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)
4
From down south in Albay, to meet with farmers
And peons (the Ilustrados were still drunk
With their abaca wealth and couldn’t be persuaded
To join the rising), Andres had to get back fast,
If not by boat, then a relay of caretelas and escorts,
Skirting Nueva Caceres, all through Bitukang Manok,
Lucena, Gumaca, Siain, the forests of Tayabas,
Through Calamba and Bai, Los Baños, Munting Lupa.
The Diario had been shuttered, the movement
Had been betrayed! Of all people, it was the cajista!
And all for a small dispute about a salary increase.
He told his sister about the missing fonts and those
Who stole the K’s during the Bosses’ long siesta,
And she couldn’t help but tell the nuns in turn.
Oh, that charming little poema was still nagging
To be written even as Andres hurried back
So his people could regroup. It had to be a song
That could make a soldier weep and fight.
He had the first stanza full, swirling ‘round his
Brain, and like Athena issuing from Zeus’ head:
5
What other love exceeds
In purity and greatness
The love for native earth?
What other love indeed?
None other that I need!
6
Thus Kalayaan was now a real word, born
In print, to be held in people’s hands, read
Aloud, pronounced by roof of mouth and tongue,
The ubiquitous prefix and suffix of Being,
Embracing the Root, describing intensity
Or state, nadir or absolute, lack or excess.
Though nowhere could its root be traced,
Not by Marcelo who first used it, still it could
Be guessed it came from our Malay cousins.
Spoken and published, Kalayaan was a new
World: its physical fount a font stolen
From the colonizers’ wooden typecase,
Its physical form steel from Bodoni’s foundry:
Majuscule and minuscule, all the serifs and
Ascenders of it, like arms raised rejoicing,
Incarnated in the narrative and verse
Of a free people, baptized in the blood of heroes,
Forged in battle, Revolution, noble thought.
Minerva p.3
