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)
F
E R M I T A :
D R E A M O F T H E B A R G I R L
( C i r c a 1 9 8 0 )
(For Danny & Dindo, fellow prowlers)
F
F
F
F
P a g e 1
P R O L O G U E
On the rural roadside of caked earth
Turned by carabao sled, the word evoked
A pause for prayer during the daily
Labor of rice paddy or vegetable patch.
No hermit ever inhabited this ermita,
But the brown-habited Franciscan visited
For special occasions—the yearly celebra,
And holidays few and far between—
And why the chapel is also called visita,
Speaking of remoteness beyond echo
Of church bell, and further still from where
It began in the old Christianity of bearded
Saints brooding atop pillars or burrowing
Into rocks for more sainthood, anchored
On cliffs and mortifying the flesh in caves.
Now it is farther too from its more recent
​
Vintage as genteel district, pre-War enclave
Of Manila’s rich, and later of memories
Of escape or capitulation or decapitations
In the advent of the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Then Liberation and the Jeepney.
And it bowed to the haphazard, hand-me-
Down sprawl of city, alternating between
Ramshackle and elegant and ignorant.
Then the rise of the field branches
Of Subic and Clark, the invasion of GIs and
Their R & R, dancing girls in holes-in-the-wall,
One-for-the-road after disco, VD, and red light.
At Ermita we soaked in the wading pool
Of After Hours, paid the Bar Fine with guilt
And conceit, as we sought the Meaning of Life
In the tutelage of Bouncer & Mama-san.
