Issue 9

The Experiment with the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby

Rodrigo V. Dela Peña Jr.

The Experiment with the Air Pump
After Wright of Derby

The boy raises the velvet curtains to let
the silvery moonlight into the study,
a stuffy room now filled with spectators.

Towering above a table, the scientist poses
in a magician’s stance and squeezes the air pump
to aspirate the air from the crystalline bell jar.

Two brothers, a barrister and a schoolboy,
try to appear amused by the spectacle
while holding a yawn deep in their noses.

The insistent father persuades his wife to look,
his heavy hand wrapped around her shoulder.
With her dainty hands she screens her face

and anytime now she feels she might faint.
Her daughter tugs at her tight, itchy frock
and stares at the set-up in wide-eyed innocence.

The bachelor and the lady eye each other,
unmindful of the ruckus around them.
How handsome he is, she thinks. What a fine

wife she will make, he thinks. Their eyes sparkle.
Unblinking and stolid on a Shaker chair,
the philosopher, forehead creased, head pedestalled

by his arms gripping a cane, is lost
in dialectic contemplation. Opposite him
the Newtonian displays his newfangled invention.

In the middle of it all—illuminated
by the moon, deprived of oxygen by the scientist,
the object of amusement for two sleepy men,

pointed at by the husband, mourned for
by the wife, the neglected pet of
a neglected child, invisible to the lovers,

existing as pure idea in the philosopher’s brain—
is a dove, trapped in the vacuum, fluttering
its feathers and gasping its last breath.


Warning by Santiago Bose

Frank V. Peñones, Jr.

Dog
(after Santi Bose's painting, Warning)

The Señor’s gaze is much more fierce
than the canine at his feet.
His eyeballs are agates
that obtrude from their sockets.

On the side, the unshod stand and watch
at us, who gaze back, as if someone
had just been shot and died
at our front or perhaps

they remember a boy
being chased
by a gray local dog
on the street.

But this Señor’s pet
is tall, black and big
its lunge can make
a boy fall flat on his feet

which is why they are here
or rather, stand a little distance
behind the Señor in white
overalls in a posture

that says he's the new god of enlightenment
shown by the halo round his head,
his gaze alone can make you transfixed
and follow his bid, "stand" or "sit".

The dog's stance, too, stunned the natives
as if they were set in place
by words scattered and etched
on their chemise and skirts:

atol amatom adaraceam
atalum babalac abinariam
acuta
mactam anima sola

Oh, come on, you can't be serious
the artist says in a bullet pointed
at the new godhead
with these letters: E.L.O. COO

Hey, dude, look, oh, he's mad,
GORINA deus
du-ug, deus
yes, dawg, dog posing as god.

(San Jose, September 4, 2007)













The Yamashita trial

Luisa A. Igloria

The Legend of Yamashita’s Treasure

When Ella croons No they can’t take that
away from me, it isn’t the late swish
of bodies trotting across a dance floor I hear

but the more forceful clink of spade
against rock in the hills north of my hometown,
where Yamashita’s engineers and soldiers

were ordered to carve deep vaults in the earth.
MacArthur’s planes throttled across the Pacific as they lay
bars of gold bullion like masonry around burnished

statues. It’s not so hard to believe, considering
stories of family heirlooms wrapped in cloth
and buried beneath a tree, of diamonds

broken from a brooch and given in trust
to each child, to swallow whole before war
wrenched them from each other’s arms.

Legend says when they were done, they raised
wine glasses and cried Banzai! Prince Takeda
and Chichibu thanked each loyal worker,

then climbed out to dynamite the tunnels and
their secrets shut. B-17s circled, tightened their sights.
Did they know they would never, never meet again

on the bumpy road to love? That’s why x marks the spot
where we want to dig in the backyard for hidden treasure,
to raise from the soil a Buddha whose ruined hand rains gold

coins struck with the symbol not for longevity or fortune, but for luck.

—Spoon River Poetry Review, fall 2007
Finalist, 2007 Spoon River Poetry Prize


Lina LLaguno Ciani, Tree #1

Marne L. Kilates

Tree Tanagà #1

In purple air everything swirls,
Life hangs or clings like eggs or pearls;
What wing or claw can brave the storm,
Man curls under roots: piteous worm.

Lina LLaguno Ciani, Tree #2

Tree Tanagà #2

Stripped of bark, the old life lingers,
Its branches a-flutter with green.
The new one sleeps in its chamber,
And soon will wake to tangerine.

❜