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]
Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts
Friday, June 4, 2010
WHEN DEMOCRACY COMES
Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago
Land of ours! You’re bent on reminding
Us anew: that our Sentinels again
Will rob us clear of our well-earned
Civil rights and arrogate for themselves
All powers of government.
So what? Yes, so what?
Will democracy become so weary
As to naively recline upon coal embers
That are our Sentinels’ hearts?
Has democracy anyway flowered
Into full bloom in your soil as to assure
Your history’s place in the citadels
Of human grandeur?
Land of ours! Relay these utterances
To the vanguards of treachery:
Democracy is verily like a fruit
That has ripened in the beings
Of the workingmen in shops and farms:
A dazzling show twill manifest
As it finally blooms to maturity
And edifices of fascistic greed twill
Burn down to remain as ashes forever
A signal to all humanity of your
Patriots’ repute as victors and
You: a bastion of freedom bearers.
[Writ. 13 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]
Land of ours! You’re bent on reminding
Us anew: that our Sentinels again
Will rob us clear of our well-earned
Civil rights and arrogate for themselves
All powers of government.
So what? Yes, so what?
Will democracy become so weary
As to naively recline upon coal embers
That are our Sentinels’ hearts?
Has democracy anyway flowered
Into full bloom in your soil as to assure
Your history’s place in the citadels
Of human grandeur?
Land of ours! Relay these utterances
To the vanguards of treachery:
Democracy is verily like a fruit
That has ripened in the beings
Of the workingmen in shops and farms:
A dazzling show twill manifest
As it finally blooms to maturity
And edifices of fascistic greed twill
Burn down to remain as ashes forever
A signal to all humanity of your
Patriots’ repute as victors and
You: a bastion of freedom bearers.
[Writ. 13 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]
Thursday, May 6, 2010
ON CRAFTING THE FUTURE
Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago
What is
the promising denouement
of aspirations for betterment
by all the Earth’s dispossessed
if not that
the fidelity
to the visions
they’ve conceived
can unfold
in their nonpassive
creation.
Yes, the future
has shapes and forms
that can be exquisitely
crafted.
[Writ. 27 Sept. 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]
What is
the promising denouement
of aspirations for betterment
by all the Earth’s dispossessed
if not that
the fidelity
to the visions
they’ve conceived
can unfold
in their nonpassive
creation.
Yes, the future
has shapes and forms
that can be exquisitely
crafted.
[Writ. 27 Sept. 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]
Monday, May 3, 2010
REFLECTIONS ABOUT WORK
Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago
There can be
no savoring the foods
offered by Terra
without working hard for their generation;
no consumption of bounties
in torrential showers
without striving
for their production;
no recital of flowery
words about justice
without active contention
for their fruition;
no pleasant rest
of mind and body
without processing by
the sweatshops of labour;
no blissful state
of realized utopias
without rendering sufferings
from waylaid obstacles.
[Writ. 27 Sept, 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]
There can be
no savoring the foods
offered by Terra
without working hard for their generation;
no consumption of bounties
in torrential showers
without striving
for their production;
no recital of flowery
words about justice
without active contention
for their fruition;
no pleasant rest
of mind and body
without processing by
the sweatshops of labour;
no blissful state
of realized utopias
without rendering sufferings
from waylaid obstacles.
[Writ. 27 Sept, 1987, University of the Philippines, QC.]
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