Owning Greed

“Some of these people who are claiming to be human rights victims
have never been victims except (of) their own greed.”
— Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

In altered light anything can look grossly
different from what it is. A shell
becomes a haunted bone crawling with ants,
a feather a dagger dripping with blood.

The son and the father may share a name
by chance. It takes choice to follow
long gone footsteps into the dark,
ignore even as you trace

with your own fingers
frozen faces protruding on the walls,
glimmer ribs lining the ceilings,
shattered hands on the uneven floor.

-o-

21 September remains a dark day to remember in my country of birth. We shall never forget.

Even as the lies about the Marcos regime are resurrected and remixed to death and back again by David Byrne’s awful and lazy concept album turned into a stage musical for the easily deceived, “Here Lies Love.”

I’ve been meaning to put out a free chapbook that tries to counter Byrne’s milking cow (I’m betting it’s big money for him, no matter what happens), but time and other real world constraints keep getting in the way.

So here’s one of the poems that’s supposed to be part of that chapbook. One day, these Marcos thieves and historical distortionists shall pay.