CRIMES

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


The still calm of the morning
Is as deafening as stories
About crimes
Printed in the dailies
Broadcast on radio

Crime has become the cheapest
Merchandise
Flaunted by its own law
Of supply and demand
Its price roughshodly lowered
By abundance
More abundant
Than mangoes and guavas

They need not be bought at all
So much that even the harmless streets
Of recluse villages
Become zoos
Littered with
Salvaged
Bodies


[Writ. 29 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

(Untitled)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


A key
Inserted on a doorknob
Cannot turn itself
Someone has to be
It’s turning’s progenitor

What
If indeed a key
Turns a doorknob
By itself?

‘Tis like asking
If a cockroach can
Push an elephant
Or if a gentle breeze can
Knockout a sturdy house

It coheres with the circumstance
When a ball rests and bounces
At the same time

When the slightly probable
Fills the observer’s eyes
As an inescapable vista of verdant forests
Green and lucidly green


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