Saturday, July 26, 2014

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]




Monday, July 21, 2014

DON’T OFFER ME DIRGES (I’m But A Slum Habitue)

DON’T OFFER ME DIRGES (I’m But A Slum Habitue)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Don’t offer me dirges or marches for graveyards
I am no more a rat eater whose niche
Is this make-shift tenement, no longer
Human by the yardsticks of Grecian perfection
And Roman artistry, a fragment too unfit
For the wholeness of Renaissance’s imageries.

May I invite to dinner my neighborhood’s constant visitors
From state halls and army barracks
Who on not too few occasions offered me
And my neighbors their version of a gift:
Bulldozed tenements and shanties leveled off
Spiced with gunfire that severed resistance.

Felled boys and dead bodies of urban poor
Anyway deserve not the hymns of public praises,
Praises long reserved for princes and taipans.
History’s everyday indeed can’t seem to be
An asset shared by all men alike.


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

Thursday, July 10, 2014

PROMETHEUS IN ACADEMIA

PROMETHEUS IN ACADEMIA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Welcome, Prometheus!
Descend upon the pillars and corridors of Academia!
Have your merriment and feasts among
The expectant adherents of your holy fire.
Illuminate the residents of Academia with your
Undying light: mana of reason and knowledge.
Awaken us to the flowering consciousness of the knower
As your light fires up the longing lamps of us all.
Remain! Linger on! Let your sacred essence be
Of the inherited Elixir of our triumphant march
Along Life’s trek!
Happy at last will be Zeus over our sublime fraternity.


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