Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

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, April 18, 2016

Bigotry


The morality of a highbrow bigot can crucify a poor, barefaced soul in seconds.

The plebeian gets pounced on a slip -- to death -- profusely bleeding without being heard.

Reasons that don't cower in fear and apologies that bury the lowly alive six feet under blindingly shiny shoes, are a murmuring drone of a gnat within earshot.

An annoyance to be silenced, or to be stamped out by inutile tender hands -- pink and moisturized and manicured to high heavens, unsullied -- that have never met any kind of soil.

Why?

Because, again, bigot.


Image: Toa Payoh, Singapore

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Safe Haven


Storm clouds loom over our scarlet cradle
-- the feelings, the dreams, and the roads.
The distressed air knows its own battles;
stubborn and wild, it unleashes its might.

Birds perch on in abandoned, broken attics,
fraught with fear or coldness or hunger.
Never to leave until the tempest dies;
never to fly until the sun comes up.

Heavy, pounded, and loud, earth is soggy,
an incurable wound for hours,
or an infant enduring its complex wailing.
Souls wander not on a lark. 

The night breaks its ribcage;
streaks of light unfold before your eyes,
pacing as a patient soldier.
And warm hands hold you tight.


Image: Aboard Tiger Airways from Singapore bound for Cebu, Philippines

Saturday, August 22, 2015

Hardin sa Mang-uuma (A Farmer's Garden)


Your garden, peppered with your magical touch,
lies under capricious heavens and over silent, deep riverbeds.
It awaits the season of bloom, which cries of defaulted joy.
It is as patient as a vagrant crossing treeless lands, lost and parched and yellow.
It is, after all, a child without tantrums.

When it survives, you are the proud father.
When it grows, green and strong, you have found a pearl.
It wins every taste bud.
You can make yourself breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
It is selfless and giving.
Your garden, after all, is a forest, a nature with lungs.


Images: Cebu City, Philippines

Sunday, April 13, 2014

The Plant


There you are my muse
in the nook of my soul,
looking out for my god
dressed in my faith and hope.

How the silence of your mien
perpetuates through my afternoon,
is to my indignation not;
it is the fuel stirring 
my affair with solitude.

I delight in your fine expression
-- coy, playful, full of conviction,
yet unpredictable.

You carry the eyes
watered with spring and summer,
and direct which to mine;
and for that, so grateful I am.

Despite all the nuisances
dangling and screaming around,
you remain calm and steadfast,
only to breathe with me,
to sleep in our own pulses
and be swayed by our simple happiness.

I catch the phrases let out from your foliage
-- young, smiling, and still wading
in the ruffled air and storms.

I love you.


Image: Toa Payoh, Singapore