IN DEFENSE OF YOUNG MEN WHO ARE LAUGHED AT
BECAUSE THEY INSIST They ARE POETS ALTHOUGH THEY HAVEN’T WRITTEN ANYTHING BUT
SIGNS
By: Ricardo I. Patalinjug
The young who let their souls wail on walls
Are poets too, frantic for recognition.
Signs are poems: gaping wounds to fondle.
Latest vintage architecting syllables,
Native strangers alienated from the womb.
The young who let their souls wail on walls
Challenge the wisdom of proud wrinkles
What dwell within the crevices of destitution?
Signs are poems:gaping wounds to fondle.
Fresh as headlines, these signs. A cool
Deviation from what old poets have spawned.
The young who let their souls wail on walls
Advertise the cold fever of their souls.
Reach out. Loneliness is a corroding venom
And signs are poems: gaping woumds to fondle.
Poets are their poems, of that there’s no trouble.
And what is written demands rapt attention.
The young who let their souls wail on walls
Imply: signs are poems: gaping wounds to fondle
I Vialed the Universe
By: Leoncio P. Deriada
I vialed the universe
And laughed at the concentrated Gods.
But the genie escaped with His halo of riddles.
I pondered anew and unslept.
Thought were strange with the strangeness of new towns.
Thoughts were as vast as the unvialed god.
I could not bottle or battle Him.
There: I saw Him mark in the matutinal mist.
I surrendered.
Change
By: G. Burce Bunao
Things change:
No longer do I,
Recovering from the shock
Of a huge branch falling
At my feet,
No longer do I
Cower in fear,
No longer run to my altar
In the woods,
The fire of prayer in my mouth.
No longer between my teeth
Te tremble, the I have offended.
Newton as a habit of centuries
Inhabits my skull; I know
Of gravity
And rot—
And no longer
Does a falling tree frighten me
The Rural Maid
By: Fernando M. Maramag
1
Thy glance sweet maid, when first we met,
Has left a heart that aches for thee,
I feel the pain of fond regret---
Thy heart, perchance is not for me.
2
We parted: though we met no more,
My dreams are dreams of thee, fair maid;
I think of thee, my thoughts implore
The hours my lips on thine are laid.
3
Forgive these words that love impart,
And pleading, bare the poet’s breast;
And if a rose with thorns thou art,
Yet on my breast that rose may rest.
4
I know not what to name thy charms,
Thou art half human, half divine;
But if I could hold thee in my arms,
I know both heaven and earth were mine
