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.]