GLORIA IN EXCURSUS CORRUPTUS!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


I wish I were a zoologist in the works
That I can fittingly label those species of spooks
Of political elites and broods of stinking punks
In scientific parlance brand them a la skunks

Lacking those credentials of a laboratory researcher
Allow me then to brand the spooks as one enthused
Layman who would lay his scalpels on those punks
And see where ends this poetic branding bunks

Now this Arroyo d’Gloria of the tropics’ land
Leaves her good office shaved of coffers’ fats
Nine years the Tropicana folks endured her mien
Her term thus called era d’ excursus corruptus

Let Gloria be homo excursus corruptus
Photocopied from greedy cronies d’Marcos
Upon her journey to the corridors of power
Her family plundered best as Empress Dowager

Intoxicated with enormous power a’ fascist she
Dreams endlessly of clinging on to presidency
Indeed an Empress Dowager born with tragic luck
To many enemies sits she now as sitting duck

Will Filipinas then be torn catastrophically asunder
As Cathay was upon Dowager’s heist of power?
Upon her tenure’s end did Cathay go to dogs
Will Filipinas then be sliced as juicy hotdogs?

[Philippines, 15 April 2010]

See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

SPEAK O! FELICITOUS LADY!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Speak to me, dear Friend!
Are you a ghost—a ghost of Light—
That smashes the granite rocks of masks
I’ve upon myself built with esteem’s cement?
Speak! Lady chronicler of the inner theatres!
Behold! We need no longer pass along
This world’s tortuous roads as our monads fuse—
Yours and mine, mine and yours.
Regain shall I my own pure unbesmirched
Halo of intelligence and will and aspiration:
You are the sacred moment that fertilizes
Again like unto growing buds of verdant lores
This sanctified shadow of my inner theatre.
Speak! Lady of the free spirits!
Quench my thirst for tales of delight!
You are the tale, the bringer of delight,
The ultimate acting being in the Thespian stage.
Receive my swearword: I offer
To you the wakened ghost of mine, once more
To amplify your limitless experiencing of the magic
In the world of humans; my words, planted and grown


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

MORNING RHYTHM

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Silence breaks
Morning mist
Meets the day anew in sweet embrace
Birds aflight
Cats shall rest
As the sun erases evening’s haze.
Buses roll
Flies a-swarm
Off abound they’re freed from bottle’s cork.
Grandpas sneer
Dads consume
Coffee and news pages before work.
Crackers crack
Mobiles whine
Hospitals’ own occupants balloon.
Traffic grows
Roads go blocked
Terrified policeman act like goon.
Planes arrive
Flyers rest
Peddlers sell their wares with lemonade.
Bags prepared
Pockets swing
Joy’s corrupt official’s mood in trade.


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

DON’T SLEEP TONIGHT O! CITY LIGHTS!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


May the glowing lights at night
Not stop at all for rest or sleeps.

Beware! Beware!
Snakes are bound to strike
When patriots of most noble faith
Sense slimmest the hordes of traitors;
Sentinels we’ve long trusted
May ride astride lightning bolt
To incinerate our dens of freedom
And leave the lores of democracy
To the nothingness of decay.
Tyranny is ripe once more, a fruit
The would-be autocrats savor the best.

O! City lights!
Please don’t sleep at night!


[Writ. 13 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

THE SUN OUR KIN

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


It’s true the Sun will lay to rest
On the day’s end after his toil
And give way to the nighttime hours
When ravagers despoil amid our slumbers
But sure enough the morning comes
And Sun radiates our Land anew
Each smile he sports enervates our longings
For better times of wealth and wellbeing
He never tires to shed us rays of care
He never retreats without sharing heraldries
Of what our strivings will bring forth
A sturdier and well esteemed commonwealth
He shall ever be there when we need him
A kin indeed our light of liberty


[Writ. 07 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

WHY MOTHERLAND?

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Why ought we call Motherland
The cradle of us loyal citizens?
Why not just call it Land
For the sake of propriety and brevity?
Likewise we shan’t label Fatherland
Each lustrous land of alien conquerors
Who enslaved our forbears in servitude
Over epochs of lamentable tribulations.

A Mother is she who never dares forsake
Her children whom she lovingly nourishes.
And yet all children grow to bid farewell
To the hardships of infantile life
And so to bid farewell as well
To the Mother who soon faces retirement.

Habits of old are hard to die
Like thoughts on Motherland or Fatherland
Even as we’re not overgrown infants
Of a country that professes eternal Motherhood
And neither could we all say farewell
To our benign Land: our Provider.


[Writ. 06 October 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

SENTIMENTS FROM EROS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Sentiments from Eros’ royal house
Here it lies within my being.
A chasm it shall try to bridge
And warm up your cold heart a-glow.
It will grow, it will merge
From the shadows of the iceberg’s underneath.
It will seek its proper moorings
In your heart it is wont
To nestle; only in your heart or nevermore.

[Writ. 24 July 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]

CADAVER’S BIOGRAPHY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


vermin upon vermin gather in mounds
undistinguished from the morsel
felled by it’s ego’s date with Grim Ripper

25, 50, 100, etc
are found without names in named or unnamed
cemeteries

uncelebrated figures
are puzzles that are delightful to civil
libertarians’ appetites for enigmas

--shadows without tales
or felled bodies do have sagas of pain
or joy unaffected by the Roman slaughter
of holy and unholy souls on Golgotha’s foot


[Writ. 11 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

MARSHES OF CANDABA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


When hawks and other living flyers
Set foot on swampy fields for feeding
Tis a marvelous sight that glows the eyes
As mark of platonic appreciation

Where muddy waters used to fill
The air with constant foul-smelling vapors
And gift the neighboring men and women
With malaria and ailments and more
And leave no space that’s fertile enough
For crops and edible greens
And there vehicles run agog
When torrents bring oceanic floods
No more is this worthy of anyone’s esteem
Than to ignore it for its fecal state

Melons and fruits and rice now abound
In this once noxious forbidden land
No more is Hope rekindled the better
Than on the marshes of Candaba

Fly! Fly! Beloved Eagle to the peasant’s nest!
And laud him with your hymns of joy
For his victorious heartwarming travails on swamps
Indeed make him a true human champion.


[Writ. 06 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

POLICEMAN

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Policeman! Throngs of multitudes are
Waiting for your return to civility!

On account of the erosion of your image
As a reliable enforcer of statutes
By your recalcitrant engagements in
Extortions and rackets and every condemnable
Act that are well perceived by the periscopic oculars
Of the consummate public;

Come home, policeman! Come home
To the moral niche of civility!

For to extract money from laboring motorists
Traders and pedlars who may no more
Be better than the poorest fellows
Of yours whose every cent that you
Embezzle will accrue to the rupture
Of the noblest dignity;

Come home, policeman! Come home
To the powerhouse of civility!

For to bust striking workingment or to
Train guns on dissenting marchers or to
Equate to criminal acts those that are
Worthy of appreciation as they are
Motivated by desires for justice
Will cost you your sweet acceptance
By the same people whom you ought to protect;

Come home, policeman! Come home to
The sanctuary of civility!

People are surely waiting for you
Not excluding the gunslinging predators
Who are out to snatch your life
For your treachery and malevolence.

[Writ. 06 June, AUF, Angeles City, Pampanga]

SIMPLE WORDS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


In every production of my pen
Of full narrative or poem
I’m compelled to write in simple
Words that folks could comprehend

It’s no joke to dazzle minds
With jargons and magical words
For just like magic on a wand’s stroke
Will make the denouement outpace
The cognition of the enthusiastic viewer
Will only obscure the thought presented
And leave the consciousness dangling
On rotten vines of superstition and illusion

For I’m supposed to offer
Lines that shatter false images
It’s so that every undertaking
Of thinking and imagining
Will irradiate the knowing viewer
With rays of clarity and concreteness


[Writ. 06 June 1988, Angeles City, Pampanga, on a visit to the Angeles University Foundation.]

STA. ANA

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Cranes atop carabaos at work
Amid endless sights of rice fields
That merge with the mountains on their brims
Where thick canopies of trees add color
To the green canvass of the picturesque scenery
Here are the trademarks of the path
To Sta. Ana the forthcoming legend.

Reached by land from arterial roads
Where the traveler’s exhaustion is gaily relieved
By the vista of the cool blue sea
A limitless basin aplenty
With marine basics and exotics.

Soon there shall rise an industrial
Enclave whose merchandise will be sold
To foreign lands and peoples.

Fisherfolk, planters and workingmen meet
There in an unintended league
To realize that beauteous and bountiful
Nature and profitable shops & foundries
Can’t at all conceal miserly living.


[Writ. 05 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]

WHY NOT HUMILITY?

By: Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Why not be humble at all moments
Of association with fellowmen?
Didn’t the shopworker teach you
That one rudiment of survival
Is the intelligent recognition
Of your limitations’ omnipresence
Inspite of endowments of craft & wealth?
For there too are circumstances
That are beyond you grasps
In the snares of Naivete
And may even cause a furor
Of gig and limitless giggle?
For Boastfulness and Arrogance
Are twin eagles of deception
That once they’d lift you aflight
They’d shake you off the winds to crash
Tragically on the solid ground
Of defeat and humiliation?

O! Humility!
You are a noble messenger
That speaks for transparent Security
One that makes a person immensely cherished
By the commonwealth of all men.


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

ON MEASURING LOVE

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Love, concern and sincerest care
For the loved one and all loved fellows:
Could these be measured
Like the metered current
That powers the home?
If it were so could devotion be paid
In sheets over sheets of monies?

Perhaps the cats, dogs
And other wondrous pets at home
Can offer the answer:
Wondrous pets don’t count at all
Their kisses and devotion to friends
O! How they keep on giving!
They simply keep on giving!

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

ON RETIREMENT

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago



Why dream of retiring at age 60 or 65?

Has life not gloriously revealed

The exquisite beauty within you

That shines all the more

With each day of doing?

Will retirement not compel you

Into dark dens of nothingness

Push you to the brink

Of cancerous boredom that kills

In every second of its conquest?



Continue to share to all fellowmen

The sublime makings of your trade

Be these in simple or intricate form.



For Life has endowed you

With blessings aplenty

Since the first day that you saw

The undying Light of the sun.



[Writ. 04 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 PITFALLS & STARS

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Man,
In times when mind’s soaked
in an intoxicating concoction
of rage and fiery resentment
ought not battle against pitfalls

that are really no pitfalls
when gauged against virtues
that they unintendedly unlock

for such virtues are ever present
in the labyrinth of pursuits
awaiting to float to the surface
of riverine Existence

no matter how inconspicuous these are;
they are stars that are forever
habituating the firmaments
in grandiose beauty,

despite dark clouds
despite dark clouds

[Writ. 02 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]

THOUGHTS ON ACTION

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Actions of a kind
And those of others
Ever demand a plethora of decisions
Whether erroneous to some quarters
Or righteous to the rest.
The mind fulfills the thinking
Balanced with the doing
In a majestic rhythm
Of poetry and calculus,
Tempered by Justice
And the quest of the Will,
Astride the vehicle of Wisdom
Fueled by noble Inspiration,
It measures the outcome
Whether least appealing or best.

[Writ. 02 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila.]