Yeheyy It Is A Holiday Today Poem by RIC BASTASA

Philippines,11: 13 a.m.

it is a holiday today, officially the President celebrates the
National Heroes' Day
with her soldiers offering flowers for Dr. Jose Rizal,
Apolinario Mabini, Juan Luna, etcetera, etcetera

(sounds of trumpets and gun salutes
release the doves that symbolize purity and freedom and peace
to the confused and polluted atmosphere)

i sit and write this poem and the other Bisayan poems for my
bisdak friends remembering the past and how we must be angry
about the present,

let us not talk about the future, we may become revolutionaries
again,

i stop. i stare at the wall. i open the window, Look at the dry fields of rice,
and some sparrows

yes, the sparrow unit, still killing some policemen and raiding
far municipalities and

i remember the moslems, their agongs, and malongs and clean rivers
and silent determinations to be free...

brothers killing brothers? oh too normal, too sane to kill another brother
in this country and the

government soldiers, yes, they too kill, as a matter of fact if you are too
candid,

like me, oh, they may not hesitate too, to kill all of us, but

do not take me by mistake, i belong to the government and i still support it,
even if is too hot yet to be hot

again.