Lit 1 Poetry

complete compilation of all Lit1 (Philippine Literature) poetry found in the syllabus...

2nd Semester 2012-2013 ---- University of Mindanao, Philippines

Constant Change – Jose Marie Chan

We’re on the road
We move from place to place
And oftentimes when I’m about to call it home
We’d have to move along
Life is a constant change…

The friends we know we meet along the way
Too soon the times we share form part of yesterday
‘Cause life’s a constant change
And nothing stays the same, oh no

Clouds that move across the skies
Are changing form before our very eyes

Why couldn’t we keep time from movin’ on?
Hold on to all the years before this moment’s gone?
Why must we live the days at such a frightening pace?

We’re all like clouds that move across the skies
And changing form before our very eyes

Have we outgrown our Peter Pans and wings?
We’ve simply grown too old for tales of knights and kings
‘Cause life’s a constant change
And nothing stays the same, oh no

Querida (Angela Manalang Gloria)

The door is closed, the curtains drawn within
One room, a brilliant question mark of light...
Outside her gate an empty limousine
Waits in the brimming emptiness of night.
Old Maid Walking on a City Street* (1950)

She had a way of walking through concupiscence
And past the graces her fingers never twirled:
Because her mind refused the heavy burden,
Her broad feet shovelled up the world.

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.

Picture Show ( Guillermo Castillo)

By God's divine will,

I waken sitting in the dark

with my attention set

upon a Screen before me

while God behind me in His closet

with His intricate machines

projects a Moving Picture Show

a masterpiece which we call - LIFE

I Vialed the Universe by Leoncio P. Deriada

I vialed the universe

And laughed at the concentrated Gods.

But the Genie escaped with His halo of riddles.

I pondered anew and unslept.

Thoughts were strange with the strangeness of new towns.

Thoughts were as vast as the unvialed God.

I could not bottle or battle Him.

There: I saw Him mark in the matutinal mist

I surrendered

Youth (Maximi D. Ramos)

These have known the tingling freshness

Of the coming forth from God;

The sweetness of mother's breast

The ringing sinewiness of growth,

The feel of the loved one's cheek, the song

Of April suns and showers...

And these will know

The quiet dimming down of age

And the silent wonder

of going back

To God.

Death by Herminio M. Beltran

We are

Leaves of Life's tree --

And death is the wind that shakes

The branches gently 'till its leaves

All fall.