POEMS IN "UMAYKA MANEN, GANGGANNAET/COME AGAIN, STRANGER"*

Today Arrives The News About The Fall of Doloroso Dans

1.

it's a wet morning, but a promise
of sun lingers on the glass panes.
the room is too small for these
public men dissecting omissions
of the boss now gone to nowhere
to celebrate alone his fall. (was it
the absent magazine message
that triggered his disaster?) we are
like conspirators revising the plot
in some alleyways dark with hate
and violence: a, brutuses recreating
caesar's gory death. no matter. the
joy is ours now and we shall jot
in our diaries this day of victory.

2.

basil valdez on tape wails out a song
of love sans end, (requiem to a dead
rat?) the waxed floor is littered with
crumpled tissue papers and cigarette
butts. the rubbish can wait, sings
the janitor baring a set of tattered teeth
as he joins in the banter and the laughter
(ha-ha-ha, the fetters broken?)

3.

indeed, this people's domain needs
cleansing cream, new manners, new
minds that, in pursuit of the sun, shall burn
the night with liquid fire of gods and high
ambitions. no more ruins to tread
this mid-noon of our separate lives:
swan song has been sung and the recorder
is broken forever. (did he not know, did
not the cabal that fed him with parables of
lies hear the funeral songs of gentle souls?)

4.

the typewriters are silent, the whir
of electric fans lost in the cacophony
of sounds. like cattle loosed from a coral,
we excite the air and our voices reveal
kinship with roman assassins. no matter: this
joy is ours now. permit us these stupidities
for just this day for soon our ship shall move
again and blaring trumpets shall in distant
shores announce our arrival.

SIAK

Siak ti sagibsib:
     Ti nakabutbuteng a sampaga
     Ti umuna a Basol.

Siak ti nagulib:
     Ti nangdarugsoy
     Iti lubong
     Iti gura
     Iti lua,

Siak ti napaidam:
     Ti nangilemmeng
     Iti katawa
     Iti isem.

Siak ti Judas:
     Ti nangakas iti manto
     Ti Panagtalekna kaniak.

Siak pay ti Longhinos:
    Ti nangbriat
     Iti bakrangna.
Ket pimsuak ti Darana
Ket pinugsatko ti Angesna.
     Kasano nga ugasak
     Ti bagik, ti kararua
     Tapno isarangko ti rupak?

Lettatenyo ti paragpagko.
Derderenyo ti laslasagko
Ngem uray kasano.
     Uray patapokendak
     Agbitinto latta
     Ti lua.
     Ti dung-aw
     Ta inaramatyo
     Ti igam
     Ti sipnget.

     Ania ti pangdayas
     Iti basol ti lubong?
     Ania ti pangikkat
     Iti langeb
     Dagiti saibbek?

     Datayo met laeng
     Ti krus.
     Datayo met laeng
     Ti Suno
     Ti kalbario.

*Anthology of Ilokano and English poems with introduction written by Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, director of the Ilokano program of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.