TIRAD PASS
By Luis G. Dato By frowning hills and mountains Nippon has Builded her eyries dyed with innocent blood, She soared above the raging ocean’s flood, To light on corpses bared by rain and grass Those cliffs to us are holy,…
Luis G. Dato
Filipino Poet, Writer and Educator
Tag Places
Read More
VIETNAM
By Luis G. Dato On Vietnam’s marshes, set against dark hills, War inexorable goes on apace The torch to keep that lights the human race, Against the foe whose march insidious kills. Here is grim destiny, fierce minds, strong wills,…
POST DATA ON MANILA
By Luis G. Dato O city, million-souled, thousand-streeted, I feel your breath upon me, The sound of your many voices, Tread of anonymous feet. Goodbye, Manila, emporium of bills and kisses, And ladies with the hurrying hips And ever-freshly painted…
LIGHTS ON THE AVENUE
By Luis G. Dato And this will pass to nothingness: These lights That change to day the avenue’s dark nights, And beauty, too, because it will grow old The extinct crater of the heart turned cold. Tomorrow dies and quondam…
MANILA, CITY OF NOISE
By Luis G. Dato Manila, city of noise,All day the wheels have dinned in my earsThe cry for money, cause of all the noise,All counters, offices, markets, bodegas, piers, movie-houses, hotels,Repeat with variations the self-same theme,As mosquitoes at night din…
TRAFFIC
By Luis G. Dato Shouting in the sky-walled air.The rig-driver’s voice is husky and his throat is hoarse with yelling and shouting in the sky walled-air.He jerks the flesh-cutting reins and he dangles the sharp, blood-dripping lash.The horse is hungry.The legs…
MANILA
By Luis G. Dato Manila is a woman smiling through a mask of paint,Breasts irradiant with cosmic challengesAnd invitations to the rivers and the meadows of the explorable infinite,An urgency at an intersectionWith a clique of clubbing ruffians from behind.…
THE CITY
By Luis G. Dato Here in the grass grows not longerThe eye to soothe, tired feet to cool –For hills are blocks and masonry,For lake exiguous swimming pool. There are no haunts – around the cornerDeath gasps in screeching brakesOr…
INTRAMUROS
By Luis G. Dato Out where the wild vines spreadUpon the winding walls,I hear old madrigalsAnd music from the dead. There the grasses hangTheir canopy of leaves,Which oft at dawn receivesMatins the mayas sang. Where peace holds swaysOn mounted mossy…
