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pat v Aug 2020
Ang nakaupong tiwali—
siya ang binoto ng masa.
Sa manggas ng kanyang barong,
panganib ng maralita

May kinang ang kan’yang ngiti
mapungay ang mga mata
Sa bawat pangakong lahad
ay pagsibol ng pag-asa.

Pag-asa na tayo'y ligtas
ay naging katakot-takot.
Para raw sa Inang Bayan,
peligro na nakabalot.

Ang salitang bulaklakin
ay daglian ding nalanta
kapalit ang pagtungayaw,
at banta ng direktiba.

Hindi natin inasahan—
bahid ng dugo sa daan.
Mga kamay, nahugasan
ngunit hindi ang lansangan.

Sa lapida nakaukit
ngalan ng mga biktima.
Sunod kayang tatahimik
ang silang may pinupuna?

Hapis ng inang nawalan,
“Crispin, Basilio, anak ko,”
oyayi ng Inang Bayan.
“Pasismo! Peligro rito!”
I believe in a past
that never existed.
Always willing to tell
others they should
be sad they missed it.
For what never lasts
can always be reimagined,
engineered ad-hock.
For me, the door to
the past is always wide open.
But, the one to the future
I cannot unlock.

so please don't give me the key
I don't wanna see beyond
what went before.

I believe in a moment
of imagined purity.
To close my eyes
on the acts of cruelty,
that lead to this modernity.
Only seeing the light that
concealed the night,
and the chains of *******.
For the good,
that is all I see.
Because I need to see
that good in me.

so please don't give me the key
I don't wanna see beyond
what went before.
Dominique May 2020
i enjoy england

with its little houses
hips brushing, faces smushed
together to revel in quaint rumour
among gentrified lilies and pink
lady apples that blush in the summer

its walkways and alleys
dribbles of soft lamplight guiding
the drunkard, moth-brained and ill
with silk threads to a blind spot
of amber where muck can be spilled

the people on transport
with their airy talk, their mindless
silence, heads lolling idly on
windows, eyes crumpling like napkins
against the leaking crumbs of warm scone sun

pretty little England
where exploitation is vintage
and runs like rosé
down the dusty store windows

here we are free to stumble
down streets with sweat
in our hair and manic karaoke
reverberating off the walls
glee drinking is government protected

I'm quite in love with england,
this field of dew and white roses
fed by gore and sweet tradition
where fresh-faced, sunny children play.
fray narte Apr 2020
my heart only knows rage
growing, crawling like wildfire
to which my bones will collapse like lilac twigs;

then again, honey,
we do not burn down with the fire — we become it,
should we fall like witches condemned.

then again, honey,
they do not burn; the fire knows its mistress' touch
and today, we have inherited
all the anger, all the wrath, all the names of the men
she held onto for centuries in her palms.

today, she will avenge
all her sisters lynched and effaced
all her brothers starved and gunned
by the very pigs who swore to protect
and the fire will
creep, engulf, and spread,
torching their money and their abusive hands —
their lying tongues and iron fists
burning in cauldrons
they will burn us in,
and the smoke will rise to the heavens
until all that's left are ashes
from where no cruel man will rise.
and the smoke will rise to the heavens
until justice,
like a goddess,
emerges from a foam of embers.

and the smoke will slowly lift —
so will this anger.
so will this wrath.

and it's the sun itself that awakes
to the promise of a new day.
Salma Mar 2020
If I could
I would let some people go, convince them I'm contagious and that I'm no good,
Some other people, I will walk out on, call them to meet,
but don't show up
If I could
I would paint my face *****, erasing my features, resembling a liar or a beggar.
I would then walk about invisible. I would cry a lot, everywhere unbothered.
Next, I would walk between borders, crossing lines, entering and exiting territories.
I would do that,
If I could
Devil Atticman Feb 2020
Love is more than tender words!
Love is to have spoke them first.

In love, which many feel to all,
Still one before another falls.

Is love the 'life' and 'death' in dance;
A shield that not let either pass?

Know that love drives every hand,
So 'love' met 'love',
And razed their lands.
dati dizu dan dato chipu
Purcy Flaherty Jul 2018
Dad is so very proud of his culture, underneath this nationalist, racist, sexist, homophobic, religiously intolerant, ageist and xenophobic snobbery; is a man that stands by his right to hate who he likes.

Oh the irony!
Bigots and nationalism
cj Jul 2019
at paglabas sa apat na dingding ng silid-aralan,
ang debate ukol sa karapatan
ay iba nang usapan

na kung saan hindi lamang talino at boses
ang sandata
kundi pati rin ang pagpadyak
ng dalawang kinakalyong paa
Joseph C Ogbonna Apr 2019
Nigeria my beloved home is under siege:
A death trap I see in her third mainland bridge.
The crying blood of the slain in the North-east
overwhelms vicious politicians with guilt.
Humans with hearts of beasts ravage her North-west,
outgunning her corrupt weakened armed forces.
Catacombs of mass graves quantify losses
incurred from incessant farmers-herders clash.
Darkness looms as stupendous amounts of cash
are cast in an energy sector like trash.
Her healing centres are no more than health morgues,
and her institutions breed intellectual dogs.
Her oligarchs of the six zones unify
to plunder, **** and line their pockets with filth.
With peanuts they entice poverty stricken
youths, just to have their sit-tight bids guaranteed them.
Indulgences from the gullible gratify
custodians of faith endowed with seducing lips.
My beloved Nigeria has failed to hearken
to the values of the elders before them.
With priorities misplaced, we go seeking
for stereotyped reputations in our trips
to foreign climes for filthy lucre to acquire.
Good Lord! When will values my mother-land require?
A poem depicting the author's concern for the deteriorating state of his mother-land
Not unlike the monster for which it was named,
With debaucherous whims that divide foreign lands;
Here at the briny, gilded portal to our home now stands
A hollow woman with a torch, whose warmth
Has become faded and disheartening, and her name
Mother of Philistines. From her once guiding hand
Emerges world-wide distaste; deranged eyes ransack
The smog-filled harbor that dystopias fame.
“Keep, other lands, your progressive pomp!” shrieks she
With welded lips. “Take our tired, our poor,
Our huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of our teeming shore.
Take these, the homeless, tempest-tost from me,
Lift your lamp as a guide and take them all!”
An adaptation of "A New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, the poem inscribed at the base of America's Statue of Liberty.
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