Kallamo

It is keeping secrets, this.

Like writing in the old kur-itan
Where you hide what needs to be hidden.

But yours is the opening up
Of language to what it cannot reach.

A pillow you get, so says the tale,
And you expose its bowels
For the drunken north wind to play on and on
And you see the cotton dance,
The feathers too, or whatever
Remnants of demonic memory and self
You have put in there, evil woman:
Words you bloodied, butchered too.

And you made us believe
Of the lie you called truth
Even as you led us to the dark
Corners of our fear. There,
The sun is a shy young man,
Unable to say into a syllable
What needs to be said about
You being the smiling temptress,
Evil woman and more so, cavorting
With alien friends, unable to see
What seeing is or ought to be.

Now, we have come to know:
This apprentice novice which is you,
Appended to what we could
Have become, better and better be.

In the Ilocos of your hand,
Its hollowed land is not hallowed.
Not anymore as you wreaked
Havoc on our words.

You have taken away the holiness
Of our pain, and you have sold
It all, thirty pieces of silver.

And more.

You could have become a leader,
And could have led us to freedom
We have not possessed
Not for a long long while.

Instead you danced around, swayed
Your fat hips to the beat of songs
Whose lyrics you do not know,
Do not take to heart.

Praying evil woman, what have you become
Apart from the evil you have become?


Tagbilaran City/
July 15, 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

Kabuntala

It is east, you are.
From your clouds there rises
My heart, longing for the same longing
You have of my heart. We rise from the ashes
Of your night, and our dawn will come
And pick us up from the midnight
Of our brightening lives.
It is who you are, Kabuntala.
There, between the ridges
Of our dreams peaking
From the mountains
Of our hopes, there,
There you are announcing
What gospel there is
To reside in our broken
Lives. Morning comes soon,
Too soon for us to welcome
The the break of day
As we wake up more alone.

Colon, Cebu City/
July 15, 2011

Undayas

Bangkirig daytoy ti turod
nga iti rabii ket ti kasukat

a kulay-ot ti bituka,
iti russuod ti rusok.

Adda dagiti lagip iti dara
ken ti balikas nga adda iti daytoy.

Agkarayam kas apuy
ti puor nga ipasngay

ti undayas ti lengguahe
nga iti patag ket maitibkol.

Lasunglasong ti rason
iti mangganggantil a patibong

nga iti silo dagiti aldaw
ket ti di mamingga

a karanukon, nagmanto
kadagiti silabat' panagmauyong.

Kastada dagiti mannaniw
iti ili. Isuda ti agibulsa

kadagiti kaipapanan
a kadagiti linabag koma

ket sadiayda nga agbirok
iti puraw a salakan.

Marikina/
Julio 18, 2011

Casamiento (Ilokano version)

Casamiento

(Ken Lydia ken Max, iti kasamientoda iti nagan ni ayat)

Apagisu a gatad ti panaguray, daytoy nga ayat.

Siglosiglo a panagbirbriok iti maysa ken maysa
Tapno ipateg no ania ti ayat
Iti nagbaetan ti leddaang ken leddaang
Ken sabali pay.

Ngem ita, dagiti pakasaritaan
Ibugasanda ti no ania
Ti ukarkaran ti balikas,
Isu met laeng a rinugianyon
Nga inaramat tapno nagananyo
Ti ray-aw nga inkayon
Nasarakan.

Ti panaglangan ti maysa ken maysa
A mangsagsagid iti kaadda
Ti maysa ken maysa
Ket ita, addakayo, agayan-ayat,
Maysa ti ipatpateg, ken kasta met
Ti sabali!

Dimtengen ti aldaw,
Ket ita daytoy.
Ita nga oras ti rugi ti Agnanayon
Ket tagikukuayo ti Panawen,
Maysa ken maysa ti kayatmi,
Daytoy a panangidaton
Iti bagi
Ken espiritu, ken kararua
Daytoy a sagut nga Amin-nagan
Ken awanan-nagan
Kas iti rabii nga agpasngay
Tapno umay ti parbangon,
Sa ti rabii maminsan pay.
Iti parbangon
Di makaidna.
Panaginana.
Pannakaila.
Pannakarnek.
Panagbirbirok.
Pannakabirok.
Amin dagitoy iti naganyon ita,
Dua a tao a tinanikalaan
Dagiti espasio a di agpatingga.

Marikina
July 4, 2011

Casamiento

(For Lydia and Max, on their wedding in the name of love)

It was worth the wait, this loving.

Centuries of seeking for each other
To love what love is
Between grief and one more.
But today, histories define
What can be unravelled by word,
The same ones you have begun
To use to name what joy
You have finally found.
Each other's absence reaching out
To each other's presence
And here you are, lovers,
One beloved and another so!
The day has come, and it is today.
Eternity begins at this hour
And it is your Time, one in the other
We want, this gift of body
And spirit and soul, this gift
All-name and nameless
Like evening birthing so dawn
Comes, and then the evening
One more time. It is restless.
It is rest.
It is longing.
It is satisfaction.
It is seeking.
It is finding.
All these are in your name now,
Two people bound by
Spaces going beyond.


Marikina
July 4, 2011

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

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

TI UMUNA A TUDO ITI MAYO ITI MARIKINA

Dimtengka kadagiti nabara nga oras

Iti maar-arakattot a sardam, sa iti agnerbios

A bannawag iti ili a nagkamangan,

Adayo kadagiti amin a dangadang

Iti lagip a naggapuan, kas iti panagtalappuagaw

Ti nakisang itan a danum ti Padsan.

Adu a pakasaritaan: ti daniwmo iti presidente

Nga iti panagtabon ti kararuana ket piman

Ta maitantantan kadagiti arimukamok,

Kadagiti bisibis ti tudo nga iti angrag

Ti tiempo ket ti maidagel a panagkulay-ong.

Kadagiti talon a masaripatpatan dagitoy

Kalpasan ti panagpadara ti nakem

Iti madagdagullit a kompesar ti kalgaw

Iti agur-uray a kanalbuong ti gurruod

Wenno ti anak-ti-sal-it, agkimat tapno

Iti apagapaman ket ti daga nga iti agmatuon

Ket ti pammadso ti nabaybay-an a gimong.

Saan nga ili ti adda kadatayo ita.

Saan a pagilian nga iti kansion ket ditoy

A maarikap ti sonata ti linteg nga iti sirmata

Ket adda kadagiti maidasar nga un-unnoy

Ti konsierto dagiti dadaulo nga agmauyong.

Liriko amin dagitoy ti gasat a ditay inay-ayat.

Liriko dagiti dayyeng nga iti agsapa

Ket ti pait dagiti bigat nga iti komedor

Ket ditoy a mabalasa ti numero a naimbag.

Kas iti loteria dagiti tagainep, kas iti pinnusoy

Tapno kadagiti papaayat ti ginnasanggasat

Ket ti agtagitao koma a ragragsak.

Ita ket ti umuna a tudo iti arununos ti kalgaw

A panagawid ti mannaniw manipud

Panagtalawataw kadagiti antigo a sursurat.

Inkur-it dagitoy kadagiti pakasaritaan

Nga iti kannag a bulan ket ti isasangbay

Ti umuna unay a pammakawan.

Itapaya ti mannaniw ti nakaungap a dakulap

Tapno iti appupo ti mangted bang-ar a danum

Ket ti kari a di pananglipat

Kas iti panaglaing iti tian iti sarsaraaw

Ti adu a pananglanglangan.

(Naisurat, May 10, 2010, Marikina, Filipinas)

A-tres ti Ngatangata

Tawen dagiti tigre ita.

Iti Provident Village
ket ti leyenda:
maysa a baket a kubbo
iti danum nagpalpalama
tapno koma ti waw
maep-epan kadagiti amin
a paidam dagiti tudo.

Saan, awan, kuna
ti nadawatan ket nagkiat
ti langit iti naimatanga
wenno natimud manipud
kadagiti ngudot' bulbulong
wenno ti arasaas ti es-es
a karayan.

Ita ket malabsam dagitoy a litania
iti panagawid manipud
iti sabali a ritual ti pannakaisalakan
wenno panagdawat pammakawan
kadagiti basol
nga iti delubio ket namarkaan.

Saan laeng a sangabaso a danum
inkay malak-am. Lemmesen layus
amin a lua nga iti parkag a daga
ket mangbisibis kalak-aman.

Timudek dagitoy nga estoria
iti panangiturongko iti manibela
iti lagip dagiti maiyan-anud
nga agsapa, babawi, pammakada.


A Solver Agcaoili
Marikina

Marikina Blues, 2

These are the warm witnesses:

the feet of men on the lookout

for last loves in this river of blood

death, destruction too in the midst

of warm rain that gives off singing suns

and crooning moons, and all the loving

we need to come to terms

with what is left with messengers

of storm seasons announcing so much life

lesser and lesser now as it is

in these conflicted times, our own.

It is this river, now filled with lost laughter

now filled with the living ruins of memory

the dark vestiges of deluge in cadence

with the vendors' constant calls, their merchandise

the clues to what Christmas has come

to mean to us we who have seen all

what grief is when stormy days and nights

come to visit our merry-making loneliness

and tell us of abiding hope in as many

as jingle bells we can obligingly chant

plus or minus what holiday money

can buy from these rows and rows

of stalls lining this once graveyard

of dutiful countrymen and sinless children

who could not hold onto the liquid

dream of what endless redemption is.

It is Marikina, true, and it is

this season in this place that I remember

what dwells in my city's mourning heart

its dirge permanent as permanent can be

etched on the surface of dark waters

welcoming the flowers for its dead

beyond numbers still, without names

as the tales come out of the shadows

from gates and windows and walls

some stories of payoffs and hot hush monies

so the talking stops at the doorsteps of mothers

so the flowers for the dead come alive in whispers

just so we can protect the leaders anointed

who ask us to elect them for their gift of deceit

their gab those of angels with fallen, falling wings.

A Solver Agcaoili

Marikina/Dec 20, 2009

Marikina Blues, 1

Iti isasangpet a panagsubli

ket ti buya a mangyaw-awan.

Agsalsala dagiti parol

iti rabaw ti danum nga iti napalabas

ket tanem dagiti maigarangugong

a buteng, namnama, pakaasi,

paarayat, araraw, panagkari

iti mangirurumen nga agmatuon.

Iti Karayan Marikina

daytoy, iti oras ti anghelus

dagiti agdebdebosion a basol.

Iti rangtay ket ti aligaga,

estranghero a rikna itan

ngem residente iti isip

kadagiti amin a kita 

ti pannakalmes.

Agkiet ti agawid a rusok 

iti paripirip ti lagip ti Ondoy.  

kas kadagiti aminen

a didigra a kapay-an

iti panagpaspasugnod 

dagiti agmirmiron a balikas

tapno iti likud ti sipnget

ket ti aligaget iti sentido 

a kadagiti lua nga agarubos

ket ti ragsak a maaradas.

Ti gabat ti nangukkon

iti apagapaman a namnama

kadagiti naglugan iti daytoy

tapno iti rungsot ti gasat

ket ti panagpagungga ti layus

ken ti panangilili ni patay

iti kubbuar sa ti alikuno

kadagiti pannakatay a disoras

iti panangrugi kas iti panagikipas.

Ipalladaw dagiti sitsitik a redentor

ti tali ti pannakaisalakan

nga iti apagapaman

ket maarinebneb met daytoy,

kadua ti riper sa ti apres

sa ti awan patinggana a lansad

ti malas iti dawel nga alikuteg.

Amin dagitoy ket iti isip

nga agtaeng ita, 

ditoyda nga agindeg

tapno iti agsapa dagiti kararag

ket ti pannakipagrikna

ti agapon a panagmalmalanga. 

A Solver Agcaoili

Marikina/Dis 18, 209