dumbstruck poming poms wordless biting back the birthland chieftains bereft of right reason and scales of justice sprouted ilk of the silver-minted kind of various shades of pelt and pose and puddle of politics death and deathlessness of death the butthole gallbladder liver lung spleen pancreas kidney gray matter white matter no matter of rulership in this land of birth now land for loons and dodos my dear kuya eddie on the signboard of fate drawn since balanggiga bud dajo maliwalu jabidah patikul escalante mendiola cawa-cawa ipil maguindanao talipao mamasapano until metro manila without or with a whit of reason doomed examples shot down to shut up or else dumped in vacant lots blindsided by tandems on motorbikes or roused by raps on the door pleading alias this alias that a motley lot unidentified suspected alleged marked out or mere collateral damage nobody knowing who knows the one behind the back of the back of the one covering the back of the one behind it all no one with eyes that see no one with mouths that speak no one with laws to stand on riddled with rights of the almighty one playing chief of police to the weak and the poor no leaf of swamp cabbage unstained by drops of blood no nook remote enough not to catch the anguished moans no stand of trees not rooted in lamentations light and darkness graveyards and candles lighted go on birthing in earnest more than the hallowed grounds of bloodsoaked stars starry in the fist of heaven above the land of birth brightness of star and scream in the nothingness are one energy of feeling and chili stir-fried stone thrown blindly in the chink between heavens worsening to the worst conundrum without end or sizzle of tinsel gunpowder on a pom nothing now pom pom pom struck dumb poming wordless no thing not a thing ting