cannot do: do, do
the right thing for a people
long in need of living human lives.

She promised a lot of blessings
and she stole what honor
we can have in slaving for others

even as coffins, cold and frozen,
come back to us in increasing number.
Her logic is that of a convent girl:

she knows the power of the novena
and the enchanting capacity
of waltzing with cheating soldiers.


A Solver Agcaoili
Honolulu/Jan 3, 2009

Sammukol ti Puso ti Kamalala

Sammukol ti puso ti kamalala

kaarngi daytoy ti daniw

a gumawgawawa iti apros ti piman

panagbirbirok iti panagagawa

iti maamitan nga ayat

a kadagiti agsipnget

ket kas saltek nga agiriag

uray no ti aklo ket ipayapay

tapno kadagiti pantok

panaginnala dagiti balikas

panagsinggalot dagiti kinatao

ket ti mamarpardaya a patutsada

dagiti agkamalala met a bassisaw

nga iti karatay, ditoy nga ipakni

tapno ti buyok ti aramid

ket akuen ti dumrigi a pari

idinto ta dagiti met mannurat

a kadagiti pader agikur-it

iti kawaw nga utek

ket ti baladia ti agdurek.

Sammukol ti rikna ti kamalala

tapno ti dur-as ken lung-aw

ket kadagiti linabag, sadiay,

sadiay nga agindeg, saanton

a kas pimpiman a pumanaw

kalpasan ti panaginnala dagiti rikna

pananggulib kas iti panangimameg

kadagiti agbalin a pangngarig

ti di maarikap a gagara

dagiti sao mailemmeng laeng

ti ay-ayam kadagiti isip

tapno iti nagan ti pangkis

ket ti agdadata a balangkantis.

Sammukol ti puso ti kamalala:

isuna nga iti nagan ti takneng

ket ti maaros nga edad ti agpalpalama

iti asi kas iti pannakaawat

tapno ti abakada ni ayat

ket iti lansad ti bubon ni arayat

sadiayto nga agresidente, mabayag.

A Solver Agcaoili

Manoa/Dis 10, 2009

Tonite at Maharani

For Lydia Abajo, Julius Soria, and Jeffrey Acido

Those foods confuse me so.

Masadas of what these are

Their names are not within my tongue's

Ability to say, repeat or mispronounce

The lamb chops that are not of God

Not an oblation but an obligation

To please each one to nourish

Each other by our evening laughter

By the generous servings of spices

Not from the Moluccas of colonizers

But from the trade of our warm bodies

Our tortured minds too, or estranged souls

All the sweat of the working class

On this night of our gustatory furlough

We who have come to try to be alive

We who have come to this new land

To talk about how we get out soon

And fast, get out of the murder we do to words

Or our sense of what is true and right.

Here at Maharani Cafe, we celebrate

Just like that. We order the abundant foods

Courtesy of the honoree, one of us

Who take all the good that is us

And it is so. First comes the baked

Bread, like the unleavened one

We dip with the sauce that comes

From the Third World. We smile

A la Third World to the colored servers,

Of course, even as we serve ourselves,

Wait on the whim of supreme bosses

Who do not know any better than us

About what gives in these days of want

In these days of meltdown: emotions we lose

To the mountain air and the rare

Afternoon rainbows that do not come any longer

But hide from us at the Hour of the Miracle,

At three in the downpour when crucifixions

Are repeated all over, again and again

And the colors do not come as they should

But the grey skies with their sorrows reveal

Themselves, their gift of sight a recall of rain

Their offering a pursuit of pain that lasts.

There are four of us tonight at this cafe

Where sadness is our name, laughter too,

In the interstices of silences we can afford

In between blobs of food gobbled up fast.

One of us: he has lived here, but has begun

To sing songs about our terrible people

Who do not know how to tell us their name

Nor write it on dust or sand or sick soil

But just, in the smallest of a shy voice,

Murmur to us what dark lamentation is

When you do not know where or how

To start narrating what we should tell

Or retell what we can reveal to ourselves.

The second, she takes care of the others

Those women who get all the blow

In life as from their betraying lovers

Hard knuckles against soft skin, theirs

And the inferno of words, sharper

Than a sharp dagger or a bolo

Or more certain than a bullet

That pierces through the silence

Of a Fall night in Maui or Ewa Beach.

The third, a raging teacher of memory:

He tells them all what is to be told

Including the sacredness of cuss words

And how you can only say that

To intimates or enemies depending

On which side of grief you are in.

I am the fourth: I write exilic poems.

Like this one, about what we cannot have.

We are all at Maharani Cafe on South King

By the sad University Avenue where elite diners

Whiling away their ennui queue up by the roadside

So they can wait to be seated

Go fuck the night to abort rest.

Remember it is the year of the furlough

And all throughout this land

Are our sweet sweet sorrow for having

Come here so far in order to dream

Of going to Jerusalem to pray fervently

To Rome to plead with dead popes for more saints

So that the litany of names becomes longer

So we have more to turn to in this city

So tourists will come over here to see our faces

So we can all serve them, the pilgrims

Get on with our lives with their tips galore

Or their alien kindness or their hopeful prayers

For us poor citizens of this preying universe

For us who go to Maharani Cafe on King

To taste what it is like to pay up like a king

Pay in dollars from the slave labor we do

So we can get somebody else's life going

To save ourselves from ourselves.

A Solver Agcaoili

Manoa/Oct 27, 2009

Arrawis

Food, please. Survivors of Tropical Storm "Ondoy" await for relief goods in Cainta, Rizal on Monday. Thousands of people are desperately short of food, water, and clothes. Inquirer, September 29, 2009.

Maitanggaya dagiti ima

iti rupa ti lawag

nga ita a Lunes

ket ti di makaidna

a pasamak.

Agkalamri ti rikna

iti panaguray iti kaasi

dagiti darikmat nga agpalpalama

kadagiti dungngo kas iti inayad

ti danum tapno iti apres

dagiti dalluyon iti kulay-ong

ket ti pannakapnek

iti agngangabit a taraon.

A ngem ta Ondoy daytoy

dagiti amin nga unnoy

nga iti segundo dagiti abuloy

ket ti pumusay a panagkapuy.

Ta kasano nga allukoyen

ti bagi kadagitoy a kalak-am

a kadagiti didigra a kastoy

ket pannakaibati iti walangwalang,

datayo nga in-inabo dagiti dekolor

a rigat iti amin a panagbirok

iti biag a nasayaat:

bigat malem bigat rabii

bigat aldaw bigat dagiti layus

amin dagitoy ket karaman ti kapay-an

nga iti udina ket ti al-alawen a biag

ti aramang iti nariper a danum

ti agbakbakwit a pakaragsakan?

Uray ti taeng dagiti mabibi a rikna

sadiayda kadagiti apres

iti sirok dagiti rangtay

kasalada dagiti gabat

a ti Ondoy laeng ti agsagrap:

gabat dagiti amin a gabat

a kadua dagiti uleg

nga uray iti bigbigat

ket kumarab-as: kas iti panaglemmeng

dagiti sardinas bagas asin

kas iti panagtalakias dagiti rasion

tapno kadagiti tiendaan sadiayda

a maiwaras kadagiti addaan a pirak

idinto a ditoy, kadagiti lenglengleng

ditoy, kadagiti purok ti pimpiman

ditoy nga agsagsagaba dagiti tedda

ti danum dagiti tedda ti layus

dagiti tedda dagiti adu a kari

ti pangulo dagiti panangngaasi

a baliodong!

Kadagiti arrawis

ti rikna, sadiay dagiti beggang

sadiay dagiti agkatkatawa nga apuy

agpaspasanaang kadagiti amin a dunor

agpalpallailang kadagiti amin a pakabtakan

ti ulo nga agpuerong!

Mabati dagiti rikna a bakwit,

mabatida kadagiti aldaw

nga agsubli dagiti uleg

tapno iti maysa nga addang

ket ti maikanatad a bales

kadagiti kaliado nga isip.

Idinto ta kunatayo dagitoy,

itag-ay ti ima tapno agsippaw

ti lukong ti palad kadagiti kaasi

nga iti panagsubli ti init maipalag.

A. Solver Agcaoili/Manoa/Sept 29, 2009