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Order for Masks

  by VIRGINIA MORENO To this harlequinade I wear black tight and fool’s cap Billiken*, make me three bright masks For the three tasks in my life. Three faces to wear One after the other For the three men in my life. When my Brother comes make me one opposite If he is a devil, a saint With a staff to his fork And for his horns, a crown. I hope for my contrast To make nil Our old resemblance to each other and my twin will walk me out Without a frown Pretending I am another. When my Father comes Make me one so like His child once eating his white bread in trance Philomela* before she was raped. I hope by likeness To make him believe this is the same kind The chaste face he made, And my blind Lear* will walk me out Without a word Fearing to peer behind. If my lover comes, Yes, when Seducer comes Make for me the face That will in color race The carnival stars And change in shape Under his grasping hands. Make it bloody When he needs it white Make it wicked in the dark Let him find no ol...
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Moonlight on Manila Bay

   by Fernando M. Maramag (1893 – 1936) A light, serene, ethereal glory rests Its beams effulgent on each crestling wave; The silver touches of the moonlight wave The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests; While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave; And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave- All cast a spell that heeds not time‘s behests. Not always such the scene; the din of fight Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air; Here East and West have oft displayed their might; Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair; Here bold Olympia, one historic night, Presaging freedom, claimed a people‘s care.
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Lyric 17

   José Garcia Villa  - 1908-1997 First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as a sea-gull. 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.
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The Sick Rose

  by William Blake O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.
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The Spouse

  by Luis Dato Rose in her hand, and moist eyes young with weeping, She stands upon the threshold of her house, Fragrant with scent that wakens love from sleeping, She looks far down to where her husband plows. Her hair dishevelled in the night of passion, Her warm limbs humid with the sacred strife, What may she know but man and woman fashion Out of the clay of wrath and sorrow—Life? She holds no joys beyond the day’s tomorrow, She finds no worlds beyond her love’s embrace; She looks upon the Form behind the furrow, Who is her Mind, her Motion, Time and Space. O somber mystery of eyes unspeaking, O dark enigma of Life’s love forlorn; The Sphinx beside the river smiles with seeking The secret answer since the world was born.
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