Dalityapi Unpoemed

“O Varus, Varus, give me back my legions!” – Augustus Caesar i sit helplessly open-mouthed garbage characters scrolling on my computer screen and like old Augustus i cried: “O Virus, Virus, give me back my files!”

O what is your wonder         that will remind us                 of our ancestors? the topographic name of Pangasinan         or the so-called kingdoms                 of Layug na Caboloan? what is there to reclaim O what is there to protect? the great oaks who stood as pillars in the golden age of our literature         and forgotten past? what epic?         what mythos?                 what legends? O what is there to preserve? the language of the sumisigay°         and dumaralos° the lexicon and the man songs        ...

Dua'ran anlong ko lamet ed English ya wala'y titulon "A Poet Speaks of Caboloan" tan "O Morpheus" so nipalapag ed Philippine Graphic (4 June, 2007 issue). A Poet Speaks of Caboloan here once was a kingdom of Caboloan where the mighty Amian stood still with the stalwart blades of defiant bamboo grass its rivers ancient as the blude-song & verbs running in my veins its forests        its hillocks its plains lush with gold & green orient as the Garden of Eden its air filled with the sweetness of wanton flowers with the Sanskrit songs of barbaric birds & turtledoves O here once was my demesne my Euphrates         my Hanging Gardens                 my Babel                         my Troy buried in the tr...

softly you asked me why i can't forget everytime i look into the mirror after a night of haiku or sijo there's the half moon mark on my left nipple and the sapphic lines written on my back you are such a firebrand that i can read e'en the ghazal you've inscribed on my neck couplet on my lips    quatrain on my thighs a sonnet on my erogenous zone

and i measured your symmetry with a gaze or a look every curve and every contour a slope or a mountain     that i have conquered i traversed your horizon with just a blink of an eye tamed and rode the four winds galloping in your green stables i crossed your rivers on carabao’s back and lured the muses to know the secrets of your first name and orient beginning i learned your folktales and legends by heart mythologized the loves and lives of your sons and daughters in my verses as if they were written a thousand years ago i have lied to add colours and lease of life to your golden age and renaissance i have lied a thousand times even more for your histories to be heard amongst your own people who are losing their legacy and the salt of their tongue you are within my grasp Caboloan Camelot of my imagination you are the country of my own right here in the province of my heart where syllables palpitate     like the breathlessness of turtledoves where...

my poem anchored on a page unworded like an angel nailed and naked on a cross some critics wanted it dead because it is the bastard child of my elegant brain some poets unpoemed it with rage because it mirrors the truth about their lycanthropy but it will not be silenced my poem will feed their hunger with fire and beautiful pain till I is risen unscathed from the depths of oblivion

(song for the lovers) this is how you hold pierce & punctuate the sound & the fury of poetry upon eve's sweet surprise lick her lyric lips nibble her nipples until they burn                           & turn into pebbles or pearls listen O listen to the breathlessness of her being & yearnings so dovely a deity or a demoness possessed when her virginal verbs expires & explodes into a universe of gametic alphabets & primitive numbers behold her algebraic expressions as she transforms from damsel into a roseate dawn so wantonly a woman                                      she is a pure particle the very substance of the soul

the sea was her demesne this sweet & cruel goddess accursed by Apolaki° for not setting her crimson feet on the sacred ground of Caboloan° & now she lingers where her first blood dropped like fire pearls sighs before a touch folds before a kiss of the rain & sun green serpentine but a flowering wildgrass that grows in boondocks in the backwoods or brae waiting for a poet or a fool to pluck her like a rose ° Andibaing - Makahiya plant (Mimosa pudica) ° Apolaki - Supreme deity in Pangasinan mythology ° Caboloan - ancient name of Pangasinan (interior area)

much younger now we the poets of the brave new race killing each other with manufactured nuts and bolts we are a generation of serpent-tongues and x y z impatient with the oldspeak of post & neo-modernism our poems consumable fast-foods bonsaic haunted by memories of punctuations and histories of metres and rhymes we live our lives in penthouses of Ivory Towers reaching it through a backdoor we are the shadows of the elders we stabbed to death chewed and spewed the pages of their soul to paint a translucent image of our selves to sign our signatures in time and redeem our Adamhood

past midnight i am here reclining on a magical bed scribbling trifles & fooleries after snatching a line or two from the lyric lips of my Sapphic muse every minute a bewitching moment of remembrance i am here searching measuring the sky’s symmetry repainting Van Gogh’s Starry Night with lilting words too naked to be spoken i am here here i am feeling someone charting mapping the constellations & the contours of her body i am here here i am Pinabli wet my dreams with your crimson kiss O brown goddess ere i turn into clay