May 24, 2007
For Nellie Banaag and Leticia Ramos, who died in a fire set off by five gunmen who wore bonnets and poured gasoline on ballot boxes then set them ablaze. They were found hugging each other in a toilet where they sought refuge. Nellie was a high school teacher and experienced election canvasser while Leticia was a local poll watcher of the political party Kampi.Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."And those people should not be listened to who keep saying, 'The voice of the people [is] the voice of God,' since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness." [by Alcuin, Charlemagne's adviser) c735-804: Works (1863) letter 164]
The Exorcism
From beneath the charred remains
of the school, we found her
clutching the soot-covered genitals
of her killers- faces neatly wrapped
in fabric with holes for eyes, folded
and slipped into the pockets
of leaders who gagged the exordium,
that took centuries to ferment,
labeled, Salus populi suprema lex,
we found the absinthe bottle
lodged in her spine, a cork
to seal in posthumous air.
When we pulled the stopper
from its neck, it spilled the cries
of her last moments, flames
gushing forth onto our feet-
rising, louche clouds of gas, boiling
the eyelids off our parens patriae,
revealing its bone chalices
filled with the liquid lacrimations
of a million sacrifices locked away
in ballot box caskets of a nation
burned and buried alive.
They screamed for an exorcism–
not of the dead but of the living,
to purge their obdurate flesh
of the pungent tang of blood
staining the rubble,
rising from the ashes,
the grave no bar to their call.
From beneath the charred remains
of the school, we found her
clutching the soot-covered genitals
of her killers- faces neatly wrapped
in fabric with holes for eyes, folded
and slipped into the pockets
of leaders who gagged the exordium,
that took centuries to ferment,
labeled, Salus populi suprema lex,
we found the absinthe bottle
lodged in her spine, a cork
to seal in posthumous air.
When we pulled the stopper
from its neck, it spilled the cries
of her last moments, flames
gushing forth onto our feet-
rising, louche clouds of gas, boiling
the eyelids off our parens patriae,
revealing its bone chalices
filled with the liquid lacrimations
of a million sacrifices locked away
in ballot box caskets of a nation
burned and buried alive.
They screamed for an exorcism–
not of the dead but of the living,
to purge their obdurate flesh
of the pungent tang of blood
staining the rubble,
rising from the ashes,
the grave no bar to their call.
"Let the dead speak!"
"Let the dead speak!"
Let the dead... speak.Labels: dark, death, philosophy, poetry, politics
