About | Santiago Villafania

Another poem-in-progress.

Urduja

i.

(her name)
filled our lores
our oral histories
with colors and
prowess

(the poetry)
in the mien
of her eyes
in the contours
of her breasts
in the tip
of her blades
fell many a lover
(in battlefields)

her kissless lips
silenced the serpent-
tongues to keep her kingdom
in the hearts of men
whose ashes and
bones are sown
in the fields
(of Caboloan)

ii.

this is
her story
storytellers
dared not tell
for they have not
hack a trail
in the jungles
in the annals
of our past
to print
and paint
the metaphor
of her name
the nobility
of her blood


the genesis
and exodus
of her people
(before the time
of the four kings
in the green womb
of Feng Shia Shih Tan)

iii.

if you ask me
how she died
i will tell you
how she lived
how she loved
yes i will tell you
(in the language of salt
brown English and
bamboo grass)

the rest is myth

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