Unpoetic Rumblings For An Unpoetic Age Poem by Artchil Daug

They told me I cannot write
something remote like the sand and pebbles
of a secluded beach in Siquijor
stranded in isolation by the tides
that push the island away from the radar
of conscious speculation or
those waterfalls and caves in Rogongon
that remain a mystery to those accustomed
with the slums and maggot-infested corners
of a Capital with no passion for the idyllic
instead I must write of the realities of life
and quit imagining the heavenly fog
that bearded Mt. Apo one Tuesday afternoon
as I found myself marching to its peak
cradled with the silence and whispers of nature
away from the disturbed realities
that gripped the lives of the inhabitants
of a Manila that is giving way
to the intellectual high rise that
reach the poisonous smog in Makati and
the technocratic walls that hide away the stink
of its illegal shanties from its bourgeois-minded
mall swingers and coffee shop fanatics
reading the facade of their intelligences
which are like the books they skim
are as empty as a bottle of rhum
left by drunk construction workers and
intoxicated spoiled brats that flooded
the city together with the provincial servants
of the capitalist slaves in their
business suits and American dreams
that prove to be more

idyllic and remote than good ol' poetry.