A SUM OF PARASITES

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


To serious thinkers an X unknown
is the sum of financial technocrats
and foreign debtors

but to the paupered lot
the sum means
more tasty diets consisting
of liver flukes
of ascaris
of tuberculosis
of kwashiorkor
of bronchopneumonia
of pinworms
of schistosomiasis

A sum of parasites
is always equal to parasites
and nothing less


[Writ. 04 June 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

THE GUERILLA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Fine, fine is the guerilla
knows s/he that the hinterland
is an infernal zone
where the enemy’s textbook lessons
seem like lost dots and dazed calculi
in a wildly vast encyclopedia

Fine, fine is the guerilla
s/he the master of warfare’s laws
of cunny maneuvers
amid tricky foliages and fields

The guerilla
Just like culture heroes
Is a sung hero


[Writ. 04 June 91. Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

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]

JUAN’S NIGHTMARE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Sleeping while inner rage brews
Inside one’s cognitive vat does not make
A sleep the fulfillment of a day’s toil.
Not for Juan the unlettered and dispossessed
Whose wretchedness is a correlate of wealth
Amassed by his other brothers whose
Purses and stocks do bulge ad infinitum.
Not for Juan. Reserved inner rage
Sooner unfolds into a thousand nightmares:
Spoiled is the timeless joy of dream’s utopia.


[Writ. 19 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

CORDILLERA BEGGARS?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


O! Beloved people of Cordillera!
Please lend me true reasons
For the fact that some members
Of your proud majestic land
Now belong to beggars’ armies
In the Manila Metropolis?

I know too well that your grand mountains
Are abodes of immense wealth and lores
Of a sturdy people that has never
Been conquered nor has starved
Not the strong and tireless highlander
Who never disdains sweaty labor
And sublime service even as bountiful harvests
Are perpetually reaped for family and clan
And offered at the altar of Bathala.

Is it the handiwork of Plunder
Now magnified by the clockwork of War?
If twere so can you be extricated
From Plunderers’ predatory claws?

O! Please answer my query for you too
Are to me a noble teacher of life.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

MENDICANT O’ STREET

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Beloved Mendicant o’ Street
Please misread not as selfishness
My apparent refusal to render you coins
When you’re on the heels
Of riders I’m astride on
Surely my heart bleeds profusely
Over your thankless predicament
Filled I am with guilt and shame
For apparent deeds of misanthropy
Each occasion of your presence
Has the whole sky come a-crashing down
Your eyes narrate the cryptic tale
Of Hades devouring the Earth
Just as my mind speaks to you
What it thinks of the occasion
That to offer you pieces of coins
Won’t transport you to amelioration
Better yet if t’were a stable job
I’d give as presents unto you which awefully I
Do not at the moment possess.


[Writ. 05 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

AID, MORE AID!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Why pump the lifeblood

Of poor nations with Aid

From modern Titans?



This Aid’s a footstool of Ceasar.

‘Tis nothing but cancer that encroaches

Upon the weak body of the recipient:

Eroded are the remaining vestiges

Of moral strength for the Poor’s will

To rise from the maelstrom of wretchedness;

‘Tis the fattest of parasites

That rapidly saps all nourishment

From the Poor’s ulcerated belly;

‘Tis an aromatic essence

That later reveals its baneful powers

To asphyxiate the struggling breather

Towards Hamlet sleep.



For by now victims ought to recognize

When abominable vampires strike;

Blood loss in such sucking vein is much too different

From blood gained from an altruistic donor.



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

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.]