RENATA, HOLD THE WORLD TOGETHER

1.

love is dead

(the wind blows lonely)

but there is a return

to moonlight on the beach

where her laughter keeps thundering

across the fragile brain.

the world laughs

the sun is a fiery disc in the sky

but there is a cold cold corner

     at dawn

     morning is the beginning

     of a thousand deaths.

2.

there is order in the world:

     war, famine, thirst

death, immorality, crime against

     property, all are parts

     indivisible

     even hallucinations.

and the poet asks:

will it end in fire or ice:

i say neither

the world will end

when i no longer see myself

in your eyes

when the chain

of love snaps in two

breaking like brittle twig.

IN THE TIME OF THE HOLOCAUST

(Ater reading " The Road" by Cormac McCarthy)

go to another country where the moon
pines for a meandering river
the sun longing for  a flight of birds
in a sky of utmost blue
it is a season when papayas are in bloom
but the tree is a barren woman in the spring
of her life--gone are the stars in her eyes
it is a season of harvest, but the farmer
rues--his work animal has long been dead

an old man walks on a beach
strewn with ashes and dead fish
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
the land is bereft of sound and life
it was the year without the typhoons and the rains
and death is alive in the silence where once stood
the great forest and mansions of rocks.

go to another country
where the sun rises in the west
and the moon weeps at sunrise

and we? we shall search the ruined cathedrals
comb the mountain city that perished in flames
and finding none, we shall descend into the canyons

of memories.

ONE REASON WHY FILIPINOS DON'T TRUST THE JUDICIARY

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has posted a P1-million bail bond to gain her freedom, taking Malacanang and the Sandigan off guard. It is always the lawyers' game, when money talks.

Village Lass Commits Suicide

This 21-year old girl of Ambatali village was working in Manila for sometime. Last week-end she came home depressed--she and her boyfriend,  identified in her suicide note as Francis, had quarreled. On Sunday night, she was missing and her parents and relatives looked for her everywhere. She had jumped to the nearby irrigation canal of the Magat River Irrigation System. Her barely unrecognizable body was found by policemen two days later in an irrigation canal in Malapat village of  Cordon town, 18 kilometers away.

Photos: Bridge over the Magat River and the main canal of the Magat River Irrigation System in Aguinaldo, Ramon, Isabela.  It is an irrigation canal near her home that the girl, jilted by her lover, jumped to her death.