Poems of Rolando S. Tinio, Jose F. Lacaba & Rio Alma

Poems of Rolando S.Tinio, Jose F. Lacaba & Rio Alma
Asia Pacific Poetry Series 2

Published by Vagabond Press
PO Box 958 Newtown NSW 2042 Australia
www.vagabondpress.net
First edition, 2013.
Transnational edition, 2014.

English texts © Robert Nery, 2012.

Cover image © Lyra Garcellano, Bang Bang She Shot Me Down. 2007, oil on
canvas, 48 X 48 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Finale Art File, Makati City,
Philippines (www://finaleartfile.com). Collection of Norman Crisologo.
Photograph: Courtesy of Finale Art File and arranged with the assistance of Gina
Fairley.

Designed and typeset by Michael Brennan
in 10/12 Bembo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the
publisher. The information and views set out in this book are those of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-922181-53-4 

Poems of Rolando S.Tinio,
Jose F. Lacaba & Rio Alma

Translated from Tagalog and introduced
by Robert Nery

Vagabond Press|Asia Pacific Poetry Series

Contents

Introduction by Robert Nery .... 7

Rolando S. Tinio
Drowsing .... 19
The Granny .... 20
Afternoon Coffee .... 22
Song for the Dead .... 24
Before the Burial .... 26
The Aya .... 27
Downstairs .... 30
Lice-Picking .... 32
Storm at the Ateneo .... 34
The Bourgeois at his Breakfast Table .... 36
Chorus of the Street .... 38
Valediction at Hillcrest .... 39
For Tita .... 41
Postscript .... 43
Letter .... 46

Jose F. Lacaba
In Memoriam .... 51
Response .... 52
All Saints .... 53
The old .... 54
Saturday afternoon .... 55
Leaving the cinema .... 56
Brief lives .... 58
At the corner .... 60
Maria Makiling .... 61
On Sky and Eveready .... 62
Letter from father to son .... 64

4

The nights .... 66
Thank you .... 68
Maybe .... 70
Morning .... 72
Your back .... 73
Spot on .... 74
The garment .... 75
Boredom .... 76
The passion of St. Joseph .... 79
All I don’t need to know I learned from movies For
Adults Only ... 80

Rio Alma
On Anxiety .... 83
On Loneliness .... 86
On Suicide .... 88
My Mother’s Monsoon .... 91
The Returning Herons .... 93
In the 50s .... 97
From Palipad-Hangin (Wind-Borne) .... 99
From The First and Final Passion of Rio Alma .... 100
Clothesline .... 103
Stone .... 106

Notes .... 111

5

Rolando S. Tinio

Drowsing

There’s a breeze through the window slats.
The sky has an egg-shell glare.
The son of the American leads by the nose
An army of six or seven.
The bed-cover hung to dry
Waves like a flag.
The water buffalos stray into the road.
The yellow umbrellas make minatory gestures.
Outside the gate opposite
The housemaids have gathered.
When they glance at you, you know
You’ve been sold.
Still, the radio like a hammock
Tickles the stomach of noon.
You lie back on your soul.
Your eyes are nailed to nothing.

19

The Granny

Taking up her favourite spot,
Framed by the dining room window, annoyed
And squinting to see if it’s 6 o’clock—all set
To go.

She confronts all who should be home by now,
Drunks and gamblers, scoundrels, wastrels, the idiots
Who care for nothing but to gad about the streets.
Even the day itself that won’t give in—not yet—
To the sulking envious darkness.

All of them scratched out by granny
Because (she’s becoming senile) she can’t remember
Who any of them are.

She can’t remember head or tail of this uprising
There like a fit around six.
Orison (our joke), an endless vow undertaken
To save the soul of the street from ruin.

Not wanting to interrupt the litany
Big sister goes quiet at the ironing.
Our faces darken, but it’s still early,
She won’t light the kerosene lamp.
And Mom—did the oil spatter?—
Sheds tears over mackerel,
And wood chips dropped off at the kitchen, the Kid

Sits grinning in the living room,
Eyeing grandma.

20

It must be half past.
The ceremony comes to an end
But the old girl’s still enshrined by the sill.
Breathless after all,
The eyes shut, the jaw slackens,
She plucks as it were from her breast a sigh—
Ready to attend yet again
To inevitable dark.

21

Jose F. Lacaba

In Memoriam

Warden, king of the neighbourhood,
big boss of his four-legged mob,
always with a hard-on, now
hardens, unmoving, dead.

Many hated Ward, you know.
First, his dog fellows, losers all,
who never got away unscathed.
And they, they’d had enough, people

barked at, howled at, frightened, chased,
rear ends stabbed by shot after shot.
I was angry myself, and often,
hard-headed he couldn’t be taught.

I see from the laid-out corpse
a strong poison caused this death—
there’s no blood, not a cut or bruise,
Ward, so fierce, was cheated of his breath.

He was ours,Warden, our dog
after all, so we buried him in the lot.
Still, no prayers will be said, no requiem,
nor the wind lay sobs on his plot.

51

Response

Lord, of the wonders you perform
we honour all and carp at none.
For your commissions cause less grief
than so many acts of omission.

Were you here with us the wilting days
the trestle board was bare of meat?
That night the runt under the slats
whined and stiffened in his vomit

where was the cure? Tell us Lord
if blameful defect in us held back
the fateful hand from reaching out
to prop and stay our giddy shack.

We scrubbed your house on the day
of worship. Still, did you see fit
in condescension towards ours
to ban the ant from devouring it?

Because our mouths are not on fire
in praise, you never bat an eye
when the bat hanging from the rafter eyes
us and grins and our mouths are dry.

Sir no enemy of ours
our prayers rise from peaked fish-faces.
We like a useful master, not a loafer.
Now and then take note of us.

52

All Saints

Roses that are fresh
must wilt. So
to show

love undying
for our departed
lay something plastic.
Candles drip

and then
nothing’s
left but smoke adrift.
The incandescent bulb
lasts longer.
Tears, don’t gush.
The eyes
will tire
that glisten from lack
of sleep. Let marble
saints keep vigil.

53

Rio Alma

On Anxiety

Ancient bell in the chest,
That robs you of your sleep when tapped,
Or when there is work to attend to
A lilac cloud that blinds with reverb.
That’s anxiety: it has a crystal dome for every backbone,
A melancholy chapel for the stomach and nape.
The old bell in its black-voiced throes,
The knees rattle, bone and flesh shiver and freeze;
The mind sags with shed teeth and broken plates
And pillars bitten-into by an axe;
And if ever sleep raises its claws
You’ll be staring all night, played with by terror, its knife-edge.

You feel the chimes of fear reverberating
When something or someone is delayed somewhere for

sometime,
Or you have to cut a way through
When the torches of stars have been put out
And you cannot fathom what’s in front
Because the obstructing vine is tangled with thorns,
Or perhaps a useless law must be broken
But your tongue is sown with red chillies
And vehement ghosts command you
To kneel for mercy at the sacred altar and dusty book.
Close your eyes, re-arrange your balls, kiss the ground,
But the more you feel that others before you were bound up

in tears,
And the more certain you are of having neither guardian

angel nor comrade
Because a beautiful new ambition must be watered

83

With tears and blood,
And still you cannot be certain it will grow.
For the risk-averse, a powerful consolation is her admonition
To keep the peace and heads bowed
Despite your knowing that something must change or be

pleaded from
The frustrating or unjust whirling of the world.
Believe and you’ll be cradled, rocked in longing
And pampered by false promises,
And if you don’t, you’ll be made to put up with it,
Sulking in a hut, the burr your sceptre, the chaff your crown.

Moreover, anxiety is the rainy season of the heart without a
rainbow

And the monsoon’s lash and the lightning’s slash is all you get.
Morning eludes you,
The lamp’s flame is a fallen prayer, whose voice ebbs, flickers;
The expression of hope is a fervent rosary of grains of doom
That fall back when cast off.
She calls up gnomes to stand guard
In every direction and at every crossroads,
Padlocks and welds tight even hinges,
And soon the smallest crack is veiled by the spider.

Still, there is a green handbell in your chest,
A bell with a golden tongue, a pitch-perfect tone.
However tiny, when it tintinnabulates,
It herds away the conjured servants of the dark,
It sounds each mystery,
It warms the crippled knee and freezing mind.
So if it seems the church bells can’t harmonize
And the ogres and vampires are cackling around you,
Don’t huddle at the foot of the plywood wall

84

Consulting the cards, reading pockmarks or palms,
Feel the beating of this handbell
And it will teach you:
There are no doors, nor exit tunnels
In fear’s sway, with valour asleep.
(1973)

85