REVERSE CREATION

by Bernard Backman

exitium mortem
ira
furorem

In the end, we destroyed the heaven that was called Earth. The Earth had been beautiful until
our spirit moved over it and destroyed all things.

And we said...

Let there be darkness... and there was darkness. And we liked the darkness; so we called the
darkness, Security. And we divided ourselves into races and religions and classes of society.
And there was no morning and no evening on the seventh day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be a strong government to control us in our darkness. Let there be armies to control
our bodies so that we may learn to kill one another neatly and efficiently in our darkness. And
there was no evening and no morning on the sixth day before the end.

And we said...

Let there be rockets and bombs to kill faster and easier; let there be gas chambers and
furnaces to be more thorough. And there was no evening and no morning on the fifth day
before the end.

And we said...

Let there be drugs and other forms of escape, for there is this constant annoyance - Reality -
which is disturbing our comfort. And there was no evening and no morning on the fourth day
before the end.

And we said...

Let there be divisions among the nations, so that we may know who is our common enemy.
And there was no evening and no morning on the third day before the end.

And finally we said...

Let us create God in our image. Let some other God compete with us. Let us say that God
thinks as we think, hates as we hate, and kills as we kill. And there was no morning and no
evening on the second day before the end.

On the last day, there was a great noise on the face of the Earth. Fire consumed the beautiful
globe, and there was silence. The blackened Earth now rested to worship the one true God;
and God saw all that we had done, and in the silence over the smoldering ruins... God wept.

Author unknown
The Road Not Taken (1915)
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down, looked down, looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better, the better, the better the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had woooorn, had worn them really about the same.

And both, And both, And both, And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever, ever, ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The Anatomy of a Filipino By:
Prof. Felix Bautista

All: I, I, I, we, like to think that we are Filipinos, that we are as Good, a Filipino as Anyone. My heart thrills,
when, I Hear, the National anthem, being played.
And my Blood Rises, when, I see our flag, Fluttering in the breeze.
All: And Yet, I find myself asking, How Filipino Am I, Really?

#1: Are you a Filipino?

All: Sir, yes sir!

#1: Are you?

All: Sir, yes sir!

Boys: My First Name is American.

Girls: yes, yes, yes.

Boys: My Last Name Is Chinese.

Girls: Shi, shi, shi

Boy #2 : When I’ am with Girlfriends or more correctly, when, I’ am with my Friends, who happen to be girls - I
talk to them in English.

Girls: If they are thirsty, I buy them, a Bottle of American coke.

Boys: Hmmm delicious

Boys: If they are hungry, I treat them, to an Italian Pizza pie.

Girls: Hmmm, delicioso

All: And when, I have the money, money, money I give them a real Chinese Lauriat.

Boy (solo): Considering all these, considering my taste, for many things foreign, what right do I have, to call
myself, a Filipino?

Girls (solo): Should I not call myself, a culture orphan? The illegitimate child of many races?
All: Rightly or wrongly, whether we like it or not, we are the end products, of our history, fortunately or
unfortunately, our history is a co-mingling, of polyglot influences.

Boys: Malayan and Chinese.

Girls: Spanish and British.

Boys: American and Japanese.

All: This is historic fact, we cannot ignore, a cultural reality we cannot escape, form to believe otherwise is to
indulge in fantasy.

Boy (solo): I must confess, I’ am an extremely confused, and Bewildered young man. Wherever I’ am,
whatever I may be doing, I’ am Bombarded, on all sides, by people who want, me to search for my national
identity. Who are you? What are you?
All: Tell me the Language I speak should be replaced, by Filipino; they urge me to do away with things foreign
to act and think, and buy, to act and think and buy Filipino.

Girl (solo): Even in art, art, art I’ am getting bothered and Bewildered.

All: The Writer should use Filipino, as his medium, the nationalists cry.

Boys: The Painter should use his genius, in portraying themes purely Filipino, they demand.

Girls: The Composer should exploit, endless Possibilities, of the haunting kundiman, they insist.

All: All these sound wonderful. But Rizal, Rizal, Rizal used Spanish, when he wrote, Noli and Fili. Why? Why?
Why? Why? Why did he?

Boys: Was he less of a nationalist, because of it? Must the artist, to be truly Filipino, paint with the juice of the
duhat?

Girls: And must he draw picture of topless Muslim women or Igorot warriors in G-String?

All: And if the composer, deserts the kundiman, and he writes song faithful to the spirit of the Youths of today,
does he become Unfilipino? We are what we are today, because of our History.
Boys: In our veins, pulses blood with traces of Chinese and Spanish and American, but It does not stop, being a
Filipino, because of these.

Girls: Our culture, is tinges with foreign, influences, but it has become rich thereby.

All: This mingling, in fact could speed us on the road, to national greatness, look at America, it is a great
country, and yet it is the melting pot of Italian, and German, British, and French, or Irish and Swedish.

Boy (solo): Filipinism, after all, is in the heart.

All: If that heart beats faster, faster, faster because the Philippines is making progress, if it Fills, with
compassion because its
people are suffering, then it belongs to a true Filipino, and it throbs, with pride, in our past, if it pulses with
awareness, of the present , if it beats with a faith in the future, then we could ask, for nothing, more all other
things are Unimportant.

Boys: I have, an American First Name.

Girls: And I have, a Chinese Last Name.

All: And I’ am proud, very, very proud, - because Underneath these names beats A Filipino Heart…
The Congo:

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,

Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table, Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,

With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision, vision, vision, vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

(BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM)

THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.

Then along that riverbank

A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song

And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
“BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM

From the mouth of the Congo

To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.
BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men, kill the white men, kill the white men,
AHOO, AHOO,
shhh,
Listen shhh listen shhh listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
Listen to the creepy proclamation,
Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,
Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay,
Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: —

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,

Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,

“Be careful what you do,

Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,