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]

ATOMIC SLUMBER

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you’ll rest forever unnoticed
You pestilent idea of Atomic War!
Have mercy on the farmer
Who’s been wishing to raise
His family to full decency
And so too on the labourer
Whose sweat has been aspiring
To transmute into purest gold
For the betterment of basic living.

Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you’ll be buried in oblivion
You pestilent thought of Atomic War!
Have mercy on children whose smiles
And plays irradiate the world
With untarnished love and devotion
For they deserve to reap
The harvests of good works
They’re noble inheritors of Mother Earth.

Go far away to the remotest desert
Where you shall slumber forever
You pestilent idea of Atomic War!
And may the champion of the Light
Smash all Bombs—abominable icons of Lucifer—
To inutility inasmuch as Life
Has been unto everyone endowed
Not plainly to vaporize
In the hot blazing ovens
Of detonated thermonuclear devices.


[Writ. 04 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]