"Tinatakasan Ako ng Ritmo at Tugma" (Axel Pinpin)

Rhythm and Rhyme Are Abandoning Me

BY AXEL PINPIN

Poet that I am, I can’t fish out a metaphor,

my love poems are devoid of lust and

spice, versification's uninspired,              

modernism is stale,

beside ice-cold tropes.

How can I rehabilitate the farm                     

devastated by flood? What gold-glint  

will sprinkle the grain                                

when the nickelled price of rice    

is reduced to dirt rust               

in the usurer’s granary? 

Because shortage is black

and because starvation is black,

black will never ever turn to gold.              

As the wise men          

and national artists

and critics advised –

compose, compose and compose with care,

every word must bring a certain magic to it.

Structure the hate

into a whistling song,

gently tell a tale.

And so –

the gleam of leech fat               

is golden in the field                  

moist and glassy when kissed by dawn –                

in the dam                      

neatly stacked up                   

the bloated bodies –                

of farmers slain!                       

July 21, 2008

__________________
 

After reading “I Know I’m Not Sufficiently Obscure” by Ray Durem

Translated from Filipino
From Tugmaang Matatabil (Southern Voices Printing Press, 2008)