Decolonizing Self

© Territorial Agency

Last April 2021, I took part in the Center for Baybaylan Studies’ Decolonize 30 for 30 activity for National Poetry Month. I’m accustomed to writing in a more straightforward manner. Having spent recent years doing mostly technical and non-fiction writing as a big aspect of my profession, I sought other mediums in terms of creative expression such as dancing, music, or photography. I thought that trying out poetry would be a welcome exercise in experiencing and expressing differently. I wasn’t able to complete all 30 days of writing poetry. However, below are four samples of the ones I did finish.

Kapasigan

Concrete mountains and fallen river skies
I thought all my life it is you that gave me life
Across the industrial ponds
I’ve found the real source of all I am
And of the water and earth that saves me.

Your name is my home,
Your stream of life
Brings abundance and flow
Of gifts unseen,
Unknown.

Channel of my east and west
A majestic dragon that gives
To your sister Marikina
To your brother Cainta
To your cousin Laguna

Your mountain mother Sierra
weeps and watches at the brink
Your father the Pacific
Embraces and refreshes
“Remember your power”

They look forward to
your glorious return.

BURNT ANEW

Smoke signals of the hurt
the pain that has dried a soul
Barren or with bitter fruit
that shrivels and wastes away

In the wake of a forest fire,
I burned anew.
I couldn’t see past the magnificence
of destruction at work.

I became a burnt offering,
Feeding a flame that was unseen,
It flared and took over my being.
My restless desire fanning its flames.

The fire devastated the forest
of my creation,
of my imagined significance
My Garden of Ego

In its ashes,
Grew my new hope —
A forever forest with
Bountiful fruit.

I chose to present this in an image as Medium didn’t allow for me to center-align and I intended for this poem to take this form.

A Mermaid Who Feared The Open Seas

Mer lungs wading in the sensible zone,
Searching lips breaking through the algae bloom,
Gasping for oxygen, yearning for sun,
Is this living for living’s sake?

Poseidon grips his trident: “you’ve forgotten
Your place in the kingdom, lost fish of chosen.”
Titan waves descend on her gaping face,
Thrashed her away from the shallows.

Drift, crash, drown. Splish, splash — how
To escape the beatings of oceans unknown?
Fear-filled resolution of a meaningless life,
What more is there than to surrender?

Diluted being, weak lungs, water-swelled,
a new vitality courses through.
Streams internal, electric jolts, life anew
Three hundred thirty-three feet under, a song.