hard core poetry

coming back from nepal, i kept thinking if i gave a satisfactory answer to why human rights organizations in the philippines do not document human rights violations by both government and the maoists.

at first i could not understand why they had a problem with the 'mouse' in nepal until i got accustomed with how english sounded there. but i digress, i still want to know if i am still enamored with 'the revolution' to think that we have better maoists here, real genuine true blue maoists in fact, serve-the-people-never-take-a-single-strand-of-thread-from-the-masses maoists.

or maybe i just need to think that way of my dad.

when i was still in pre-school he used to have these bulky eight track cartridges that he played in the living room on a car stereo connected to what i remember to be turntable speakers. we lived in the visayas then, when he still worked as a medical detailman (now called med reps) for united laboratories.

i would know dad was home when chicago's colour my world would drip from the make-shift stereo system to wherever i was playing in what seemed as an endless stream of houses we moved in and out of then. i get vague recollections of distant corridors, hazy rooms, stuffy closets, forgotten hiding places and sepia toned playgrounds whenever daniel is leaving at night on a plane and the red tail lights are heading for spain and one can see him waving goodbye.

coming back from nepal, and thinking about the end of relationships, my friends' and mine, my dad's eight track stereo again comes to mind. i didn't know emily dickinson then nor read robert frost, but it sang to me then...and I only kiss your shadow, i cannot feel your hand, you're a stranger now unto me...lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs, in the borders of our lives.

the maoists ain't so bad if they have people with so much music in their hearts. to my dad who would now like to encircle the cities from the countryside i hum hardcore poetry.

'coz there's music in the city
if your ear is to the ground
only non-believers never hear a single sound
this is a song not necessarily sweet
i pass it on to folks i never will meet
and if my words don't make history
just call it hard core poetry