PHILIPPINE POETRIES

1. Mother’s Break
Merlinda Bobis

warmest noons when she feels breathlessly

Wedged between sink and bed, she rips off
apron and womb to strike a regal pose
under the infinity of strings of wash.
drenched in midday glow, her colors show
beyond her
husband’s myth—
wife, woman,
whore at times
—
but she is real now!
stretching back and life in her thin housegown
which missed its print of roses long ago,
she affirms her non-fictionness
to sunlight, she sniffs rather airily,
and stamps her foot, perking up her ears
to hear the earth resounding
—
oh, but
the roast is burning, and the youngest
howling above the husband’s hungry call!
how well they learn their cues, she sighs,
flushed roses suddenly and hurrying,
aproned with her womb again, she rushes back
to them, to all of them auditioning for love.
 2. Wife Sneak out like a bubble
By Marra PL. Lanot Float into her room
And burst behind closed doors.
As a tot she was She is protected
Surrounded by fishbowl silence By her fishbowl silence.
She had no horns
No wings, no tail
Just a smile nobody
Noticed while adults
Talked at mealtime.
She did not ask what worth she had—
Who am it or
What is i.
When guests arrived
She gulped down food
Slipped out of her chair
And floated into her room
Like a bubble and burst behind closed doors.

Now she’s an actress

In search of a script.
Sometimes she freaks out
Tired of her horns
Wings, tail, tired
Of bowing, smiling
For no one. Guests come
And do not wonder who she is or
Is she an it
A doormat, an empty chair
A wallflower or décor.
She still remembers to
AFRO-ASIAN POETRIES
1. A LETTER FROM A STUPID WOMAN (3)
By Nizar Qabbani
(1) Don't criticize me, Master
If my writing is poor
My dear Master, For I write and the sword is behind my door
This is a letter from a stupid woman And beyond the room is the sound of wind and
howling dogs
Has a stupid woman before me, written to you?
My master!
My name? Lets put names aside
'Antar al Abys is behind my door!
Rania, or Zaynab
He will butcher me
or Hind or Hayfa
If he saw my letter
The silliest thing we carry, my Master - are
names He will cut my head off
If I spoke of my torture
(2) He will cut my head off
If he saw the sheerness of my clothes
My Master: For your East, my dear Master,
I am frightened to tell you my thoughts Surrounds women with spears
I am frightened - if I did - And your East, my dear Master
that the heavens would burn elects the men to become Prophets,
For your East, my dear Master, and buries the women in the dust.
confiscate blue letters
confiscate dreams from the treasure chests of (4)
women
Practices suppression, upon the emotions of
Don't become annoyed!
women
My dear Master, from these lines
It uses knives…
Don't become annoyed!
and cleavers…
If I smash the complaints blocked for centuries
to speak to women
If I unsealed my consciousness
and butchers spring and passions
If I ran away…
and black plaits
From the domes of the Harem in the castles
And your East, dear Master,
If I rebelled, against my death…
Manufactures the delicate crown of the East
against my grave, against my roots…
from the skulls of women
and the giant slaughter house….
Don't become annoyed, my dear Master,
If I revealed to you my feelings
For the Eastern man
Is not concerned with poetry or feelings
The Eastern man - and forgive my insolence -
does not understand women
but over the sheets.

(5)

I am sorry my master -If I have

insolently attacked the kingdom of Men
for the great literature of course -
is the literature of men
And love has always been
the allotment of men…
And sex has always been
a drug sold to men

A senile fairytale, the freedom of women in our

countries
For there is no freedom
Other than, the freedom of men…

My Master
Say all you wish of me. It does not matter to
me:
Shallow.. Stupid.. Crazy.. Simple minded.
It does not concern me anymore..
For whoever writes about her concerns…
in the logic of Men is called
a stupid woman
and didn't I tell you in the beginning
that I am a stupid woman?
2. Comfort Women her family were One

From Asia Literary Review Volume 8, Summer living at the foot of Mount Chiri
2008
growing tobacco, gathering mushrooms
(This piece is derived from Jeongshik Min’s
wild greens on the mountainside
paper 'A Visual Collective Biography of the
Former Korean Comfort Women'. The collective Colonial Taxation:
biography in poetic form is inspired by ‘memory-
work’ that moves towards a collective history. Japanese took everything
The Wednesday Demonstrations have been a rice bowls, spoons, chopsticks
central influence; Min’s visit to the House of
Sharing, the group conversations, and the even her father’s life
paintings by the former sexual slaves have
her family broken
provided material for the articulation of ‘the
stories without voice’. The original text has been family broken
reworked by Shirley Lee with the author’s
permission).
her family plants seeds, Japan plants a colony
Japan takes their seeds: ‘Baeari fruit’

Memories of Childhood (embryo buds)

Colonial Taxation:

born in 1921 they extract oil from the seeds

home with four siblings oil goes to factories

family poor; for the girls no school planes go to War

only work like an ox her land is a colony

girls from poor families

all the same
but never complaining
happy to be home Recruitment

with her family

her family united, One on a ship
there are three Chosun maidens
who yearn for the same hometown
she had persuaded her friends

in her hometown to come with her

with parents and siblings in those days people were simple

everything pure, like snow the girls knew nothing of the world

everyone happy they believed they were going

to work in a factory soldiers
the Japanese wanted even
the youngest girls
if only she hadn’t persuaded her friends young girls
to go with her young girls were taken
innocent Chosun girls

an innocent girl
The Women’s Volunteer Labour Corps stolen, kidnapped
the girls would work
her Japanese teacher at secondary school in factories and hospitals –
asked her to join the Corps everyone believed it
she would be able to continue her studies
her mother wept and pleaded with her she could live a comfortable life as a nurse
to marry like the other girls she would become a nurse in Japan
at least on paper she would go to Japan
to avoid the recruitment Japan
but the brightest girls joined a better place
the head girl and she
50 girls from Chinju a girl of 14 taken away
50 girls from Masan she did not know where she was being taken
became 150 in Pusan one girl from each family
more girls – a colonist’s law for a colony
more girls the eldest, the youngest
from everywhere but only the girls
the fearful girls
Japan was desperate for workers
from colonies the girls of the colonies
from everywhere in Korea were delivered to
to run the factories in Japan Japan
to be taken to the front far
to comfort the soldiers far away
the soldiers far away from home
Forced Initiation as a Comfort Woman
Corporal Kobayasi Tadeo
stole her innocence
dragged her
raped her
under a tree in the dark on a road
she was fifteen and scared
unable to bite off her tongue
like a virtuous Korean woman
she had been too scared
too scared
the flowers of the cherry tree blossomed
and sucked up a young girl’s spirit
the soldiers rushed in
one after another in orderly lines
their trousers down already
‘Hayaku! Hayaku!
the soldiers’ swords and pistols at hand
too exhausted, she gave up counting
her pants hung round her legs
no strength to pull them up
other girls committed suicide
like virtuous Korean women
their bodies were burned
‘the dead are your soup,’ soldiers told her
she ate and drank her friends

young girl then abandoned in a cubicle

of one and a half tatami Life at the Comfort Station
Kobayasi came again
and again she washed her clothes when there was time
and again and soldiers’ clothes
and condoms
many soldiers followed
ten soldiers a day Sexual Slavery Women of the military unit
thirty soldiers a day not people –
forty soldiers a day public toilets
countless soldiers piss house
soldiers
no time to eat she looked up at the moon
no time to sleep they smacked her – what are you doing, girl?
no time for the toilet she talked to herself
no time they smacked her – don’t fucking swear at us,
girl!
they told her to suck them – it was her duty
and when she refused no space, not for a needle
they beat her into a coma subject to torture
she woke up three days later day and night
days and nights
no time to feel lonely kicked beaten
serving the soldiers hit slapped
kept her too busy cursed

the soldiers preferred her her menstruation starts

a clean Korean girl while serving
some did not care about condoms she serves soldiers while bleeding
to die through disease
to die by a bullet malaria, jaundice, breakdown
there was no difference at all every night she sat on a board
soldiers always queuing outside on a puddle inside an emergency dugout
waiting their turn, quarreling she longed to go home
sometimes jumping the queue she missed her mother
most done in under five minutes her brothers and sisters
she longed to go home
soldiers about to leave for the battlefield sixty years on
were much more gentle with her her teeth grind at the thought
they gave her loose change
said it would be of no use to them
if they never came back
some soldiers wept Returning
too scared to go out and fight
comfort them Japan had lost the war
say to them, ‘return safely from battle’ Japan hurried to bury their crimes
one or two made confessions of love papers and bodies
some even proposed bodies of girls

the women’s vaginas are swollen they burned

injection No. 606: the bodies of girls
 her womb malformed
all men were the same to her from abuse
even the white soldiers asked her
to comfort them her diseases
and shame
mother! have been living within her
mother, she is back for her family
‘Have you returned from the dead?’ for her homeland
mother, she is back for her
she has come back
but in silence she has tried to forget
her voice has been lost – more than fifty years on now
in the Comfort Stations aged over sixty –
by testifying
After Telling their Stories to the Public by meeting other Sexual Slavery Women
by painting
she is a woman of Chosun
whose culture of Confucian values the memory tortures her
respects a virtuous woman again
where the shame of a woman she is going crazy
is the shame of her family again
nightmares of the past possess her
and her family whispers this – her screams in the night waken everyone up
she has brought shame to the family
as she voices her past
was it her fault that her virtue was taken? the wounds she has kept
had she really brought shame to her family? inside for so long
why did she have to be seem to slowly be healing
Korean man’s property slowly
to be sold to Japan? her heart can be soothed
she can express her happiness
as youth slips away sadness
she is suddenly old and grey with fewer distractions
when she cannot sleep source:
https://www.asialiteraryreview.com/comfort-
she paints all night
women
she forgets everything while painting

it was hard for her to be with

other former Sexual Slavery Women
in the same house
she came to Teochon
the House of Sharing
others then joined her
she was there
alone
when drunk and lonely
she went up to a grave
and cried
and cried

and there she imagined punishing the guilty

punishing the guilty –

the Japanese emperor tied to a tree
she aims her gun at him

white birds are flying to bring peace –

for him to say sorry to her is enough

who is she?
a crushed flower
or a bud yet unblossomed?
these words still keep hope for the blossoming
o unblossomed flower!
remembering youth
she mourns her innocence
 AMERICAN POETRIES
1. MY LAST DUCHESS BY
BROWNING
FERRARA
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek; perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say, “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.” Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
ROBERT Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but
thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse—
E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave
commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
 If only I had gathered enough courage and
strength to leave him, I would not have gotten
flowers today.
I Got Flowers Today
This poem is dedicated to all the victims and
survivors of Domestic Violence. You ask, why
didn't she leave? I ask, why did he hit?

Author: Paulette Kelly

I got flowers today. It wasn't my birthday or any

other special day. We had our first argument
last night. He said a lot of cruel things that really
hurt me.

I know he was sorry and didn't mean the things

he said. Because I got flowers today.

I got flowers today. It wasn't our anniversary or

any other special day. Last night, he threw me
into a wall and started to choke me. It seemed
like a nightmare. I couldn't believe it was real. I
woke up this morning sore and bruised all over.

I know he must be sorry. Because he sent me

flowers today.

I got flowers today. It wasn't Mother's Day or

any other special day. Last night, he beat me up
again. And it was much worse than all other
times. If I leave him, what will I do? How will I
take care of my kids? What about money? I'm
afraid of him and scared to leave.

But I know he must be sorry. Because he sent

me flowers today.

I got flowers today. Today was a very special

day. It was the day of my funeral. Last night he
finally killed me. He beat me to death.