Ang EDSA ay kumakaway
Ang bayan ay nakaratay
Saklolo ay hinihintay
Marami nang napapatay

Ang EDSA ay tumatawag
Ang baya’y di makapalag
Pambabastos di masalag
Kahit mali’y pumapayag

Sinungaling, hindi tapat
Pati lahat n’yang kasabwat
Naniwala naman lahat
Instant solve daw droga’t kawat

Ngunit ngayo’y malinaw na
Na ginawa tayong tanga
Magnanakaw 'nilibing pa
na bayani, An'yare na?

Ang EDSA’y nagmamadali
Kaliluha’y naghahari
Tama’y ginagawang mali
Ang ganito’y di maari

Bayan noo’y nagkaisa
Diktadura'y itinumba
Karapatan ng balana
Hindi pwedeng ibasura

Diktadura’y hindi dapat
Mapabalik at magkalat
Kapag kapit-bisig lahat
Lakas ay walang katapat

Ang ‘EDSA One’ ay larawan
Nanindigang sambayanan
Aral ay hwag kalimutan
Kalayaa’y IPAGLABAN!

Dalit is black, sure.
He is a human being, sure.
You are white, sure.
Your hate is thorn, sure.

Marahil di n’yo po tanto
Halaga ng leksyon ninyo
Bawa’t tula, gintong puro
Pag-ibig sa wikang Pino

Bawat talatang piniho
Nagbukas ng mata’t ulo,
Florante’y bayaning nobyo
Laura’y bayang Pilipino

Gurong minahal, idolo
Parang anak kami, oo
Kahit iba’y magugulo
Di malilimot, Mam Lojo . . .

Hindi yaman ang sukatan
Ng matapat na kaybigan
Kundi subók nang samahan
Tapat at walang iwanan

Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….

Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter guards
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.

We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.

The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.

I am like the faces
In the house of deceased
Sobbing
At times  
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.

Sometimes
I am all the faces
In the house of the dead
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.

Sometimes
The wedding house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.

Just like you.

My dear bitter guard,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk?

Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
Of wholehearted love?



Translator - Shyma P


Shyma P : Works in Payyanur College, Payyanur. Translator and film critic. Has translated poems and articles in Malayalam Literary Survey, The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Literature, online magazines like Gulmohar, Readleaf Poetry as well as scripts and subtitles for short films.

Ang buhay ay paglalakbay
At nang minsang nakasabay
Kaagad kang umalalay -
Kapwa tulong ating pakay.

Kulisap ng karunungan,
Naging susi ng samahan,
Naging tulay na ugnayan -
Agham na para sa bayan.

Sa iyo aming kaibigan,
Salamat ay walang hanggan.
Ngalan mo’y kaligayahan
Hindi makakalimutan.

You, upperclass, American feminist
Will you please shut up about a sandwich?
And comic book characters, supermodels
Shut up about your first world problems
And take a look somewhere,
Where the idea of feminism Is actually needed
Have you ever heard of an arranged marriage?
It's common practice in other places,
Right after puberty, as long as the ******* are there
11, 12, they don't really care
See the life of a Nepali girl, lower-class,
Lack of freedom
Learn about the meaning
Of the word
kamlari
Young Nepali slave girls
Beaten and bruised,
Not allowed to be ill
Or
Jogini,
Devadasis
Which are both from india
Dedicated to a goddess at as young as as five
To bring the family good fortune
The tribes girl, forever *****
But with nightly visitors in her bed
They're hoping for some of her luck
To rub off on them
Sumangali
dalit girls
Sold by their family
For next to nothing,
It's called "bonded labor"
And is supposed to pay off debts
But the trap is set
The girl is caught
And if the "bonded labor man"
Feels she isn't of enough use
Maybe she's been beaten or is a little too ill
He sells her off to another man
Supposedly to pay her hospital bill
So yes, feminism is needed
But not here you little heathen
Shut up about your so called freedoms
And help the ones so desperately need it

even a week is sometimes
     not enough to recuperate
from a novel -
    something has borrowed too much
time and expects its worth a miracle of
a penny found on the road of
the eternal walker:
long the road toward a majesty
of the riches...

          whatever novel it might be -
and with it,
   a paralyzing ****** of doubts -
whether sober or intoxicated,
not even when: wine and music
and a book of poetry suffices...

just like now:
Beethoven, kalimotxo,
and the preferred gems by
Frank O'Hara to suit the music...
chez jane and blocks...
if ever there is something
missing in terms of
Beethoven: it's a voice reading
a poem,
  but not reading it,
not like a Beatnik who would
read in the furore of jazz
in the past century...
   anything more than what
is still not a whisper...

and like some farce of
the sword of Damocles...
the pen of Dickens...
        not the labours of a novel,
no... not the month's long
journey into the labyrinth...
music and drinking
simultaneously with a novel
will never work...

but a poem can...
my god... some wine some
classical music and... words...

   when there's music and wine
who needs words like
labyrinths when:
  just on the tip of the hour's
passing: a bird in the form
of a poem...

all i can say in the most mundane
phrasing...
   but i have capitulated
all prior to thrill and audacity
for a novel...
   a month's labour:
and silence...

   a soul in such hiding...
feels hardly a thought necessary
to reinvent itself in its prior
activity:
   an mingling of wine
and music and words: come and go...

like all novels:
  as much an accomplishment
of the writer, as an "accomplishment"
of the reader...
and is it so wrong
to not be agitated with emotion
that: a month's worth of
base arithmetic sentences -
the logic of: once upon a time
               as the logic: the end...

sanctity of prose:
  that sensible nature of that
sensible afternoon
  of that sensible life,
   of that: unlived crucifix
      of a shadow's confiscate;
routine and sitting
akimbo on some far removed
stage:
  of a sea knocking
on the door of earth -
seeking rhythm -
                          or a heart.

as mundane as this language:
i'm not going
to find a different language
to change this evening,
even though not awe:
or relief... but a paralyzing
doubt has overpowered me...
and, come to think of it:
that's still much more
than a heart's worth of
sitting's comforts in
        the armchair of apathy.

Tagbulaklak uli ngayon
Sa manggahang nililingon
Na sa nagdaang panahon
Saksi sa ating maghapon.

Mula Lunes laro’t aral
Hanggang B’yernes, walang tumal
Puti’t asul di nagtubal
Buhok hippie sadyang bawal.

Kabataan no’ng nangarap
Maabot ang alapaap
Ngayong layo’y lubos-ganap
‘Igan pa ring nakaharap.

Kaibiga’y nasusukat
Di sa yaman ni sa agwat
Tunay yaong di napuknat
Mula musmos ay matapat.

Si Mabini nagwika rin
Katapatan ang habilin
Kapatid ang sadyang turing
Noon, ngayon at bukas din.

Kupas na ang ‘yong larawan
Ala-ala kong sulyapan
Ang kahapong s’yang tahanan
Anino na lang nang bal’kan.

Takot pag naalala ko
Dating mga "R" na bagyo
Lakas walang sinasanto
Ruping, Rosing, Reming, 'nay ko!

Jose Rizal ating paksa
Naturalista nga kaya?
Sagot nati’y “Tunay! Sadya!”
Dangal ng Lahing Dakila

Mga aral na pamana
Ng bayaning ating bida
Kalikasa’t Baya’y t’wina
Mahalin at Laging Una