Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 6, Number 1. May 2023. ISSN: 2581-7094
Dearth
of Quietness
--- Pauline Mari Hernando
The
rhythm of the night
Still
dwells in my ears
After
the dawn.
It
commences exactly
Half
past midnight
By
caressing my lobule
Up
to the helix
Until
it reaches the path
To
my auditory tubes.
My
ears do not complain
About
the beat of the period.
It
is a steady part of my head
That
had come to terms
In
each hours’ attempt
To
hold a hunk of harmony.
My
eyes are the ones
Who
worry and wrestle
In
the roughness of tempo
That
traverses in my eardrum
And
ascends in both
Temporal
and occipital lobes.
Various
vocals are recognized
By
the frontal lobe
That
lock my eyes
again,
And again,
and again.
Until
they conceive
Another
clash
of echoes
Everything
will go back
To
faux hum and
Obscure
murmurs.
Each
brow shall begin
To
compose when images
Transpire
and convey
In
open-endedness.
My
mouth is numb
From
words that
Arrive
and
depart
While
translating enigmatic
Thoughts
from yesterday
And
from days that have
No
dates and sequences.
Almost
a decade ago
Pots
of green tea gave up
On
this struggle to sleep.
Thereafter,
pills and herbs
Suggested
solutions
But
they seemed limited
To
those whose eyes and ears
Are
aligned with their
Realities
and recollections.
Visions
and voices
Begin
to battle
The
beats and brawls
When
Melatonin is gone.
It
is an understatement
That
mind grieves
As
memory escapes
In
the dearth of quietness.
Before
Women’s Day
--- Pauline Mari Hernando
It
was daylight
in
Southern Tagalog
but
handguns were
firmly,
candidly
aimed
at gentle
bodies
living
for
the others
while
forgetting
the
self.
Death
is summoned
to
those
they
wish
to
silence
under
the open
fire
policy.
Evidently,
everything
about
E.O. 70
is
perverted peace:
Bullets
if not
bars
are bids
given
to “enemies.”
Nine
gone; six halted.
Night
falls
with
corpse
ascending.
And
day breaks
with
the same
erstwhile
headlines.
History
has its truth
on
bodies that resist.
*After
the crackdown in CALABARZON region, the Philippines on 7 March 2021
We
Need No Temple
---Pauline Mari Hernando
There
are loads
of
inescapable:
flickering
sweat,
wrath
behind
calloused
hands,
squealing
placards,
and
flaming gaze
of
marching howls.
These
and more
reflect
the rage, force,
and
strength of now
haunted
by then.
The
shape of a state
persistently
portrayed
by
bloodbath
sprawling
from
the
northernmost
region,
to the old man’s
empire
in Mindanao
has
been famished
for
peace and justice.
Spring
of subversion
cast
by long-drawn-out
proletarian
struggles
are
relentlessly challenged
by
colossal, lewd wolves.
Comrades
have carried
the
steep pages of every
crimson
mountain range.
We
need no temple,
here
or elsewhere,
to
hear and amass
the
piercing echo
beyond
inherited torments
and
ceaseless perils.
****************