Poetry&Stuffby
MARNE KILATES
MARNE
S
KRIPTS
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
I. T h e E l e c t r i c W i l d e r n e s s
P a g e 2
D R E A M O F T H E B A R G I R L
E R M I T A :
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Dusk enticed us with the promise
Of intoxication so carefully stoked
In the heat of our clerking afternoons.
Sunset at the Bay portended
Storm and neon, luring our various
Thirsts, urging the seeds
From the fallow soil of our haste.
Five o’clock released us,
Its verdict on the clock:
A day filed into oblivion.
Evening freed us into foraging.
Into the Electric Wilderness!
Lush foliage, fluorescent in the marquees,
Pulsating in the signboards!
Agitation in the miasmas of phosphor,
Bubbles in the bog, Saint Elmo’s Fires,
Spark in the purple of our counterfeit illuminations!
Feral snarl of a thousand motors!
Ermita! Scaly, slithering, intractable Amazon,
Dragging its lizard belly across
Pavements of asphalt and rubble,
Green-eyed salamander of water and fire
Flicking its tongue into the hollows
And crevices of night, catching in its crystal
Vision the lightning in the eye of typhoon.
Mabini and Del Pilar!
Altar and desecration of the Names of our Past:
Noble Paralytic conducting revolution
From wheelchair and hammock,
Barcelona pamphleteer wielding
The Vitriol of the Oppressed
Upon friar and colonizer,
Invalid and Desterrado enunciating
The Name of our Freedom among deaf Iberians
Possessed by death in their corridas de toro.
Who remembers them now?
Who swears by them still:
Ossified reliquaries of the paint peel
Scalded by soot and carbon fume
On the curbside and street-marker,
Sterile statuaries, exiled bones.
Ermita! Ermita of our lives!
Ermita of our coming death:
Rundown enclave of the genteel,
Memory of old money,
Monicker of the new vice,
Plumed Temptress presiding over
The trades of our love and disease,
The currency of our poverty,
Rouge of our embrarrassment and unease.
Ermita! Fertile sod, malarial swamp
Tending root creeper tendril vine
Of pimp lecher flasher masher swine
Perderast virgin streetwalker
Smooth-talker sleight-of-hand man
Prestidigitator bettor life gambler
Dope-peddler coke-snuffer glue-sniffer
Roach-eater necromancer tourist.