1
Feverish at midwinter. Nothing, nothing but fog
of sadness, ten thousand miles from home.
There, carols warm up nights, paper lanterns
foreground December’s brilliant stars.
Years hence, I shut out the powder smoke
of celebration. Deaf to the demon-chasing bombs,
I long for the brittle pop of crackers long ago.
Carolers amidst cold pine air warmed up
lungs as, out of tune, they jingled fuzzy lyrics
for a pittance, right up to Three Kings’ night.
2
Hours before the parting of the years,
I take a ride downtown to Intramuros,
past Commonwealth straddled by the slums
where windows flutter with wind-whipped rags
and hand-down clothes, the week’s washing
in public taps, the spawn in joyless frolic.
3
The walled city is a ghost town where robes
and epaulets ruled, their spirits living on
in showcase mansions and museums,
in retro diners and curio stops, all closed today.
Would they have closed that day a black-clad
figure faced the morning sky, his back to a brace
of muskets, his face towards the rising sun?
4
Calesas idle on the cobblestone, till one rumbles
past me, crap catcher swinging behind the horse,
the driver all alone, homeward with not much fare
today. Tricyles rankle, cold, unwanted, on their
sidewalk ranks. I see one with children cramped
inside the cab, the driver retching on the bars,
zigzagging in his course. I stride past tattooed
men, bare-chested, in grimy cut-offs, fetus-sleeping
on cardboard mats.
5
Athwart façades, a sari-sari stand displays a wealth
of tins and styrofoam, spirit shelves of rum beer gin
and Coke, a brandy for just one day of wages
plus fireworks on the sly: so many ways to cheer
the parting of the years, or part unhappy souls
from lives grown old upon such native ground.
I meet a man at the Luneta, not far from where
the hero stands with overcoat, the bullet holes unseen,
only his aura of nationhood serene, the pride of race.
He holds a book more potent than sacred writ.
But the other man holds a stick with twiggy hands,
rousing what nourishment for his flesh remains
among the rubbish on this hallowed land.
6
On Quiapo bridge, a hologram of humanity beggars
belief. He crouches on the bridge’s rise, holding forth
an opaque plastic can, his lower body draped
with a piece of rag and stiffened shroud, as from beneath
him flow a stench, a mark of his earthly spot.
With tangled hair, a face begrimed with dust,
he mumbles for the plink of outstretched love.
7
Rockets, voices greet the parting of the years
then everything is spent. Explosions taper off, sputter,
pick up again for a minute or two, are taken over
by the tired tooting of feathered trumpets.
Somewhere are louder blasts we cannot hear,
men of good and evil lose not only limbs,
while the god of time sets back to zero
our hoary human dreams.
Wall in Intramuros from Beda.Com
