UNIVERSITY CLASSROOM

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


A noble ground it is this wondrous room
Where enthused adepts wait in seats a-poised
While mentor fills the air with notes a-flamed
That conquer maladies Ignorance had unveiled

Said conquest needs complete obeisance then
To reason and empirics’ tones of truth
Without which otherwise all things fall ‘part
As dark as what yon Medieval had cast

Sacred! Sacred is this noble ground we’re in
Where flaunted are ideas in liberty fulfilled
Where rigodons of reflection bring emancipation
Eschewed are dogmas—ikons’ benediction

How cool the air from humming fan is blown
Reminds us thus of sunlit valleys warm as old
Where there descend cool breezes from boondocks’ heights
Relieved is tensed up mental bank of yours

Sometimes the heat flack up thermometer’s gauge
Bring swelter hence to enthused minds a-blazed
Alright just mind not that which puts one a-glazed
For cool will be dear mentor’s words unfazed

Let there be praises for all women and men
Who’d fuse their minds in this Platonic den
Should they have grasped so well each lesson learned
Their worlds off walls would better be in zest


[Writ. 02 March 92, University of the Philippines Manila]

FAREWELL TO ACADEMIA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



The time, yes the time has come
For me to say farewell to you o! Academe
I’d again face the hostile world outside
Where rapacious Existence devours its gullible prey.

How gently comforting are you o! Academe!
A supreme shelter against diabolic boulders spewed
By the volcanic raptures of a putrescent world.
You are the soft bed where I’d laid
My tired body, tired from sojourns aplenty
You are the stars and moons joined together
That illuminated the nights of my life’s first half
You are the magical stove that patiently cooked
The ideas harvesting from my ever-searching mind
You are the resting stations all in all
In the Calvaries and Golgothas of my life.

Why depart I now that in you I am in bliss
Clearly because I’d been fated by history and self
To entrench my soul in humanity’s bosom
Share in the extirpation of malignant social ailments
Rooted in sorceries of injustices and imperial lust
They that had mired people in fecals and hovels.
Thereof I go forth, the molded warrior-poet
To thrust once more my blades against historic demons.

What words have I to say my gratitudes
These I can’t but feel them from my heart
I know that off your walls you are my trusted pal
Whom I will caringly long for in the morrows
Rest assured thus I bade farewell in full comfort.


[Writ. 16 Feb. 92, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

TO SOME YOUTH LEADERS CIRCA 1991

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


O! Star youth of the Rizalandian race!
Truly so lovable and minds quizzical
Begotten as leaders yon echelon of thy gesselschaft
Who are to me so near and made so
By dancing with me together in the great hall
Of academic undertaking: tangoed we
As authentically ordained partners: ordained by fate
To feel and think together in states o’ sobriety
By commands of duty and obligation
For whom my everything my mind and heart
Had been encumbered for as my sole offering
Offering my soul’s betrothed my soul’s pure halo
My person a gift given collateralized
Without me demanding for the basest return
Yet but build they their gesselschaft and self sterlingly.

O! Knights and knightesses of today and tomorrows
How in the world can I besmirch thee all
Of whose countenance are to me endeared with plenitude?
Behold there isn’t one iota of doubt in me
‘Bout your knighthood’s prowess and trade’s wherefores

There at the summit of Cheop’s pyramid
Resides my esteem for thee all:
I shall lift up thy esteem
Towards abodes of gods
‘Twere firmaments
Fade in the dazzling light a-beauty
Of the aeternal Thou

I can no more bethink of reasons
For the begrudged flames in thy hearts
I now the crucified caper before thine eyes
Ne’er meant I to unlock a Pandora’s box
For which findest thy self in unfounded apprehension
Not for my endeared partners ne’er for thou

O! How I hope that grasp thou all so clear
The sincerest meaning behind my swearwords of late
That we ought march as one to champion
The triumphant denouement of our joint deeds
In their unique sense be they simple or compounded.


[Writ. 27 July 91, Univ. of the Philippines Manila]