top of page

Antinostalgia: Pogót

Beheaded. Lopped off. 

Pogót.

         It could mean your actual and

Nameless martyrdom

                                    Of which there is 

Too much here among the poor

Of the pier: The notorious Páto 

(Epithet, euphemism, code-shift: 

The Duck), feisty entrepreneur for the dingy

Pastimes of the Dock: holes-in-the-wall

With wailing juke box, dimly-lit or 

Garish as their resident painted 

Ladies—last stop for the gin-soused

Porter splurging his daily wage,

Or the gritty interisland sailor, just as poor.

And the clean-cut, newly-honed

Big boys from the Dominican university

Nearby trying to earn their spurs. Or 

(Repeat code-shift): 

                                 Beheaded: Pogót: 

Lopped off. Your fate 

                                    If caught

(By your wife).

​

Headless Monument Christopjher Aquino.jp

​

                    You are kneeling,

Rope around neck, looped and stretched

Down the small of your back to more 

And tighter loops around your wrists now 

Forced back behind your waist 

Now knotted tight so you would not 

Topple when the grim officer 

Of the Chrysanthemum Throne brought down

His gleaming samurai on your neck.

 

Beheaded. Lopped off. 

Down the Dock. By the Duck. 

                                                 Nameless 

Martyr of our Heroic Pacific War 

(Not ours) where we stood, side by side, 

Brown and brave, with our Big White

Brothers (theirs), and with whom after Bataan,

We walked the Death Walk, 

And bowed low and emaciated,

Good as martyrs and as headless, at Capas.

​

​

Today I visited you at your relocated

Pedestal in front of the city Post Office.

Ever concrete, 

                        Sun-baked, 

Whitewashed:

You’re probably better off here 

In a setting a bit more tidy. 

                                Or are you, 

 

Mr. Pogót, Nameless Hero, 

Headless Martyr, 

Beheaded, Lopped Off, 

                          And still as 

Homeless as you were among 

Our slums down the Dock, by the Duck, 

Reminder of our 

Jealous wives and relentless

Poverty, 

           As heedless as

The poverty of our 

                               Memory?

 

 

February 8, 2015

bottom of page