Pardo Catholic Cemetery: A Thousand and One Lights on All Souls' Day

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

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

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

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

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

The Crowd and the Mob: Sinulog Festival 2017

Images: Cebu City, Philippines

Music, Rhythm, and Dance: Sinulog Festival 2017

Images: Cebu City, Philippines