Melinda

I recently joined this yahoo group for *cough* *gasp* *pant* ... poets. At first I had my reservations about the kind of stuff that I thought I'd be reading (poems that rhyme amont other things), but I was completely surprised to find a good number of works openly posted (without copyright), all for the general purpose of sharing artistic work (and maybe hope to find a little bit of connection with other people).

So I decided to write one myself which is eponymous to this blog title. Nothing fancy. Here it is:


Melinda


The light of the kerosene lamp flickered
with the immense winds blowing inside the cardboard walls.
Dinner was early tonight because the typhoon
had scared away the customers at the talipapa,
her parents had to wade through groin-high flood
carefully avoiding the floating garbage and carcasses, manholes.

The fried tuyo tasted like her father's hands
having taken out the meaty portion from the mangled flesh.
Melinda and her mother had the head and the tail, some ampalaya
for which they tossed in more rice unto their empty plates,
spitting out the tinik that can't be swallowed.

Melinda took her clothes off and went outside.
Her neighbors were watching from poke holes, the fury of winds,
the drops of water washing off her scars and swollen fingers,
her wet hair partly covering what remained of her youth.

Inside the thin cardboard walls, the winds blew more immensely
and the light of the kerosene lamp flickered then blew off.
Melinda went in to relight the wick, the cold would consume them.

There she continued chewing on ampalaya
swallowing down the pain into her embittered esophagus

drying herself up with her torn daster.