IN THE TIME OF THE HOLOCAUST

The blogger as actor in a drama presentation of the Grim Reaper in elementary grades

for Laarni Julian Suela Comabig and the Mangyan Maiden

(after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

go to another country where the moon
     is a meandering river
the sun 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's a season of harvest but the farmer is rueing--
     his carabao has long crossed the divide.

an old man is walking on the beach
     strewn with ashes and dead fish.
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
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 th moon weeps
                                           at sunrise.

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

PHILIPPINE MAYOR AND FAMILY GET LION'S SHARE OF TOWN'S ANNUAL BUDGET

     This mayor and his gang want to assume their respective posts again by running in the May 13, 2013 polls. His political rival said that the town executive gets a monthly compensation of P53,000 while his wife, whom he appointed as his executive assistant, receives P26,000 a month practically doing nothing in her office. A son and a daughter receives P16, 000 each in monthly salaries.
 The incumbent mayor also owns expensive houses in the villages and in the poblacion, allegedly constructed out of the town's coffers and using the town's employees and facilities like trucks making deliveries of gravel and sands.

       

 

How are you doing, Lai?

How are you faring in the world, Lai? I hope you are all okey. Please give the blogger your correct address and cellphone number.

View from apartment in the Serangoon area in Sngapore

Guests in main sala of  house in Oscariz

WRITERS DEATHS DURING THE MONTH

Reynaldo Duque, the Palanca multi-awardee writer, and educator Crispina Balderas Bragado have gone to their Creator this month. Crispina, from Bauang, La Union was the wife of Jose Asia Bragado, the nobelista. We did not know the cause of Crispina's death, but Rey died of kidney failure, according to Prescy Bermudez. Some writers who have gone to the great beyond: Jimmy Lucas, Art Padua, Greg Laconsay, Pel Alcantara, Meliton Brillantes, William Alvarado, Bagnos Cudiamat, Juan Quimba, Lina Lorenzo. They died of a ripe old age except Bagnos.