Thursday, December 26, 2013

JUAN’S NIGHTMARE

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]

Thursday, December 19, 2013

FAREWELL TO A DECEASED KIN

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, December 15, 2013

CADAVER’S BIOGRAPHY

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]

Monday, December 9, 2013

MARSHES OF CANDABA

MARSHES OF CANDABA

Erle 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]


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

POLICEMAN

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]





Wednesday, November 27, 2013

WHEN YOU NEED A NEWSREPORT

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, November 20, 2013

SIMPLE WORDS

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.]

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

STA. ANA

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]



Thursday, November 7, 2013

CORDILLERA BEGGARS?

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, November 3, 2013

MENDICANT O’ STREET

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.]




Monday, October 28, 2013

WHY NOT HUMILITY?

WHY NOT HUMILITY?

 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]





Sunday, October 27, 2013

ATOMIC SLUMBER

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.]