A RAGE POEM ON THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE

SCREAM: A MAGUINDANAO DIRGE*

She lost her rubber slippers in the mud when
Crackling mayhem scuttled their march to town
Ripping through their roaring revelry riding
East of the searing sun: Ibagsak si Ampatuan!
Alive and raucous in their raspy throats, the raw
Mantra of venceremos quickly turned to wailing:

“She was on her way to the village school,
Carrying a new pair of shoes from her mother,
Rosa, who is an OFW in the States! Pobresita,
Eleanor, she needed clean shoes for the prom;
And, O, she laughed about our ragtag band
Marching to a funeral tune, its sole anthem beat.”

She will not find Simeon where she has gone,
Cut down, head cracked, and curled like a limp
Rag doll that could have been whipped away
Even from the tightest hold of a pining swain
Anxious and waiting in the now unlit schoolyard
Marking their first embrace in a lost last dance.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, April 29, 2010

* This poem is in collaborative response to the invitation to express rage over the Maguindanao Massacre, November 2009.

Illustration: Edvard Munch's "Scream".

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