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]

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.]

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]

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]

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.]