Message From The Underworld

 

…bodies sprawled on dimly lit roads or under a bridge; crime scene investigators examining pools of blood; trash bags containing bodies kept from spilling out by package tape; body bags being zipped up to be taken away; crying children following the hearse carrying the coffin of a slain father, brother or a friend…

 —Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 28, 2017, A9.

 

Winds bring messages of despair

To this new age which spawns slayers –

All of humankind. Their faces cloaked

In total secrecy riding fast-paced machines:

Motorcycles and armed with pistols

Or even high-powered guns—

These instruments of sheer murder

Are sophisticated enough to annihilate

More than seven thousand souls

(and counting).

 

The tombs are never enough

To accommodate such wanton massacres

Unless murderers prefer their victims’

Decay devoid of necrological rites.

A routine, a formality—they might claim

For flesh is ash, dust.

And spilled blood –

Now a common view.

Bereaved we learn how bitter,

How piercing is pain

Particularly one locked in a coffin:

This friend, his or her friend,

Friends of their friends

Or in lieu of the father –

The son or vice-versa,

A brother or brothers even—

All had died, had been dead

For many days.

 

An enigma:

How we are stunned, troubled –

For how long will the culprits hide

Behind some strongman’s cloak?

We implore them to come out

Unmasked and reveal their selves.

 

Assassins, hear our curses.

Receive our sputum.

Face our poisonous spears:

Be struck. Be pierced.

For only in this instance,

In this occasion

Can we bury our hate,

Our anger, our cadaver,

Our wailing

From sharp stings

Of pain.

 

Like A Mung Bean

(Translation of Peter Solis Nery’s “Ang Gugma Nga Daw Munggo”)

 

Like a water-soaked mung bean,

My restlessness grows within me.

I stare at the sky,

Wish a downpour

And perhaps, you will see—

My eyes near-

Drowned,

Close to blindness even.

Oh this yearning submerges me…

 

I will remember you.

I will invoke you

In this world and in other worlds,

In my dreams

For how can I ever forget

The seed strewn on my chest?

 

Like a seedling ever striving,

Like a well-nourished wish,

Love grows, sprouts

 

Leaves.

 

Send us your poetry and fiction

 

Super publishes poetry and fiction. Please send a piece of short fiction (or an excerpt from a longer work that is 500-800 words) or three poems in English or Filipino to [email protected] or to Ruel S. De Vera, Literary Editor, Super, c/o Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1098 Chino Roces Ave., Makati City 1204 Metro Manila.