From Melismas

Ghostly departure and watchful highness,
even if you leave behind a list of what has been accomplished
by your love, as long as we are left to rot,
remarkable light of our life, then what’s the use?

–

Lugging each and every chaos of June,
in the middle of the clashing mouths
of bells at the plaza, a graph
of paradise he had seen in his dream
was what he had glimpsed in vellum, along
with all manners of security systems,
vaults for equipment
sequestered from sight, and because of this, hands
become the only implements required to make things
scintillate, some other transactions
devoid of machinations are only what’s needed to liberate
the next day from its manifold disguise.

–

Over the beach, grievances, low-flung clouds,
fine lacerations of light cut through this morning’s
illustration of a grieving house of doves.

Mula sa Melismas

Makamultong paghihiwalay at alistong kataastaasan,
mag-iwan ka man ng listahan ng mga nagawa
ng iyong pag-ibig, kung patuloy kaming mabubulok,
kahanga-hangang sinag ng aming buhay, para pa saan?

–

Dala ang lahat ng kaguluhan ng Hunyo,
sa gitna ng banggaan ng bibig
ng mga kampanilya sa plasa, isang talangguhit
ng paraisong nasilayan niya sa panaginip
ang nasinag niya sa pergamino, kasama
ang lahat ng mga sistema ng seguridad,
mga kaha de yero para sa mga aparatong
itatago na lamang, dahil dito, mga kamay
ang tanging kakailanganin upang pakinangin
ang mga bagay-bagay, ilang pagkakaunawaang
wagas ang intensiyon lamang para palayain
ang susunod na araw mula sa mga panlilinlang.

–

Sa itaas ng baybayin, mga karaingan, mabababang ulap,
pagmumunglay ng maninipis na liwanag sa umagang itong
ginuhitan ng mga bahay-kalapating pagluluksa.

---

Author: Marlon Hacla is a programmer, writer, and photographer. His first book, May Mga Dumadaang Anghel sa Parang (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2010), was published as part of UBOD New Authors Series II. His second book, Glossolalia, was published by High Chair in 2013. He has also released two chapbooks, Labing-anim na Liham ng Kataksilan (2014) and Melismas (2016). In 2017, he created the first robot poet in Filipino, Estela Vadal, as a Twitter bot with the Twitter handle @estelavadal. He lives in Quezon City, Philippines, with his cats. 

Translator: Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of nine books, including the fiction collections Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016), Butterfly Dream (Snuggly Books, 2016), and The Drone Outside (Eibonvale Press, 2017), as well as the poetry collections Lifeboat (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015), Meditations of a Beast (Cornerstone Press, 2016), and Black Arcadia (University of the Philippines Press, 2017). She is co-editor of two anthologies, the British Fantasy Award–winning People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction and Sigwa: Climate Fiction Anthology from the Philippines, an illustrated volume forthcoming from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Press. Widely anthologized, her short stories have appeared in Conjunctions, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, and World Literature Today. She grew up and continues to live in a rural town in southern Philippines.