Voice of the Anti-Nowhere League

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Whispered Verses on Screaming Walls

ilang libong ulit na kitang pinaslang sa aking gunita
paulitulit ka pa ring nabubuhay sa aking mga tula.

the birthday i first counted my years
my infantile fingers flashed not the many
spaghetti paper plates mother said she kept for me,
but the few times i saw his gnawing presence
gripped by the sunday times sundays he lurched
on his narra sofa that always narrowed down on me.

fiesta photographs in baptismal album
reveal no bouncing baby no overweight black&white baby
mother swore she dazzledanced to the santo of my day.

ilang ulit ka ng pinaslang ng aking mga tula
muli't muli'y bumabangon ka sa gulanit kong gunita.

confusion i could not define
why i raged against fatso falsities
tagged on me when i was not.
yet mother insisted i was but wasn't me.

and it was i who was quick to fight
for sunday times sunday comicstrips
on mondays that he is gone,
such that the phantom becomes me becomes
tarzan becomes me becomes nancy
becomes the little child fatso
that really wasn't me.

maraming ulit ko nang tinula
ang kamatayan mong sa alaala 
ay sa malamig kong luha kinatha.
narito ka pa narito ka pa.

i learned to picturepuzzle
what he was when he was not
home on his narra sofa.
i learned to wordpuzzle
what his tongue would lash out
while my brains would squirm out
every little pain everylittlepain
from his weekendbelt and sundaywhippings.

i lie on my face on his narra sofa
praying by sweat and tears and
spits and screams that
fridays shouldn't have nights
saturdays mustn't come
sundays should be mine alone
with my sunday times sunday cartoon.

kinatha kita nang paulitulit
sa kamatayan ng luma kong tula
bakit kailangan mong magbalik
sa mga butil ng luha kong nanlalamig.

scarred innocence i thought
drugged verses of my youth had effaced,
the midnightsongs he threw out of my unlit
potsmokefilled rock&roll room.
he possessed me but not my hurts.
my memory his property.
my verses he dismissed.
he never felt my pains.

the morning i walked away with a knapsack of dreams
i raged my youth against days&nights of uncertainties.
my clenched fists were never his.
he will hear no songs behind the lyrics.


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Rebel Nowhere


Pasig east could only be your birthplace.
mahjonged slums cradle of cathecist gangs
rock and drugs, theatre of lumpen wars
working class dreams in marijuana themes.


Nextdoor issues echo in hi-fi stereos.
Dyed hairs, skin heads, manicured nails
canned-goods midnight raids of corner stores
asphalted jams blare hymns of juvenile rhymes


no words underscored, no sketches scrawled,
little secrets graffitied on toilet walls


announce certainty of drugged destiny.
Persistence of a whitewashed past
a graveyard of dreams hence arise.
Night time stalks, a zombie writes.