Puñeta: Political Pilipinx Poetry

Read my poem: "LINE THEM UP"

@Copyright 2017 belongs to the respective author of each work.
Locofo Chaps is an imprint of Moria Books.  More information can be found at www.moriapoetry.com.
Cover image: “Puñeta” (2015), embroidered on cotton by Jenny Ortuoste
Locofo Chaps is dedicated to publishing politically-oriented poetry.
Chicago, USA, 2017 

CONTENTS

Michelle Bautista: “FLOW”       

Mg Roberts: “notes from the gyre”       

Kimberly Alidio: “I was born for a stricter regime”

Jose Padua: “Headhunters”        

Kimberly Alidio: “[untitled]”       

Luisa A. Igloria: “PEOPLE LIKE US”       

Glynda Velasco: “The F Word”       

Barbara Jane Reyes: “Prayers of Petition”      

Jose Padua: “Seven and Seven Is”       

Cristina Querrer: “LINE THEM UP”       

Angela Peñaredondo: “RETURN”       

Jean Vengua: SEPTEMBER 5, 2013       

Aileen Ibardaloza: “APOLOGY”       

Leny M. Strobel: “On the Limits of Grief”      

Angela Peñaredondo: “WHAT SHE WILLS [THE TREES BEHIND]”

Mg Roberts: “from a scar mosaic”       

Eileen R. Tabios: “… from the MDR Poetry        Generator: ‘Pilipinx’”

Denying Your Wounds

sullen as flattened pillows
that are useless to sink into dreams

& rusty nails driven so deep
fantasies of sleep prevail

lovers close the door on a past
but nothing can resurrect

those moments before 
contentment contaminates

the canvas with realism 
struck in awe by how perfect

water droplets are on the golden challice
yet representations of light

go unnoticed in the scheme of things
the gallows, sunken ships in the foreground

Judith & Holofernes struggle
in that scene in the dark--his wound

from childhood come to existence
her wounds gone unnoticed

yet she won the cause, defeated 
the pain with her own intentions

but what if she loved him, this tormentor?
she would have given up her body

like communion but he would drink
all the wine, wipe his lips, & walk away again

never to promise to surrender
never to say he would

Eileen Lives with Art

Eileen Tabios, my long time poet/writer friend, wrote about my art I had given to her a while back in her blog:  

Eileen Lives with Art

Poetry in the Dark

I have nothing to offer:

I have been steeped too long
in silence not worthy of
song or flowers 

yet I write poetry in the dark
in underwater caves, loveless
& cold. I eat dried leaves
& disemboweled vowels

as my dark letters curve & tilt
& trail off
my compressed language
dangle above

you walk on by
never noticing 

Reconciling Lost Receipts

Could never use those coupons up
before they expire
forget where I put them

How am I able to keep track
of all the things I could have saved?
Must have emptied more than 
a million trash cans
in my lifetime

Hauling off heaps of my heart
in rusty shipping containers overseas
giving it away in suburbs

In megapixels of my youth--no one
has given me proof of its gold
its credit worthiness

Old Sunday circulars' clippings
crammed in crusty corners of my purse--
Maybe there's a purpose for buying
overpriced souvenirs

To come full-circle at your frugality
free & fraught with 
old film reels