Saturday, May 29, 2010

THE SUN OUR KIN

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


It’s true the Sun will lay to rest
On the day’s end after his toil
And give way to the nighttime hours
When ravagers despoil amid our slumbers
But sure enough the morning comes
And Sun radiates our Land anew
Each smile he sports enervates our longings
For better times of wealth and wellbeing
He never tires to shed us rays of care
He never retreats without sharing heraldries
Of what our strivings will bring forth
A sturdier and well esteemed commonwealth
He shall ever be there when we need him
A kin indeed our light of liberty


[Writ. 07 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHY MOTHERLAND?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Why ought we call Motherland
The cradle of us loyal citizens?
Why not just call it Land
For the sake of propriety and brevity?
Likewise we shan’t label Fatherland
Each lustrous land of alien conquerors
Who enslaved our forbears in servitude
Over epochs of lamentable tribulations.

A Mother is she who never dares forsake
Her children whom she lovingly nourishes.
And yet all children grow to bid farewell
To the hardships of infantile life
And so to bid farewell as well
To the Mother who soon faces retirement.

Habits of old are hard to die
Like thoughts on Motherland or Fatherland
Even as we’re not overgrown infants
Of a country that professes eternal Motherhood
And neither could we all say farewell
To our benign Land: our Provider.


[Writ. 06 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Thursday, May 27, 2010

LOVE’S MURMUR

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



I hear the murmur of love
Like rattles of tree branches.
It is coming, marching triumphantly
On the ground of eternal merriment.
It seizes me, bless of my wishes,
It its delightful gallows of wonderment.
It’s message clear—“Heed my call!”
To my woman ‘tis selflessly shared.


[Writ. 24 July 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

SENTIMENTS FROM EROS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Sentiments from Eros’ royal house
Here it lies within my being.
A chasm it shall try to bridge
And warm up your cold heart a-glow.
It will grow, it will merge
From the shadows of the iceberg’s underneath.
It will seek its proper moorings
In your heart it is wont
To nestle; only in your heart or nevermore.

[Writ. 24 July 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

WISH SHE COMES O! COCONUT TREE!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Wish for me O! Coconut Tree!
Of benign Filipinas that She comes in beauty
Her luggage filled to the brims

With love and tenderness. Let her caress
My longing heart. I shall meet her
Under your secure shade O! Coconut Tree!

Where we shall pledge the vow
Of eternal sharing of trust and care;
A bnd you’ll judge with favors
One stroke like a million devoted caretakers’.


[Writ. 19 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

JUAN’S NIGHTMARE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Sleeping while inner rage brews
Inside one’s cognitive vat does not make
A sleep the fulfillment of a day’s toil.
Not for Juan the unlettered and dispossessed
Whose wretchedness is a correlate of wealth
Amassed by his other brothers whose
Purses and stocks do bulge ad infinitum.
Not for Juan. Reserved inner rage
Sooner unfolds into a thousand nightmares:
Spoiled is the timeless joy of dream’s utopia.


[Writ. 19 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Monday, May 24, 2010

FAREWELL TO A DECEASED KIN

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


History is Judge and Witness
to the truth that my heart is ne’er
A nest of
Resentment

for you o! deceased kin
You were never a
Creator of terror and trouble

nor villain are you for the anguish
you’d upon me outpoured from time to time

No resentment!
Be in peace as the Dove that is now
your fulfilled state.

Farewell!


[Writ. 11 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Sunday, May 23, 2010

CADAVER’S BIOGRAPHY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


vermin upon vermin gather in mounds
undistinguished from the morsel
felled by it’s ego’s date with Grim Ripper

25, 50, 100, etc
are found without names in named or unnamed
cemeteries

uncelebrated figures
are puzzles that are delightful to civil
libertarians’ appetites for enigmas

--shadows without tales
or felled bodies do have sagas of pain
or joy unaffected by the Roman slaughter
of holy and unholy souls on Golgotha’s foot


[Writ. 11 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Saturday, May 22, 2010

MARSHES OF CANDABA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


When hawks and other living flyers
Set foot on swampy fields for feeding
Tis a marvelous sight that glows the eyes
As mark of platonic appreciation

Where muddy waters used to fill
The air with constant foul-smelling vapors
And gift the neighboring men and women
With malaria and ailments and more
And leave no space that’s fertile enough
For crops and edible greens
And there vehicles run agog
When torrents bring oceanic floods
No more is this worthy of anyone’s esteem
Than to ignore it for its fecal state

Melons and fruits and rice now abound
In this once noxious forbidden land
No more is Hope rekindled the better
Than on the marshes of Candaba

Fly! Fly! Beloved Eagle to the peasant’s nest!
And laud him with your hymns of joy
For his victorious heartwarming travails on swamps
Indeed make him a true human champion.


[Writ. 06 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

POLICEMAN


Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Policeman! Throngs of multitudes are
Waiting for your return to civility!

On account of the erosion of your image
As a reliable enforcer of statutes
By your recalcitrant engagements in
Extortions and rackets and every condemnable
Act that are well perceived by the periscopic oculars
Of the consummate public;

Come home, policeman! Come home
To the moral niche of civility!

For to extract money from laboring motorists
Traders and pedlars who may no more
Be better than the poorest fellows
Of yours whose every cent that you
Embezzle will accrue to the rupture
Of the noblest dignity;

Come home, policeman! Come home
To the powerhouse of civility!

For to bust striking workingment or to
Train guns on dissenting marchers or to
Equate to criminal acts those that are
Worthy of appreciation as they are
Motivated by desires for justice
Will cost you your sweet acceptance
By the same people whom you ought to protect;

Come home, policeman! Come home to
The sanctuary of civility!

People are surely waiting for you
Not excluding the gunslinging predators
Who are out to snatch your life
For your treachery and malevolence.

[Writ. 06 June, AUF, Angeles City, Pampanga]

Thursday, May 20, 2010

WHEN YOU NEED A NEWSREPORT

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


If you’ve gone through a commotion
Or an accident of sorts
And you feel the urge to summon
Newsreporters to the scripts

Ah! Don’t ever waste your sweat
On thick layered phone directories
To call on foreign newsmen to the fore
For these souls today are hounded
On cryptic suspicions of support
They give to rebels on the hills

You might as well call up the hounders
Who are craftsmen of psywar ars
Who don’t matter if 1,000 differs from 10,000
Or whether Mr X didn’t or did commit Action Y
For as long as reports serve the purpose
Of fueling more wars and battle gores
And inflate the raison d’etre
Of brave regimentation and war mania


[Writ. 06 June 1988, AUF, Angeles City, Pampanga]

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

SIMPLE WORDS


Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



In every production of my pen
Of full narrative or poem
I’m compelled to write in simple
Words that folks could comprehend

It’s no joke to dazzle minds
With jargons and magical words
For just like magic on a wand’s stroke
Will make the denouement outpace
The cognition of the enthusiastic viewer
Will only obscure the thought presented
And leave the consciousness dangling
On rotten vines of superstition and illusion

For I’m supposed to offer
Lines that shatter false images
It’s so that every undertaking
Of thinking and imagining
Will irradiate the knowing viewer
With rays of clarity and concreteness


[Writ. 06 June 1988, Angeles City, Pampanga, on a visit to the Angeles University Foundation.]

Monday, May 17, 2010

STA. ANA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Cranes atop carabaos at work
Amid endless sights of rice fields
That merge with the mountains on their brims
Where thick canopies of trees add color
To the green canvass of the picturesque scenery
Here are the trademarks of the path
To Sta. Ana the forthcoming legend.

Reached by land from arterial roads
Where the traveler’s exhaustion is gaily relieved
By the vista of the cool blue sea
A limitless basin aplenty
With marine basics and exotics.

Soon there shall rise an industrial
Enclave whose merchandise will be sold
To foreign lands and peoples.

Fisherfolk, planters and workingmen meet
There in an unintended league
To realize that beauteous and bountiful
Nature and profitable shops & foundries
Can’t at all conceal miserly living.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

CORDILLERA BEGGARS?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


O! Beloved people of Cordillera!
Please lend me true reasons
For the fact that some members
Of your proud majestic land
Now belong to beggars’ armies
In the Manila Metropolis?

I know too well that your grand mountains
Are abodes of immense wealth and lores
Of a sturdy people that has never
Been conquered nor has starved
Not the strong and tireless highlander
Who never disdains sweaty labor
And sublime service even as bountiful harvests
Are perpetually reaped for family and clan
And offered at the altar of Bathala.

Is it the handiwork of Plunder
Now magnified by the clockwork of War?
If twere so can you be extricated
From Plunderers’ predatory claws?

O! Please answer my query for you too
Are to me a noble teacher of life.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Sunday, May 16, 2010

MENDICANT O’ STREET

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Beloved Mendicant o’ Street
Please misread not as selfishness
My apparent refusal to render you coins
When you’re on the heels
Of riders I’m astride on
Surely my heart bleeds profusely
Over your thankless predicament
Filled I am with guilt and shame
For apparent deeds of misanthropy
Each occasion of your presence
Has the whole sky come a-crashing down
Your eyes narrate the cryptic tale
Of Hades devouring the Earth
Just as my mind speaks to you
What it thinks of the occasion
That to offer you pieces of coins
Won’t transport you to amelioration
Better yet if t’were a stable job
I’d give as presents unto you which awefully I
Do not at the moment possess.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

WHY NOT HUMILITY?

By: Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Why not be humble at all moments
Of association with fellowmen?
Didn’t the shopworker teach you
That one rudiment of survival
Is the intelligent recognition
Of your limitations’ omnipresence
Inspite of endowments of craft & wealth?
For there too are circumstances
That are beyond you grasps
In the snares of Naivete
And may even cause a furor
Of gig and limitless giggle?
For Boastfulness and Arrogance
Are twin eagles of deception
That once they’d lift you aflight
They’d shake you off the winds to crash
Tragically on the solid ground
Of defeat and humiliation?

O! Humility!
You are a noble messenger
That speaks for transparent Security
One that makes a person immensely cherished
By the commonwealth of all men.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Friday, May 14, 2010

ATOMIC SLUMBER

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you’ll rest forever unnoticed
You pestilent idea of Atomic War!
Have mercy on the farmer
Who’s been wishing to raise
His family to full decency
And so too on the labourer
Whose sweat has been aspiring
To transmute into purest gold
For the betterment of basic living.

Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you’ll be buried in oblivion
You pestilent thought of Atomic War!
Have mercy on children whose smiles
And plays irradiate the world
With untarnished love and devotion
For they deserve to reap
The harvests of good works
They’re noble inheritors of Mother Earth.

Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you shall slumber forever
You pestilent idea of Atomic War!
And may the champion of the Light
Smash all Bombs—abominable icons of Lucifer—
To inutility inasmuch as Life
Has been unto everyone endowed
Not plainly to vaporize
In the hot blazing ovens
Of detonated thermonuclear devices.


[Writ. 04 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

ON MEASURING LOVE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Love, concern and sincerest care
For the loved one and all loved fellows:
Could these be measured
Like the metered current
That powers the home?
If it were so could devotion be paid
In sheets over sheets of monies?

Perhaps the cats, dogs
And other wondrous pets at home
Can offer the answer:
Wondrous pets don’t count at all
Their kisses and devotion to friends
O! How they keep on giving!
They simply keep on giving!

[Writ. 04 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Thursday, May 13, 2010

ON RETIREMENT


Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago




Why dream of retiring at age 60 or 65?

Has life not gloriously revealed

The exquisite beauty within you

That shines all the more

With each day of doing?

Will retirement not compel you

Into dark dens of nothingness

Push you to the brink

Of cancerous boredom that kills

In every second of its conquest?



Continue to share to all fellowmen

The sublime makings of your trade

Be these in simple or intricate form.



For Life has endowed you

With blessings aplenty

Since the first day that you saw

The undying Light of the sun.



[Writ. 04 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

AID, MORE AID!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Why pump the lifeblood

Of poor nations with Aid

From modern Titans?



This Aid’s a footstool of Ceasar.

‘Tis nothing but cancer that encroaches

Upon the weak body of the recipient:

Eroded are the remaining vestiges

Of moral strength for the Poor’s will

To rise from the maelstrom of wretchedness;

‘Tis the fattest of parasites

That rapidly saps all nourishment

From the Poor’s ulcerated belly;

‘Tis an aromatic essence

That later reveals its baneful powers

To asphyxiate the struggling breather

Towards Hamlet sleep.



For by now victims ought to recognize

When abominable vampires strike;

Blood loss in such sucking vein is much too different

From blood gained from an altruistic donor.



[Writ. 04 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

ON PITFALLS & STARS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Man,
In times when mind’s soaked
in an intoxicating concoction
of rage and fiery resentment
ought not battle against pitfalls

that are really no pitfalls
when gauged against virtues
that they unintendedly unlock

for such virtues are ever present
in the labyrinth of pursuits
awaiting to float to the surface
of riverine Existence

no matter how inconspicuous these are;
they are stars that are forever
habituating the firmaments
in grandiose beauty,

despite dark clouds
despite dark clouds

[Writ. 02 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

THOUGHTS ON ACTION

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Actions of a kind
And those of others
Ever demand a plethora of decisions
Whether erroneous to some quarters
Or righteous to the rest.
The mind fulfills the thinking
Balanced with the doing
In a majestic rhythm
Of poetry and calculus,
Tempered by Justice
And the quest of the Will,
Astride the vehicle of Wisdom
Fueled by noble Inspiration,
It measures the outcome
Whether least appealing or best.

[Writ. 02 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Monday, May 10, 2010

SONGBIRD’S MELODY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Songbird of the country
Please sing your tunes tirelessly
On valleys and hills
Sing afloat your theatre of amusement!

You are forever rewarded
With rice, shelter, care
By humble folks who truly cherish you.

Sing!
Sing for them! – the poor and wretched—

They who were left forlorn
By trusted lords
By false guardians of welfare
By deified magnates;
They who are now casting
New lives for themselves
New hopes toward betterment.

O! Songbird so dear!
Lift them up from slumber!

[Writ. 26 May 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

ASPIRATION

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


O! Aspiration!
You majestic road
To where all are brought
To fate’s myriad conclusions,

You are beheld
As a plane in Pythagoras’ universe
Contained in Euclid’s space
A foot away to grasp in an instance.

Yet how come that you,
In each one’ pathway
Seem millions of miles away,
Far beyond anyone’s reach?

O! Aspiration!
Please don’t appear as any
Unconquerable chimera
To willful beings
To the willful.

[Writ. 26 May 1988, Proj.8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

ABOARD TRICYCLES, JEEPNEYS, FERRIES

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Well they do
Carry you
To your travel’s destination

These tricycles
Jeepneys
Ferries

Hallmarks of tropical Filipiniana
Whose travel trails are mixtures
Of well paved avenues
And dusty rugged roads

They do make your tours
Altogether fascinating and crucifying

Even as the good buses
Flashy yatch and jet planes
That cater your travels
Lead your ocular organs to witness
The tapestry of wretchedness
And inertia of blighted villages
That altogether inevitably erases
The shangrilaic imageries about the tropics
That may gather in your mind
Like clouds over the Sierra Madre
That the Pacific wind eagerly dissolves.

[Writ. 09 Oct. 1987, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Friday, May 7, 2010

CHEERFULNESS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Cheerfulness
Is never allowed to be dormant
Among children
In whose currents it
Freely flows
When it erupts
Like sunbursts
That all other cosmic bodies
Gladly accept
As life blessings.


[Writ. 09 Oct. 1987, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

Thursday, May 6, 2010

DANCE NOT ON THE GALLERY’S FLOOR

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


No one should linger in a gallery
To dance on its floor.

The Cardinal
Has spoken. The clockwork
Of deception has flung open
Its can of worms. Churchwords
Don’t always bear powers
Of ex cathedra. The cardinal is human.

Schoolboys care for ice cream and delicatessen
On their classes’ end
They do not read their books’ pages’ lines
Nor recite oral tests to their masterteacher.
School breaks are not school days.

Guerillas
Are trapped int eh underground.
They do fall
And they’ve fallen before
As before had their minds
Been preset to consume instinctively
Their warehouses’ rummaged goods:
The goods are dwindling and no more
Are these
What peoples
Notice, or wear, or prefer.

Let no one
find Christmas trees
on summertime
not on summertime!

And those songbirds from Siberia
They whose flights to the south
As winter approaches
Curiously add spices to the blowing winds
The wind drafts bear them nearer
To the equator
Where they merge with the life forms
Of the tropics
And then they’d go northward
When the icy days of their homeland dissipate
Into the blasts of warm breezes of summertime.
They only make flights upon
The summons of their wing carriers.

Even ants have trails
That are propagated by the aromatic
Odors oozed by their feet
Or the feet of their advanced seekers
In hot pursuit
Over sweet
Merchandise.

There are no sighs of relief
On painful moments
No mimicking of sufferings
On circumstances of heightened euphoria.

For sooner as the die is cast
It reads aloud the number registered
On its face. It settles
Gracefully on the flat panel board where
It landed with few rattles.

Cortes
The conquistador never epitomized the good
Nor the search for peace
The elusive end of existence.
Christ
Shan’t ever be remolded in a new image
To reappear as his own nemesis.

A glass that holds water
Will show the way to its utility
Drink the water
Drink to live

[Writ. 28 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, QC.]

ON CRAFTING THE FUTURE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


What is
the promising denouement
of aspirations for betterment
by all the Earth’s dispossessed
if not that
the fidelity
to the visions
they’ve conceived
can unfold
in their nonpassive
creation.

Yes, the future
has shapes and forms
that can be exquisitely
crafted.

[Writ. 27 Sept. 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

BANANAS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Bananas
are benevolent
providers

of delight
for our tongue,

and fuels
for our body;

they too
can be

the measures
of terror

sowed
by perpetrators

of naked power
in tropical princedoms.

[Writ. 27 Sept., 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]

Monday, May 3, 2010

REFLECTIONS ABOUT WORK

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


There can be
no savoring the foods
offered by Terra
without working hard for their generation;

no consumption of bounties
in torrential showers
without striving
for their production;

no recital of flowery
words about justice
without active contention
for their fruition;

no pleasant rest
of mind and body
without processing by
the sweatshops of labour;

no blissful state
of realized utopias
without rendering sufferings
from waylaid obstacles.

[Writ. 27 Sept, 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]

Sunday, May 2, 2010

IN FLIGHT (Poem 45)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


I’ve assembled the elements of next
Circumstances. They are built no less
By the urgency that has sprung
From the deepest recesses of the unconscious mind
Of watering down things to be watered
Or nailing fixtures in places where they’re utile.

So in the making of flights
I’ve had my luggage prepared
Had my mind attuned to the look-alikes
Of the next here-and-now
As when the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
Are together fitted so neatly
Each piece has been glued into place
In the templates of my biographical trails.

I’ve but few pieces to fit in:
The good rest while waiting for the flight
And the exciting moment when my Wings
Shall send me skyward.


[Writ. 06 Oct. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 44)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

What is it that lies inside me
Knocking ceaseless at my doors
Yet ‘twas within me? All along
It has been with me: a hidden language
That had floated visibly to the surface
Like a gigantic submarine moored in the docks.
It is my inner self’s sublime speech.

Alas! My outer self can only waken
In too little strides at a time!
It seems that today it had reached
The height where to it the inner self’s image
Is lucidly beheld like portrait
One can grasp within an instance.

In this vogue I caught the wordless code:
I’ve never been on one place alone
Never had been a portrait fixed on a wall.
I was never a nail driven on wood
That sooner would gather rust,
Rust that later defeats the nail’s purpose.
I was the walker then as I am now
I was the walker who rehearsed
Through the act of countless journeys
The provisioned undertakings of pilgrimages
In flight.

Alright! I shall to the flight proceed.
The hidden message has been unlocked with transparency
Forever shall it remain grasped by me.


[Writ. 28 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 43)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Dwindling verdant environs sadden me.
Will I in flight be rest assured
That tempestuous over-exploitation shall spare
The last remaining flora of endeared Mother Earth?

Our dream of finally containing
The mad urges to fell woods and ravage flora
Is fading like flickering flames of a candle.
‘Twas refurbished as part
Of the bizarre landscape of obscurantism
That has been deviously superimposed
Upon the benign canvass of civility.

O! Green leaves and all the myriad
Colorful flowers in your company
You are all starry jewels before my eyes!
My heart is filled with enjoyment
Over your untarnished affection.
Do you not long for one like me
Who’s almost trapped forever in the cages
Of mortal man’s edifices?

O! Dearest plants, you who make me sober,
Give me solace in times of torment
Add vitality to my being,
Deserve the undying care of all mankind
Even as you kept your pledge to Mother Earth
That you shall nourish all creatures alike.


[Writ. 24 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 42)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


In flight
Never shall I neglect the teaching
I’ve learned then as an enthused Thespian:
My acting out of roles in the theatre stage
Is the sublime act of shaping my acting out
Of myriad roles in the world of the here-and-now
Where one confronts multitudes of audiences
The roles I portray as plenty as millions of mushrooms
Spread across the verdant backdrop of the Earth.

For if before the audiences I’d make sense
As one whose message was accepted with clarity
Even as the rhythms and moods
And my own body language enabled the convincing
Then I’m as good as a man of success.

Each time of course that my theatrics
Undercut the audiences’ doubtings
Rendering my message unto exotic food.


[Writ. 23 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 41)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


What ought I search for further?
In flight what more things to share?
Thanks so much my mind’s so nourished,
Experiences learned. All thoughts
And actions mutually enrich each other.
This truth my growing up had unearthed
From the deep mines of Olympus
As I’ve walked the face of the Earth.

I mentored for a half and three years
A thousand apprentices in its span.
How many were my Adepts, assured at least
There are. But I to them was an Adept too
As I am to all fellowmen.
Will I mentor more? Shall I mentor more?
I’d gladly do so for as long as I can.

If the aged are to the young their teachers
Likewise if the young are to their elders
Then the rolling of the times approaching
Will ensue smoothly like all thorns were swept off
Along the infinite stretch of road.

[Writ. , 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

Saturday, May 1, 2010

IN FLIGHT (Poem 40)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Let my flight be a shaman that heals
The gathered wounds in my heart
Wounds inflicted by the despicable slaying
Of my brothers who have struggled arduously
For causes soaked in the aura of Lady Justice.

O! My heart is slowly eaten up
By grief so deep upon the thought
Of the murder of leaders whose undying faith
In world-changing dreams have wavered not
Leaders tempered by the immense response
Of millions of fellows upon their call

What is martyrdom if not the spilling of more
Nutrients that fertilize the sublime ideals planted
By felled patriots on the soil of humanity?
Martyrdom is likewise the sunlight
That nourishes the planted dreams with radiance.
‘Tis also the blessed water that quenches
The thirst of wakened dreamers
Even as the growth of the rooted aspirations
Will find fruition and perpetration ad aeternum.

Martyrdom wakens up the hibernating power.
It turns the grounds of the impossible
Into the haven of the possible.

[Writ. 21Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 39)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Let me in flight bear the tricky vogue
Of breathing. ‘Tis no plain engulfing of air
Deep into our bag breathers and then breath-out.

Breathe the air of Life!
Don’t ever breathe like one who’ll later walk
Like an intoxicated cockroach dazed.
Don’t ever breathe so un-artfully whence later
You’re cast down as a phlegmatic mammal.

Breathe the substance of Life
That’s when the pumping is gentle
And rubbish air is smoothly expired
And when sweat cast off debris
In strenuous flexing of the muscles.

The mind thereafter is cleansed
As one’s probing make the answers
To myriad questions bend upon the inner screen.

Breathing is a key to many doors
That lead me to my destinations.


[Writ. 19 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 38)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


What then, my Wings of Flight?
Will you later lead me back to my cradle land?
Will I be what personage by then?
Will I be a Ceasar who shall bring home
Laurels of triumphant conquests?
Will I be like him who came to be known
Through the fiery pathway of warfare?
Will I end up like him, rewarded thereafter
With the cryptic Brutal slay?

O! Blessed Wings! Times are a-different!
Gone are the grand city-states of antiquity.
And the calling is one when nation-a
Are dying
When conquest cast by battles
Is giving way to empathic friendship
Thru the crucible of peace
When lines that create gulfs
Betwixt peoples are effacing
Paving hence the way for brotherhood.
Will I be then an inversion of Ceasar?

Please aid me in solving the puzzle
That much later I may know deeply.


[Writ. 18 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 37)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


In my flight in the morrows
Pen and tongue I’ll muster
And share with fellows eager
To behold the notes of life
Notes of life that elevate
Them to their dreams’ heights at last.

Hopefully the notes I’ll share
Shall register as permanent memoriam
Ne’er as undeciphered letters written
On sea shores that waves soon wash away.

Allow the notes to linger even just
For a time like writings on granite walls
Even if the walls later choose to dishevel.
For the crux of the code is crucial:
That all men are brothers
Who can live together as One benign
Community.


[Writ. 17 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

IN FLIGHT (Poem 36)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


I shall not go weary with the waiting.
Time’s no evil, Time is kind
Time does not stand still for the doer
As it glides smoothly with the trade’s making.

I shall not go weary with the waiting.
Time is honest, Time is gentle
Time is merciful to the pilgrim
Who’s been shaping up for earnest sharing.

I shall not go weary with the waiting.
Time is not a loathsome changeling
That devours its trusted fellows
Not the man with noble visions.

I shall no go weary with the waiting.
Duty that lifts travelers aflight prevails.
Duty prevails.


[Writ. 17 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]