This is to provoke your eardrums beating to secrete the excessive cerumen of your lies which flow from your venomous mouth repeatedly bragging that it knows all things.

This is to provoke your eye that is not shut yet only desires to see itself, deliriously worshipping the face, so beautiful and thin that when pinched, a pig slop gushes out.

This is to provoke your feet that have long been wanting to stand up, numbed by their prolonged cross-legged pose, cursing the *** that is comfortably seated on the velvety coconut pulp.

This is plainly to provoke your hands that we're supposed to rely on but have no strength, torpid, and only lusting to *******.

This is to provoke you who claim to have been moved but in the end choose to remain still. Numb.
Impotent.

How will one's feet dance to the rhythms if the gongs have ceased to pump the veins?

Are the hues of the palette enough for a leonardeschi art to transcend?

When your mezzo-soprano fails to hit, will your story still get heard?

Will a cyclist still pedal to savor the orange horizons without his friends?

Who will listen when the wrinkled fingers lay on the dusty piano?

Do these words still tell of a poet who once penned in flames?

You smirk
for you think she's the dirtiest.
BABOY.
And you saw the clerk
failed to punch the mentos
and put it in the bag.
You didn't tell.

You cursed her and
almost hit your LED TV
with your coffee mug.
MAGNANAKAW.
You don't seem to remember
one seminar you took two sandwiches  
which you said
you'd give one to your friend but didn't.

You love the idea
of putting her fellow thieves to jail
HAYOP.
Was it only yesterday
when you stole the key to the test?

You thought of reviving death penalty.
MAGSAMA-SAMA KAYO SA IMPYERNO.
And you timed in and were paid for the day's work
which you never did.

each stroke of greased fingers on the mohawk
was a result of a genius work of art
an outlet where my soul barely peeks
yet you cut with your hypocritical shears and your rusty hand
and you call it discipline
and you call it concern
I call it *******

the shadows on my
eyelids were davincis and picassos
sketched in a magnificent representation
of inner self which you all want to see
yet suffocate by your rotten curricula
and you call it quality
and you call it excellence
I call it *******

the silver that glitters in these ears
conceals the tortures of my youth
the horrors that dwell in my every sleep
yet you rip from my skin you are unworthy of touch
and you call it decency
and you call it suitability
I call it *******

© Glenn L. Sentes

Our ashes have settled on the cliff of pride
while the seed of today sprouts your frailty beginning.
We have at last seen the face of our god
which you have not even learned to utter
or never will at all.
Your intelligence gave you power that
failed the comprehension of our yesterfathers.
You built humans in just a sprinkle of *****
on to the skin of alligators and ants
on to the stem of a bee and the sting of a plant.
And you called them your sons
And you called them your kind.
The burrowed earths have no more riches
and they are left unpalatable to worms,
no more worms even
for even these decomposers
learn to tire feeding on your greed
no more shades of blue in the putrid waters
to which this bottle was thrown,
to which this letter longed to swim with your same species
that can never be in our family tree
for it has grown dead atop the impotent soil.
How we wished that your sons wished they
were with us in the time when
sparrows roared in the Kamagong tree when
wild boars chirped in the dancing bamboos when
the snow-like smokes breathed in the cone of Mayon when
the bangus and tilapia worshipped the nets of the singing fishermen.
How we wished they wished they knew.
How we wished they wished they saw.

You stare as if you know
how my blood runs through my veins.

What wood are you?
Did you not come from a clan
of massacred trees
chiseled by an inglorious machete?

Were you the door that barred
the perils to our house?
Did you block the brutal sun from getting in?

Who carved you?
Was it not the ******?
Was it not the thief?
Was it not the murderer behind the bars?
And you accuse me to have sinned
when all you do is mimic the fingers of your god.

Have you even opened those tinted lips
to mutter a prayer?

Why did you not dare to move
or tap my back when I opened my zipper?
Instead you feasted on my obscenity.
Why can you not tell your god
I attempted to fast?

Come!
Bleed and let these thirsty eyes witness your miracle!

Idiot.




©04-10-13

dahil wara katapusan an duon san mga mata
mabubuhay akong minamatay
san dating kaaway ko sa lawas na ini
sa lawas na ini naghambog an talawon
pinapagubtik an kaaluhan na nagpapamuda
muda na nagpupukaw saakon gurugab-i
kendi na nagpapahibi
mesias na naghahala-hala

magiging madalas an pagsid-ip niya sa bintana
para laen ko makita an liwanag
malaog siya sa kahon ko
laen para magkawat
kundi dagdagan an pagub-at
makasakat an pagbagsak
siya na ako
masurat tula.

~Written by Melton Balicano
(a bikol dialect)


since these eyes have been weighed down on unending
i shall live while being slain by an old foe in this body
this body where the craven had once boasted
surging chagrins that blaspheme
blasphemy that rouses this corpse in the dark
treats that shed tears
a messiah that taunts.

he shall constantly peep through the window
so that I see no light
he will break in my casket
not to thieve
but to burden further
the downfall shall rise
then he becomes me
penning a poem.

~a translation of Balicano's masterpiece
Glenn Sentes