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Alternative Resurrection:

BenCab's Sancta Ysabel

(After the painting ‘Remembering and Forgetting’ by BenCab)

​

A victim of shadows, you avoid

The sun because it is harsh,

You cannot believe what it reveals:

If what you see is more real

Than the flickering illusions

On the wall and in the solace of your

Cave, instead of death death death

Everywhere outside in the city

In the slums: death death death

At the signal of night between

Vespers and matins, and again

Death death death as the sun

Discloses it on the sidewalks

Among discarded wrappings.

You can only turn back or inward

And refuse the light, take refuge

In the more familiar dark as you

You inspect your palm, contemplate

A wart a cut a nail wound.

 

 

Marne Kilates

16 November 2016

Out of some mire or miasma

Of a tambakan—a  smoldering

Gehenna on the urban outskirts

Of Tondo or the hills of Batasan

(Where they heap our refuse

And make our laws)—the Artist

Would have you float in that

Magnificent drapery of your rags,

Sabel, tied by cords like threads

Of your unknown tale, holding up

The folds and gray grime in your

Levitation, as if you’re riding

A squeaky carroza in a procession,

Its white sides adorned with appliqued

Metalwork of curlicues and scrolls—

My own re-imagination of you

Emerging from the maws of cathedral,

Crypt, or cave, Sancta Ysabel.

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