Showing posts with label philippines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philippines. Show all posts

Thursday, November 30, 2017

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Resurrection



In the midst of tumbling drops
trampled by wheels upon puddles,
the sound of resurrection promised 

itself.

Motorcycles' side mirrors bathed
in mist, the starer almost crying, lined
the course home swiftly moving.
Twilight in might, vehicular lights
formed a globule: a tunnel's end

to all the deaths slipping by sight,
to all the perish melting in memory.

As the motorcycle cradled its passenger
towards the light at once confused
with concrete delusion, the whirring,

the blaring and the blasting

slowed the time down, fingers pointing
to light as if afar. Promises, meant
to lift a race, reduced to metaphors

for a bliss yet to come, to pour down.

Poem by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Dumaguete City, Philippines

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Indoctrination



Shoot whoever comes your way. Kill in whatever way whoever does not speak the way you do. That's the smooth path. Cleanse the way off dirt. Ease the pain. That's all I can teach you. So you could survive in my absence. So you could stand your way. Whenever guns are pointed at you. Guns not the same with yours. That's all I can teach and give. So you could feed yourself for a lifetime. Not with fish but ammunition. Eager to pulverize. Wrap your forehead with a band. So they will know you. That you are a cleanser of a man. Of a tribe. Of a land. Walk along the tombstones. Count the bodies you flagellated. Ones that decayed. Thrust your rifle on the ground. Urinate on the shaft. Own your kingdom increasing in number. That's all I can share. Multiply. Indoctrinate bereft mothers and children.

Poem by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Talisay City, Cebu, Philippines

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Children


Children
need to see the Christ pained
on his death,

they need to see
pixilated, blurred scars on TV
turning into flesh cut out by lashes,

they need no guidance from adults,
they need to be left interpreting
a man whispering his moans
to his unseen father,

they need
to smell the blood dried on his nose
on his cheeks & eyelashes,

they need to hear the breath
last on his lungs as a spear soaked
in wine is struck on his rib,

they
need to look closely on the sun
interspersed on the crucifix
thus making out a silhouette
of a man - healer & teacher as
yearned by weeping bit players
- saving a world of dragged backs
equated with salvific yokes,

they
need to remind one and themselves
all they have seen on screen
as they throw pebbles on chalk lines
etched on sand, indeciphering yet,
impetuously loving yet.

Poem by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Sunken Cemetery, Camiguin Island, Philippines

Friday, April 14, 2017

New Baptism



During the sun's scorching gaze
Is baptism renewed most fit
When, hands clasped on each other
(a gesture of obligatory devotion)
I will soak my heels up my nape
Drops almost touching my earlobes
Bubbles will form, burst, regenerate
Ripples rival among themselves
Placid waves caress my ligaments
As the high priest rinses the spirit
As I close my eyes for orange panorama
The gentle rush of water subsides
A stagnant pool quiets the crowd
And now the baptizer is out of sight
Only cobblestones cradle me in their arms
In the void of direction, of ritual

Poetry by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Camiguin Island, Philippines

Monday, March 13, 2017

The Importance of the Hands that Toiled for Food


The city is as convoluted as the din, smoke, and stench emanating from every busy street and every nook and cranny too busy to care for the little things it is being survived by. The harvest too gilded for the hands, scorched and veined, that have toiled hard with sweat and tears, is, however, diluted to being inconsequential by the scatterbrains dwelling in rat holes. Food, for the oblivious, is a necessity more than it is a gift. That, that fact, kills a soul covered in comfortable porcelain flesh.

Image: Carcar City, Cebu, Philippines

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Sunday, January 8, 2017