Category: Poems & poem-like things

Original poetry, translations and videopoems by the authors of this blog. (See Poets and poetry for criticism, etc.)

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Dark Histories: Refrain

“How I err to be.” ~ D. Bonta

And it flares up again, hot jet of flame,
anger I thought I’d doused once and for good—
when was the last time? Decades I’ve spent

just trying to get my due, walk in the world
able to look any other clearly in the eye,
because I can: only to encounter the side-

swipe, blind side, shift or sleight of hand
that, confronted, slides around a little more
before settling into semblance of grudging

apology, if one might call it that— Oh pardon
the oversight; it wasn’t deliberate. Just a joke,
can’t you take a joke? So lame, so old. It used to be

I was afraid to speak, bite back, match any injured
wolf, howl for howl, under the moon’s marbled white
aloofness: o implacable, o ravenous appetite

that orders us to dance before crushing our bones.
From these bluffs, this margin slivered with pine,
it looks so beautiful: cities gleam like a lit-up

Atlantis, lost and found empires of crumbling gold—
Let me remind you we arrived a long time ago. We’re here,
each bearing a satchel of broken but luminous things.

 

In response to Via Negativa: The Decider and thus: consubstantiation.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Undertones

This entry is part 13 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

In the dark, before I rose, the sound of a thin high cry fluttering over the hedge.

What I thought was sand or a handful of gravel aimed at the glass turned out to be rain.

This is not an attempt to make small talk over a finger-length of bread, a thin wheel of fruit— paper napkin clutched between forefinger and balancing thumb.

Most days are hard to forecast: yesterday, they said thunderstorms, but the hours extended like a bright shingle at the height of summer.

You see, I worried about the recently transplanted verbena, but they seem to have recovered in that brief scattering of rain.

The dogwood, confused by the heat last winter, has decided to trust the air again.

What do I miss? I miss the low-creeping mimosa: those shy ones, they shrink from every touch— every leaf folding inward neatly, even in the merest wind.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Round Mat #2

This entry is part 12 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

My friend in Villalimpia writes that the manugbanig, the women weavers in a village in Bukidnon, have made even more wondrous mats this time around: fronds dyed the colors of tamarind or camachile, siniguelas, turmeric, champaka.

She tells me she will send them to me and my sister-in-law in July through a friend traveling to a peace conference in northern Virginia: I only know his name is “Al.”

When I ask how to get the payment to the weavers, she tells me there is no hurry now, but we should plan for it to get to them in June, when they will use it to pay tuition for the weavers’ children.

Perhaps they go to school in the center of town, or in the city where there are internet cafes, department stores, malls, arcades, beer gardens, bowling alleys.

They might walk or they might take a tricycle or a jeepney or bus.

Some of them are still being taught how to do this work perfected by their mothers and grandmothers.

Their hands must learn to tell one leaf from another, how to grasp with strength but tenderness so as not to bludgeon the stalk; how to turn the hands into a shuttle flying through the tedious hours in the rainy months until the colors are palpable, acquire a distinct smell…

When you lie in the center of such a mat, sometimes it is hard to tell if you are in the center of an eddy or a wheel, or in the eye of a hurricane churning over the sea— mere speck suspended in history, which always precedes you.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Solace

“…Bago mo muling matingnan ang maningning na pag-ibig,
kailangang matakpan ang paglalakbay ng tanging itim…”
~ “Ang Isa Pang Pangalan ng Pag-Ibig,” Rebecca T. Anonuevo

(“…The road will be cloaked in a singular darkness
before you gaze again upon love’s brilliant face…”
~ trans. L. Igloria, from “The Other Name of Love,” by Rebecca T. Anonuevo)

 

And in that cleft of rock, that
desolate stretch lit by no sign,

no lamp nor welcoming hut, you’ll hear
the stops of all drowned instruments

singing from the bottom of the lake and add
your voice— How long have you walked

and over what distance? By this time,
it will no longer matter: the chains

that bound you to your suffering will have
grown brittle; there won’t be any need

to find the blacksmith in this town.
Lay down, lay down upon the grass

and watch the trails of your breath
release, like tiny sparks, under the moon.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Paradoxen.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Paradoxen

erasure of a page from Samuel Pepys' diary

I had in my cabin
that dun cow, paradox:
that the sea was good at ninepins.
That we hear for our instruments—
locks singing to the blacksmith.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 23 April 1660.

Posted on by Luisa A. Igloria

Unto every one that hath shall be given;

This entry is part 11 of 31 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Spring 2013

and unto every one that hath not, the sky
will never be enough. Unto every branch
fixed with blossom, and unto every one
drooping, armless, or shaded with decay—
And what about the ones that have
no allegiance either way, that take
or render merely as seasons dictate?
Sun, rain, wind, drought, hail— each
hastens a different growth: the way
I tend my affections for you, beloved
that I cannot ever truly own, or hold.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.