MAYAMOR*

By Tomas Talledo

 

You write poetry but who reads?

They who sends SMS “I luv U ga…mwah”?

They who sit at coffee shops blubbering inanities?

They who sex at the age of fourteen?

 

They’re Plato’s ilks who’ll banish poetry in our people’s republic.

 

You vividly paint the revolution but who stops to see?

The eyeless agents wobbling in graveyard shifts?

The dyslexiacs lost in labyrinth of wikipedia?

The somnambulists in flat cyberscreen?

 

They’re shards of broken mirror who can’t reflect the whole.

 

Still, you write and paint and sing of the coming wise-dom

Of enchanted forests, waterfalls and nourishing rain

Of communal dagsaw, drums and armalites

Of Tumandok people’s protracted war.

 

While we bury our eyes, guts and hearts at comfort zones of indifference.

 

Still, you write and paint and sing of communism

Of food, learning and spirited actions

Of binanog dances, healing and cultivation

that will surface in headwaters of Panay.

 

*A highest salute to painter-poet and companion martyrs in Antique