(Untitled)

(Untitled)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Indeed O! sweetest lady
Sweeter still than honey and wine
Whom Dionysos frenzies for delightfully
With whom all men are enthralled by
You gorgeous sight
You are the soothing wave that massages
My tired heart, tired in searching
For you and no one but you

Come forth!
Bring our foreshadowed fusion
To its marvelous close!


[Writ. 27 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WAR

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]

TO DO OR NOT TO DO SELF-ANNIHILATION

TO DO OR NOT TO DO SELF-ANNIHILATION

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Fate could be embezzler and crook
If bribed it could be
‘Tis when one cuts his/her throat and snuffs
Out life as one cold stone.
Yet fate and life are holy lovers
Self, the blinding love
Inane would be the earth’s own twirling be
If this code wasn’t found.

This itch to knife the body, like
Fly that scans excrement
Will flee when reason for it shies away
When swatters swarm the heaps
That is when one has bridged the self
To the crafting of the world anew
Behold! The diadems in people’s hearts!
Await everyone’s countenance
Like cornfields that a day shan’t miss
Without showers gently sent
By pious clouds from heaven’s floors
Undone is the sizzling heat
And then no more will knifing the body
Ever cross the willful mind.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHAT OUGHT I WRITE AGAIN?

WHAT OUGHT I WRITE AGAIN?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


What ought I write again
On this blank page in front of me?
Blank is my mind as a clear
Tabularasa: empty is the world, a dot
On its circumscribed face

Without an iota of an image
On its being.
Fertile is the night.
Cockroaches dance gaily to proclaim
So. What now would preoccupy
The mind?

Frigid is the pen. It cannot roll on
To herald the hymns and notes
Fervently brewing deep in the vats
Of my inner space: thoughts have receded
Without the usual romance with the pen.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

BREAK! BREAK THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!

BREAK! BREAK THROUGH TIME AND SPACE!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

Break, break through the barrier
Betwixt time and timelessness!
Descend upon Terra’s mortal face!
Nestle in the minds of knowers
Who’ll catch you a-glide!
As to your catchers who know not
One another, perfect strangers
Illuminate them with your radiance!
A holy fire you are and ever
To all men you’re passed a-glow.

That you land on different mortal
Baskets at one time and only one
Is cause enough for bafflement
For both simpleton and erudite.

But your stately arrival exudes greater kingliness
Then the wondrous enigma you’ve aroused
Risen have you from beneath time’s antechambers
To exterminate the nebulae of ignorance.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

(UNTITLED)

(UNTITLED)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Shall we again rendezvous
As the rains and leaves do
To the month of June?

Of what romance are we to partake
When neither of us sees at all
The shadow
Nor hears news and whereabouts
Of one another?

Behold! Walls of time have been built
Between us. The chance of communicating
With one another
Had been buried
In catacombs
Complete with dirges.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHERE ARE YOU SWEETEST LADY?

WHERE ARE YOU SWEETEST LADY?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Where are you, sweetest lady?
Long had passed since my heart’s Cupid beating
For you was at its zenith.
You are a living ghost that appears
Ceaselessly on the panoramic screen
Of my cognitive antechambers.
Do our thoughts and hears still meet
Betwixt undefined time and spaces
Like blended waves of twin satellites
Long cut off from
Their umbilical cords?
Or am I just churning reveries
Of a love flame long deadened
By oblivion’s deoxidizing waters?
Please tarry not the questioning
Or goner would be my fate.


[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]