First, A Poem Must Be Magical

By Jose Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical,

Then musical as a seagull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering
It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows
And it must kneel like a rose.
It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks, like a bride.
And over all I would like to hover
God, smiling from the poem’s cover.

And If the Heart Can Not Love

By Jose Garcia Villa

And if the heart can not love

death can not cure it nor sleep
no splendor of wound the heart
had no sound

Bloom has escaped it and

birth the miraculous flower
and music and speech leave
it unbewitched

God it can not spell nor sun

nor lover the beautiful word
and it has no sound no sound
nor wound

When I Was No Bigger Than A Huge

By Jose Garcia Villa

When, I, was, no, bigger, than, a, huge,

Star, in, my, self, I, began, to, write,
My,
Theology,
Of, rose, and,

Tiger: till, I, burned, with, their

Pure, and, Rage. Then, was, I, Wrath-
Ful,
And, most,
Gentle: most,

Dark, and, yet, most, Lit: in, me, an,

Eye, there, grew: springing, Vision,
Its,
Gold, and,
Its, wars. Then,

I, knew, the, Lord, was, not, my, Creator!

--Not, He, the, Unbegotten—but, I, saw,
The,
Creator,
Was, I—and,

I, began, to, Die, and, I, began, to, Grow.

Landscape with Figures

Carlos Bulosan

Homeward again under foreign stars,

history was a strange gush of wind from memory

that came to echo waterfalls of those years:

home to find the place lost among

galaxies of signs. The hills were gone. The river

trail was forgotten. . . Trying to remember meadowlark

and those who perished in the vanishing land

(bones in the earth where our parents died poor),

the journey fell into heavy tides of flowing

scorn that echoed and reechoed time there.

The sun was most unkind to the place:

history: names of men: patterns of life:

all that distant floodtide heaved and moved,

breaking familiar names that immortal tongues

clipped for the heart to cry, "Home is a foreign address,

every step toward it is a step toward three hundred years

of exile from the truth. . ."

It was not homeward

to the first known land, nor escape

to white sea sprays blossoming on inland shore,

nor love leaping the boundaries naked in the soul,

but a vast heritage of war and destruction breaking

too soon for the living and willing to die.

Life is a foreign language. Every man mispronounced it . . .

Untitled

Jose Garcia Villa

God said, "I made a man
Out of clay-

But so bright he, he spun

Himself to brightest Day

Till he was all shining gold

And oh,

He was handsome to behold!

But in his hands held he a bow

Aimed at me who created

Him. And I said,

'Wouldst murder me

Who am thy Fountainhead!'

Then spoke he the man of gold:

'I will not

Murder thee! I do but

Measure thee. Hold

Thy peace.' And this I did.

But I was curious

Of this so regal head.

'Give thy name!'- 'Sir! Genius.'"

ERMITA IN THE RAIN

by Angela Manalang Gloria

It is not the rain that wanly

Sobs its tale across the bay,
Not the sobs of lone acacias
Trembling darkly in the gray,

Not the groans of harried breakers

Flinging tatters on the shore,
But the phantom of your voice that
Stays me dreaming at my door.

SOLEDAD
by Angela Manalang Gloria

It was a sacrilege, the neighbors cried,

The way she shattered every mullioned pane
To let a firebrand in. They tried in vain
To understand how one so carved from pride
And glassed in dream could have so flung aside
Her graven days, or why she dared profane
The bread and wine of life for some insane
Moment with him. The scandal never died.

But no one guessed that loveliness would claim

Her soul's cathedral burned by his desires
Or that he left her aureoled in flame…
And seeing nothing but her blackened spires,
The town condemned this girl who loved too well
and found her heaven in the depths of hell.
 WORDS
by Angela Manalang Gloria

I never meant the words I said,

So trouble not your honest head
And never mean the words I write,
But come and kiss me now goodnight.

The words I said break with the thunder

Of billows surging into spray:
Unfathomed depths withhold the wonder
Of all the words I never say.