From Melismas
By Marlon Hacla
Translated by Kristine Ong Muslim
Because of the looming arrival of the creator of engines
that run the world, our imaginations ended up running wild
during the meeting where we discussed
the site of our hiding place, the system that would keep us
quiet, the method to ensure our extinction,
if only. With the startled scurrying of little mouse feet
towards the spot that fuels our desire,
a storage room for reports
made by archangels, a swaying room for the peak
of our infamy, there are machines
that tell us whether the ground underneath our feet
can be named and listed
among the deathless.
Disquiet may as well find me,
but my luggage is tightly packed with my symphonies,
and so we must go on: the sea is now allowed
to hum, the skies are laid bare,
the earth is fortified by a thousand songs.
Mula sa Melismas
Dahil parating na ang gumawa ng mga motor
ng paligid, naglaro ang mga isip namin
sa isang pagtitipon upang planuhin
kung saan kami magtatago, kung paano kami
tatahimik, kung paano maglalaho,
kung maaari. Mga dagang hakbang
tungo sa pag-igting ng aming pagnanasa,
isang silid na tinambakan ng mga ulat
ng mga arkanghel, silid-indayog sa rurok
ng aming katanyagan, may mga aparatong
magsasabi kung ang kinatatayuan namin
ay maaari naming pangalanan at ilista
sa mga hindi mahihipo ng wakas.
Sapitin man ako ng pagkabalisa,
puno ang mga maleta ko ng mga simponya,
kaya humayo na tayo: pinahuhugong na
ang dagat, inilaladlad na ang mga langit,
pinatitibay na ng sanlibong awit ang sangkalupaan.
*
Marlon Hacla is a programmer, writer, and photographer. His first book, May Mga Dumadaang Anghel sa Parang (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2010), was published as part of UBOD New Authors Series II. His second book, Glossolalia, was published by High Chair in 2013. He also released two chapbooks, Labing-anim na Liham ng Kataksilan (2014) and Melismas (2016). In 2017, he created the first robot poet in Filipino, Estela Vadal, as a Twitter bot with the Twitter handle @estelavadal. He lives in Quezon City, Philippines, with his cats.
Kristine Ong Muslim is the author of nine books, including the fiction collections Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, 2016), Butterfly Dream (Snuggly Books, 2016), and The Drone Outside (Eibonvale Press, 2017), as well as the poetry collections Lifeboat (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015), Meditations of a Beast (Cornerstone Press, 2016), and Black Arcadia (University of the Philippines Press, 2017). She is co-editor of two anthologies—the British Fantasy Award-winning People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction and Sigwa: Climate Fiction Anthology from the Philippines, an illustrated volume forthcoming from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines Press. Widely anthologized, her short stories have appeared in Conjunctions, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, and World Literature Today. She continues to live in a rural town in the southern Philippines.