A Minor Poet

 Triggered by something that happened to me, I wrote my first poem completely unplanned without wrestling with language (while waiting for my shuttle). It was published in POET'S PICTUREBOOK, issue No. 35. I was not even sure if it resembles a graceful poem but the great Filipino poet and translator, Marne Kilates, accommodated me. It was called “Graceland”. Short as it is but the lines are all falling right. Reading it still enthralls me to this day. Here is the poem:

GRACELAND

On, on I travel to distant Oku

The moon is low in the sky

As I tread on muddy roads in November

I ignored God’s signposts all over 

I got lost and saw a mountain Lion track

Then I encountered an elephant lurking in darkness

I wrestled with it and made my blood run so cold

A dead man walking; a shaken monster in me

Swallowed up in a driftwood whilst limping away,

I heard the weeping fish

My sleeve is with tears

How lonely it is!

 You made me recall a poet’s line

And the fool dwarfs in The Last Battle

You broke a vase for me

Filled with a sunflower seed!

You heard my lament

And turn them into dancing