THIRD WORLD AND MANILAMANIC POEMS
CELESTIAL MECHANICS
A fiery sunset spendored with Pinatubos hues
silhouettes the mountains back of the barrio
A solitary Venus gleams bright against the glow
as if a manger were below in this sad land
and stars begin to speckle the inky eastern sky
which expands into a vast blackness
blazing with stars
with always more between those just seen
giving a count on infinity
The hamlets unlit but by lamps
warm kerosene and cooler Coleman glows
marking the humble abodes
staking out the darkening hill
untriangulated points of peopling
beneath the heavens eternal geometry
Night, pure night
inorganic as an arctic winter
A little more than two hours of blackness
nine Oclocking chronologically
the three quarters moon rises over Luzon
Its glow silhouettes the distant mountains of Laguna;
Macolod, Makilling and to the east sacred Banahaw
and soon illuminates the paths though the jumbled nipa huts
and I set out in the nights morning
knowing my returning will be bright
The rebels in the mountains may be partying tonight
celebrating victories
mourning casualties
as only comrades can
in their uninebriated style
while the soldiers in the barrio drink free
on lowland Filipino hospitality
which they do not mistake for gratitude
Nice People Around contribute to the occasion
Mang Delano has some ducks the soldiers can shoot
victims for the also victimized
and he grills them after with his special BBQ sauce
and sends them back to barracks with doggie bags
and four long neck ESQ rhums
Higher up the moon looks almost full
the zenith will announce three AM
but before then
Ginebra San Miquel, warm Sprite and calamansi
dilute my blood
and invigorate my brain
Befuddled with the grammarless Tagalog
I try to communicate in
I state my final wisdoms
I have plenty and so must be choosey
no bureaucrat or academics so well endowed
or ultimately correct
when all is moot I shoot from the lip
at my addled audience
Near nights noon I begin my way home
through the lifeless looking hamlet
though its not
I have refuge
safe houses here and there Ive cultivated
and dogs that know me
My mind recalls the nursery rhyme
as I walk down paths in daytime
filled with laughing children
Girls and boys come out and play
the moon is shining bright as day
I reach the breezy shore
sit down and gaze
out at sea bright pitlamps blaze
a dozen bancas forming
a planetary system along the horizon
and in the morning
before the moons pale ghost sets
there will be fish in the market
and a new day to make sense of
RECENT ACCUMULATIONS AND APPROPRIATED VOICES, Kalayaan Publications, 1997
Content of this website is released with copyleft license, that is you are free to copy, redistribute or use it for your own purposes provided you retain the present copyleft notice including my name and contact information, allowing others to subsequently reuse the material. Robin Sharpe, crankyman98@gmail.com.