just this morning, at 3am, i awoke clutching a dream. a white shadow rose from the earth, just beneath my feet. it coiled like a whirlwind, engulfing me within its eye, or womb? amid streaks of frozen wind, my navel suddenly sprouted, entwined around my neck, murmuring: “i am a dream, your unchosen path, die if you must, but i am, i am who i am not.”
Like molds
in our kitchen cupboard, savagery clings
to the air we breathe – someone
who has just dined with us disappeared;
a friend on her way to donate blood
was murdered.
We live in a country led by leeches
and truth-butchers; what else can we expect?
We’ve been used to it; but no,
we aren’t numb; we still bleed
and rage.
Cuts distinctly deep, though,
is a message we posted
on a long thread of comradeship –
warm words of greetings
and intimacy and well wishes. Seen. Just
seen – what else could be sadder
than the sight of seeds
sown on stony soil?
Deeper still, like Adam
and Eve who fell out of God’s grace
in Paradise, we’ve been thrown out.
Unfriended.
he offers her a juicy position in his cabinet, saying – you can serve the people better by joining me. it’s not my cup of tea, says she. he insists, saying – then make it your cup of coffee or your bottle of wine or your box of chocolate. she looks at him eye to eye, saying – god knows who does not pay. he vanishes never to appear again.
andres andres
man so fearless
cut was his head
run not he did
cut was his arm
he did not run
flicked was his dick
he ran so quick.
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i will poem
poetic poetic
i will snort
booger so big
i will sit
bow am finished.
Photo taken by Cristina Purificacion-Dumlao
A boatman promised us the shore.
Mouth frothing with blabbers,
he took the oar and paddled right,
right to where we wanted to leave –
the mouth of a whirlpool.
Our boat capsized. Drown us?
We know how to swim. Has any boatman
swum free from his own sticky spittle?
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That day on the hill sunlight leapt and laughter rolled –
a fate pregnant with a tongue tingling to be born;
O wind, tell the tale of a young boy from Lamud.
A crumpled leaf on a wild vine glinted like gold,
inside, a spider still refused to greet the morn;
that day on the hill sunlight leapt and laughter rolled.
Tender fingers tiptoed on the vine to the fold
where the spider lay asleep – dreaming or wayworn?
O wind, tell the tale of a young boy from Lamud.
Suddenly, something whizzed and the grassblades trembled,
the earth – pummeled by combat boots – echoed a groan;
that day on the hill sunlight leapt and laughter rolled.
Blots of blood clung upon the silky silver web,
the threads sagged heavy with a dragging breath, forlorn;
O wind, tell the tale of a young boy from Lamud.
Can a concrete cross lighten the loss, bear the load
weighing down the mother’s heart left to wrath and mourn?
That day on the hill sunlight leapt and laughter rolled,
O wind, tell the tale of a young boy from Lamud.
—
*Lamud – a barangay in South Upi, Maguindanao, Philippines.
Your teacher’s wrath
bleeding in your poem
crashes your heart
Your teacher’s blood
bleeding in your poem
crashes your soul
Apolonio Paria Dionisio. Assistant
Professor 7. Salary grade: 21 -5. Finished
PhD in Panitikan in 1986. Original
Appointment: June 16, 1976. Last
Promotion: 2002. Publications:
Diona, Tanaga, Dagli, Balagtasan,
Bugtong, Ambahan, Oyayi, Tagulaylay.
Rank Deserved: Professor 12. But
Won’t Advance; no ISI-Scopus publication.
He throws bread crumbs to the pond
And the fishes swarm – the big ones
with the big mouths gulp the big chunks;
the small ones nibble the particles
that escape from the big mouths
of the big ones. He is 64.
He is 64.
I am a Filipino, defender
of freedom and democracy.
Lover. I love
regurgitating refuse
from the Bald Eagle’s
ass, and here I am stricken
with twin sickening diseases:
mental diarrhea cash-ridden isms fresh or putrid surge from my mouth like sewage
gushing through septic tank sewer
con
stipated con
sciousness
not
even the
tiniest of
light
could pen
etrate
my mind, an ass so tight
through which only
the fain
test of fart
could pass, a stin
king fume
that could
send a hermit
buck run amok,
lamenting
why on
earth he broke
free from
his moth
er’s womb.
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