Issue # 14 : January - June 2011

Bomen Guillermo

from Taking-Light [Agaw-Liwanag]
Translated by Jose Perez Beduya and Allan Popa

                           I

     Wet from dew are the palms
           Muddy are the knees

    Wet from dew is the forehead
             Muddy is the chest

      Wet from rain is the cheek
            Muddy are the eyes

            Like geese shrieking
  Are the machines hurled in the air

                         III

   You are like machines hurtling
               toward inevitable
   ruin
   Sputtering sparks
                          You who also
   come from the realm of the dead
   to deliver your
               puzzling
                          present

                          Cathode Ray Tube
                                    that is
                   wrapped in yellowing paper

                                         IV

There is no road leading back from a path going forward
                           world is what departs
            world is what is departed from
There is a letter needing
                      to be delivered
                      inside the mouth
                There is no path leading forward from a road going back
                           world is what is departed from
            world is what departs

                              V

   There is a bullet in the hand of the hero
   and a dagger in
         his heart
   It may be that in
         his chest
   there is blinding
               Illumination
                     or
               Darkness merely that is
                     without end

                    VI

      They severed your
      breath
      to extend theirs
      They abbreviated your life
      to make
      everlasting their own
      You are precious
      to them
      for you have died
      You are precious
      to us
      for you have lived

                      VII

Murderous soldiers
Even in death refuse to be human

Able to come only
when there is killing to be done
Jerking off
in front of the corpses

They do not own their own deaths
for these have been paid for
by betrayal…

Nor do they own their own lives
for these are owned by the lives they owe

                                             VIII

When I was still a child and saw an infant, excited I approached
and was amazed by this magical animal. I asked the elders: “How
many could they be? Are his fingers ten by now?” As though the
passage of the years were marked by the sprouting of each finger
of his small hands.