(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Indeed O! sweetest lady
Sweeter still than honey and wine
Whom Dionysos frenzies for delightfully
With whom all men are enthralled by
You gorgeous sight
You are the soothing wave that massages
My tired heart, tired in searching
For you and no one but you

Come forth!
Bring our foreshadowed fusion
To its marvelous close!


[Writ. 27 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WAR

WAR

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


War is the namesake of the islands

A Dantean discernment will not
Permit one to argue that
The archipelago
Is a paradise
Lost or regained

Of the islands’ fetid state
Excrement and humans sanctimoniously fuse
They cajole in ecstatic screams
Over killings and bombings
Gore is everyday’s luscious panorama

We’re brought back to Rome
Here
Where jubilant crowds satiate themselves
With sights of bloody gladiators
In combat

Brought back to Jesus’ Jerusalem still
Since everyone wants to play
Pilate
Guiltless of motives behind
Wars
In hinterlands
In cities

Is gore the imprimatur of honor indeed?
Just like blood is eaten as delicacy?


[Writ. 29 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

TO DO OR NOT TO DO SELF-ANNIHILATION

TO DO OR NOT TO DO SELF-ANNIHILATION

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Fate could be embezzler and crook
If bribed it could be
‘Tis when one cuts his/her throat and snuffs
Out life as one cold stone.
Yet fate and life are holy lovers
Self, the blinding love
Inane would be the earth’s own twirling be
If this code wasn’t found.

This itch to knife the body, like
Fly that scans excrement
Will flee when reason for it shies away
When swatters swarm the heaps
That is when one has bridged the self
To the crafting of the world anew
Behold! The diadems in people’s hearts!
Await everyone’s countenance
Like cornfields that a day shan’t miss
Without showers gently sent
By pious clouds from heaven’s floors
Undone is the sizzling heat
And then no more will knifing the body
Ever cross the willful mind.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHAT OUGHT I WRITE AGAIN?

WHAT OUGHT I WRITE AGAIN?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


What ought I write again
On this blank page in front of me?
Blank is my mind as a clear
Tabularasa: empty is the world, a dot
On its circumscribed face

Without an iota of an image
On its being.
Fertile is the night.
Cockroaches dance gaily to proclaim
So. What now would preoccupy
The mind?

Frigid is the pen. It cannot roll on
To herald the hymns and notes
Fervently brewing deep in the vats
Of my inner space: thoughts have receded
Without the usual romance with the pen.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

BREAK! BREAK THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!

BREAK! BREAK THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Break, break through the barrier
Betwixt time and timelessness!
Descend upon Terra’s mortal face!
Nestle in the minds of knowers
Who’ll catch you a-glide!
As to your catchers who know not
One another, perfect strangers
Illuminate them with your radiance!
A holy fire you are and ever
To all men you’re passed a-glow.

That you land on different mortal
Baskets at one time and only one
Is cause enough for bafflement
For both simpleton and erudite.

But your stately arrival exudes greater kingliness
Then the wondrous enigma you’ve aroused
Risen have you from beneath time’s antechambers
To exterminate the nebulae of ignorance.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

(UNTITLED)

(UNTITLED)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Shall we again rendezvous
As the rains and leaves do
To the month of June?

Of what romance are we to partake
When neither of us sees at all
The shadow
Nor hears news and whereabouts
Of one another?

Behold! Walls of time have been built
Between us. The chance of communicating
With one another
Had been buried
In catacombs
Complete with dirges.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHERE ARE YOU SWEETEST LADY?

WHERE ARE YOU SWEETEST LADY?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Where are you, sweetest lady?
Long had passed since my heart’s Cupid beating
For you was at its zenith.
You are a living ghost that appears
Ceaselessly on the panoramic screen
Of my cognitive antechambers.
Do our thoughts and hears still meet
Betwixt undefined time and spaces
Like blended waves of twin satellites
Long cut off from
Their umbilical cords?
Or am I just churning reveries
Of a love flame long deadened
By oblivion’s deoxidizing waters?
Please tarry not the questioning
Or goner would be my fate.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

SYNCHRONICITY

SYNCHRONICITY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Far apart are two minds who’d never
Caught a glimpse of each other’s name
‘Til one day
Unbeknown to them
A same shooting star of an idea
Visited both of them amid
Blankets of dazzling light.

They are both
Children of twinned situations
Whose midwife is
Time.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

GYMN THE DAY

GYMN THE DAY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Mood is pokered by afterthought

Of exercises in a gymn. ‘Tis a

Moment when one has no opinion

Or feelings for anything

Feelings are most unwanted scavengers

Let them not descend upon the self on this

Time.

Just listen to sweet music

Of fast and slow beats

Their messages, garbled and drowned in one’s

Unfeeling state.

Just let time past away

Past

Away.

[Writ. 24 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

O’ MORNING

O’ MORNING

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

When the sun shines up yonder

Smiling, greeting smilingly

When birds chirp ceaselessly

Singing, singing soothingly

When ants traverse infinite treks

Working, laboring joyously

When feathery clouds hover above

Hand-waving, gleefully hand-waving

When the cool breeze fills up spaces

Whistling,merrily whistling

Come has the moment of meditation fulfilled

A blessing for the self

When morning’s truly a generous friend

Like a zillion angels, benign provider

[Writ. 24 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

GO IMMORTAL!

GO IMMORTAL!

(For Lino Brocka)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

The body dies, not the person.

Gone is your body alright

As birds announce at night

That gone is the sun

They ought to rest.

Your person, ‘tis a sublime conveyor

Of manifold messages and undying lore

Letters that spoke clearly to the unlettered

And the unlettered, to the lettered

Person is the perfect herald of life

The unlettered at last had eyes

And ears that stretched out to

Infinite worlds a-speaking: we ought make

Justice work finely, infinitely.

Go now, immortal!

Merge with the immense field of the kosmos!

A field without brims

Like you are to your fellowmen.

Rested and gone, be assured

The world will sing tunes of praises

For you a truly glorious countenance

You are a marvelous anthem remembered

Forever.

[Writ. 24 May 91, Cubao,Quezon City, M.Manila]

ON SCULPTING THE PHYSIQUE

ON SCULPTING THE PHYSIQUE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

When is body strong and sturdy

But on occasions of rhythmic rounds

To sweatshops o’ physique’s crafting.

You are the sculptor your body wood

That you will shape with exquisite beauty and

Undisguised strength.

Your shaped physique is one authentic

Samson: it will mortally slaughter

Time as it reposes its own morgue;

Cremated is the browbeating fatigue

You are to your Self no cynic

Smoothened are the chances for your wishes

To do myriad works unlimitedly.

Like a true sculptor fulfilled

In its shaping, you are t’ward your

Physical frame.

[Writ. 15 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City,M.Manila]

CANINE IS GONE

CANINE IS GONE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

They took him away from me

This canine friend of mine

Whose time a-living was tied up to me

We were one a-corded knot

When ‘twas of tender age ‘twas one

Nurtured by me with a peer’s affection

Upon its

Bathing

Tanning

Defacating

Urinating

I was there on the dot for these tasks

So was there this loving canine to police

The night for kins and myself

Gone it is, stolen

So is the cord broken

And my heart beaten.

[Writ. 15 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

SUMMER’S DAY

SUMMER’S DAY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Warm is the day of summer.

The city’s drenched with sweat

Much more for humans

Sweats abound as unwanted flies

On the surface of sticky skin

Sticky is the summer’s day.

Warm yet blessed is the summer’s day.

The hot sun indeed bakes the skin a-gruel

Yet so does it burn all malignant germs

They quiver like it were their last

Winter, on a summer’s day

The signs of sickness shy away.

The body is a sturdy rock

Unreached by echoes of ailments

Only echoes of joy a-fleeting on a summer’s day.

[Writ. 15 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

FAREWELL GRANDFATHER

FAREWELL GRANDFATHER

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Farewell, beloved Grandfather!

I should have seen you

Yet but fate has not

Spared me the permission

To be delivered to you airlifted

Fate’s the traffic lights of for flights

T’wards your citadel on Terra

I will still dialogue with you

In my dreams, in dreams

You are a living memory

Of my youth and your wisdom charmed

And mixed like fused ions

Here I am, your founded vision

I am, I swear.

[Writ. 14 May ’91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

COME BACK O! LOST CRAFT

COME BACK O! LOST CRAFT

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

You will come back, o! lost craft!

You were drowned in the great deluge

Where faith in self lost its scepter

To turbulent waves of underesteem

Faith has lost faith!

You are not lost!

Nothing is

Lost, not a craft that burns

The nights that owls had no monopoly

Over, beat your own despair!

Rise and ride astride the new tidal waves!

Find the whirlpool from the deep recesses!

Twill pull you up

To where bubbles are on sea surfs’ tops

Afloat you shall be

You are your own life saver

You

Are.

[Writ. 14 May ‘99, Cubao, Quezon City, MManila]

WHY DO I LOVE YOU SO DEARLY

WHY DO I LOVE YOU SO DEARLY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Why do I love you so dearly?

As if love were an omnipresent elixir

From the teapots of Eros

Its fading is now next to impossible?

Certainly and o! so certainly because

You’ve been a person unto me who

Never ran out of kindness

Never ran out of reasonableness

Never ran out of sweetness

And so you deserve my love and tenderness.

O! Sweet daughter of the race of Zarathustra!

Behold! I’ve come for you! I am a gift

A present by my forebears Apollo and Dionysos.

I’ve come armed with the edict of my Will—

Evoked is my will to Love!

I am a harbinger of the Shadow—

The benign shadow of Love

That ceaselessly follows you:

It has been anchored in your bosom.

The forces of the Past can’t seem to leave you

Even as the Future now knocks upon your present

But the Past will be incinerated by its own twilight

And the Future gleefully glides before your countenance.

Shudder not with the sight of the Future

You shall find the door to its halls

And I’m the guardian who’d patiently waited for you

I’d lead you to Future’s spaces where we

Shall celebrate our affinity with dances

And fancies.

The Future will be delighted as we’ll dance

Together on its sacred floor

And Love’s the tune that we as ordained

Lovers never can ignore.

[Writ. 20 Jan.’89, U.P. Village, Quezon City, M.Manila]

COME TEMPEST!

COME TEMPEST!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Welcome, most devastating Tempest!

I’ve been expecting your arrival. Do again

Try to smash my Will and sap my strength with your

Diabolic winds, undersea currents and tsunamis.

Let us, while the universe watches, dance together

With no choreography: you are destroyer of all laws.

Crash me, crash me till the hardest of my bones

And inner strength will erode and fade away

To become lore that will no longer fit to be narrated…

That is, if fortune is on your side.

But Tempest, I am the architect of situations,

The productive zenith of sorceries of a million magi,

The master slayer of demons and dragons

That attempted to waylay me on my journeys.

Tempest, never have I lost to you, never have I

Pleaded that you depart from me when you’re around

As when you were present a hundred times before.

I have become cast as the hardest steel

Each time that you’ve made your visit.

Come, Tempest! Make your call once, twice and

A thousand more times: witness me as I again transform

Your powerful forces into ones that will steer me ahead—

Five steps backward and ten steps forward, I’m never

Off-balanced at all by your potent tormenting winds.

Feel me,Tempest, I’m overly cast

I’ve become a super-Tempest whose everyday dream is

To ensnare you as a slave and outcaste.

[Writ. 08 Jan.89, U.P. Village, Quezon City, M.Manila]

SLEEP NOT O! POETIC INSTINCT!

SLEEP NOT O! POETIC INSTINCT!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

No, lost shan’t you be.

Not when the voltages of inspiration’s currents

Flow like undiminished floods of recurrent

Seawaves upon imagination’s canvasses.

Let me find and catch you

In your deep slumber: ‘tis not your sad departure.

You’ve bid me no goodbye, not that I remember.

O! Poetic instinct of my inner chambers!

Come out of your doors when I have

Need of your benevolent company.

[Writ. 08 Jan.’88, U.P. Village, Quezon City, M.Manila]