While our new/old blog is under repair...

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1. A souvenir from Marinduque

The party of National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario (Rio Alma) and I were in Marinduque two years ago. I was in the almost unlikely role of photographer for Rio's then upcoming book of poetry gleaned from his travels throughout the Philippines, but he seemed to like my snapshots from little Fuji FinePix S100 digital and my analog Nikon F60. I had logged on some miles with him in other round-the-country sorties and this one I didn't want to miss (he had engaged other photographers apart from me but this time I was the only one with a light schedule). So we landed on the island after an epic ride bus and boat ride (about which I've blogged before), and this is the tail end of the narrative. In the meantime, Rio's book is almost out of the presses. It is an epic titled "Huling Hudhud ng Sanlibong Pagbabalik at Paglimot para sa Filipinas Kong Mahal." I haven't yet undertaken the translation (an epic job as well) since there is no full-fledged (meaning funded) project for translation, but have been requested to translate the title mainly for the Library of Congress cataloguing, and here it is: "The Last Hudhud A Thousand Songs of Forgetting & Returning to the Philippines, Land of My Heart."

Within the epic is Rio's poem called "Morion" though I had worked indepedently at my own poem as a souvenir of the travel. It has the same time title, and in fact we used the same epigraph from a children's rhyme we overheard during the tour itself. It's not deprived of the cruelty children are capable of, and perhaps symbolic, if not symptomatic, of the ambivalence we have towards these rituals remnant from a colonial past. And as much, ours is a remnant piety (at least for many who went to Catholic schools like me), as we remember it's almost Holy Week again, the Quaresma, the 40-day Lenten observance, is upon us. Here, in rather un-Lenten manner (and sharing with you whether you're going to the dusty Senakulo Passion play or you're going to soak the summer out in Boracay, is my own impression of the Morion.














Morion

mmmmmMoryon bungi,
mmmmmMay tae sa binti*.

1.
Cresting his Roman helmet,
Sprouting all over
His breastplate, skirt, and cape:
The plumage
Of a thousand fighting cocks.

But the face is all:
Cruelty, guilt, and Grand Guignol,
& thus the power
To scare or suffer mockery,
For it is also the grimace of pain.

2.
If one eye is closed, it is
A privilege—
To wear the face of the one
Who poked his spear
Into the Holy Breast

& receive the healing spurt
Of faith—the Centurion’s
Mask reserved
For atoning accountants, engineers,
Mayors, philanderers.

For lesser folk with lesser
Sins or favors—
The out-of-job, the childless,
The returning OFW—the ordinary
Face of infantry will do.

3.
But all is equal in the chance
For show: mohair and nylon fur
Recall a winter campaign,
Throwbacks & anachronisms
From various versions of Armageddon:

Gasmasks from Vietnam or Verdun,
Leather & metal from
“Gladiator” or “300,” plastic
AK47s or RPGs parading on foot,
Calesas converted to chariots.

4.
Under the Lenten sun, on dusty
Fair grounds in Marinduque,
Our motley masque of history gathers
And marvels at itself—the far-flung
Roots of our belief and curiosity:

Longinus appears with his gleaming
Coterie; the crowd falls silent
Or scrambles for a view: the pagan
Rite of blood & sacrifice
Will once more give us a risen god.

We bow our heads, atoning
Or asking for favors, or shoot our
Cameras, oblivious of our own
Unresurrected gods, the unholy
Ghosts of ourselves behind our masks.


Marne L. Kilates
October 30, 2007

*Gap-toothed Morion, / There’s shit on your leg. (Children’s verse)

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2. Another poem from a painting

And while we're at it, we return to the oldest of all follies: the human (or inhuman) act of war. All faiths engage in it, from the Intifadas to the Crusades, and in all ages, from hobby-horse brats to armchair generals to Play Station addicts. Some say playing it—in actual arena or the computer game—is cathartic; or having war toys drains out or preempts the future aggression in little children. We hope so, because judging from what we see of the world today as run by its leaders and superpower(s), no one, not one among them, has outgrown war toys. Here's to a properly mortifying Holy Week.

Junkscape

(after Ang Kiukok’s Junkscape: Dove)


mmmmmmmmmmTahimik ang gabi, tulog na ang mga aso…
mmmmmmmmmmIto ang iyong siyudad, ito ang iyong sementeryo…

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmRadioactive Sago Project


All this flap-flapping
To clean up after
The tantrum of brats:

Canon of brickbats
Blind turning
Of batty SALT & MAD

“Either you’re with us
Or against us,” says
The demented diplomacy

Rising from Ground
Zero: terror versus
Dementia praecox

All is hardware
& toxic double-talk
The Dove is old-

Fashioned, tired
Of flying over flotsam
From Mesopotamia

To Iraq: too much
To handle & all of it
Babble & junk


Marne L. Kilates
June 24, September 22, 2008

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