Aiko Lactaotao

Aiko Lactaotao Poems

Aiko Lactaotao Biography

I am an amalgamation of the time encompassing my past to my present, until the inevitability of death. I am a being inseparable from language. I am consciousness thrown pell-mell into the world striving for authenticity. I am a tree rooted in the forgetfulness of Being and the fruits I bear shall one day shine in the darkness like the lonely but ebullient stars.)

The Best Poem Of Aiko Lactaotao

Riding In A Van With A Dead Relative

Cars queued up like undisciplined children
they would cut into the shorter lines
and make it twice as long;
slowing to a stop in front of the toll gates,
one by one they drew their windows down
pay the fee without so much as a disinterested glance
before continuing their merry way

It's a thirty eight degree weather outside
the air-conditioning hummed in full blast
silence echoed in the van
(perhaps talking generates more heat)
two more tolls to get pass
halfway through our destination
someone declared they had to pee

The peace was finally broken after that
happy recollections and anecdotes
a sullen cloud of dolefulness overhangs us-
we were all too aware of where we're going
like a stubborn dying patient we veneered our woes
refused to acknowledge that one word,
currently and eternally describing a relative

Looking out the window
at cars moving in the opposite direction
it's not a question of have they ever,
but of are they now experiencing a loss
a bus full of people revved up their engine,
its passengers lurched forward, surprised;
I wondered if I had the same reaction

The six of us in the van
struggle to understand existence
how ephemeral it is,
cursory in its assessment of a person's life
always prowling on the sidelines
ready to grab anyone by the throat
and turn his and his loved ones' world upside down

How indiscriminate Life hands out its termination papers!
utterly expected but still random
once the contract ends there are no second chances
only wills or things or people left behind
time has a flabbergasting way of choosing who's next
anyone can die everyday-
that's enough reason to live

We enter the last toll gate
an hour longer and we'll be at the wake;
life to be lived forwards has its own tolls
little prices to be paid for a better, more efficient living
put on us a Stoic mask that we may learn to rationalise it:
first and necessarily, shock- next, absorption,
and lastly, the beautiful surrender

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