A Poem On Ghosts
after Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta
To the woman I haven't loved and haven't met and
did not ever even imagine,
I write nothing. Let me suspend you in the celebration
of a coming foreign-based Halloween. Let me return
to what I have, what I've loved, what I need not
imagine,
that their presence be not ghosts in my living.Even as I promise silence I write on with a certain
corruption,
I keep vigil on a poem's end like a loyalist of a
millennium.
Certainly poems plunder on a nothing that is feared
forever
in tales, movies, lives, or revolutions. That's the
monster
in our faith, the parachuting nonsense that profits at
the tillsof our art and politics, the Nerudan icicles that grasp
at our
invisible pasts. Or presents. And legacies in fearsome
times
as all times are fearsome. Ghost, be not here now, be
not sallow as to trouble the stillness in a pond or a
room clamor-
ing for nothing, nothing but the singing of words with-
out a proper, familiar person.
-----------------------------
This poem was inspired by a piece of the same title written by the Filipino poet, critic, and professor of Literary Criticism and Theory Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta. Dimalanta was also this poet's wife's first college literature teacher and became primary sponsor at her wedding.
Copyright © 1999, 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
HIT YOUR BROWSER'S "BACK" BUTTON TO GO BACK TO TABLE OF CONTENTS