ANTI-POEM
I say death to the poem:
strangle all metaphors,
electrocute all images,
poison all rhymes,
shoot all synechdoches,
stab all allusions.
For heaven's sake, stop being a poet
just for once. Murder all nuances
that confound the reader
and beguile him to tread
a labyrinth of words;
for once, hide nothing from him,
give him the gory head of a vision
on a bleeding silver platter
(it's not your fault if he
lacks a well-oiled heart).
Yes, give it to him straight
from the subconscious
sans frills, sans artifice,
as visceral as possible—
gash and gore—
the elemental gangrene of speech
dripping with the smelly green
pus of wisdom.
Shove it in his face:
its eye sockets dark and deep.
Its caved-in nose;
a few molars missing,
its cracked dome shining in the sun:
a sonnet's grinning skull.
CONSCRIPTION
I do not know who conscripted
me into this one-man army.
One day they just sent me an urgent
telegram ordering me to show
my face in the recruitment center
or else. I was neither issued
dog tag, rifle, nor uniform.
They did not even bother to send
me to boot camp for proper training.
Time is the enemy they said
whose army was fast approaching.
I even had to buy my own pad
and pencil. Then they quickly shipped me
to an invisible front where
I fought a secret war with words.
FELIX FOJAS was born in Cavite City, Philippines, on May 21, 1948. He is a member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He has a master's degree in linguistics and literature from De La Salle University and a political science degree from the University of the Philippines. He has won in the Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Annual Literary Contest, poetry division. He has also won awards for his poetry in Anthology Magazine (Arizona), Snake Nation Review (Georgia), Writers' Journal (Minnesota) Iliad Press (Missouri) among others. In 1993, he was awarded a writing fellowship in Cambridge University by the British Council.
I say death to the poem:
strangle all metaphors,
electrocute all images,
poison all rhymes,
shoot all synechdoches,
stab all allusions.
For heaven's sake, stop being a poet
just for once. Murder all nuances
that confound the reader
and beguile him to tread
a labyrinth of words;
for once, hide nothing from him,
give him the gory head of a vision
on a bleeding silver platter
(it's not your fault if he
lacks a well-oiled heart).
Yes, give it to him straight
from the subconscious
sans frills, sans artifice,
as visceral as possible—
gash and gore—
the elemental gangrene of speech
dripping with the smelly green
pus of wisdom.
Shove it in his face:
its eye sockets dark and deep.
Its caved-in nose;
a few molars missing,
its cracked dome shining in the sun:
a sonnet's grinning skull.
CONSCRIPTION
I do not know who conscripted
me into this one-man army.
One day they just sent me an urgent
telegram ordering me to show
my face in the recruitment center
or else. I was neither issued
dog tag, rifle, nor uniform.
They did not even bother to send
me to boot camp for proper training.
Time is the enemy they said
whose army was fast approaching.
I even had to buy my own pad
and pencil. Then they quickly shipped me
to an invisible front where
I fought a secret war with words.
FELIX FOJAS was born in Cavite City, Philippines, on May 21, 1948. He is a member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He has a master's degree in linguistics and literature from De La Salle University and a political science degree from the University of the Philippines. He has won in the Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Annual Literary Contest, poetry division. He has also won awards for his poetry in Anthology Magazine (Arizona), Snake Nation Review (Georgia), Writers' Journal (Minnesota) Iliad Press (Missouri) among others. In 1993, he was awarded a writing fellowship in Cambridge University by the British Council.
