My Guest Blogger is Filipina poet Mila D. Aguilar whose nom de guerre in the Philippine martial law underground was Clarita Roja, which means Clear Red. When she was born again in 1990, the Red came to mean the Blood of Christ. Many thanks to Mila D. Aguilar for sharing her work. ~ Cecilia Brainard
~~~
Theater
of the Absurd
By
Mila D. Aguilar
"For
many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the
coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the
antichrist."
(2 John 1:7)
Ladies
and gentlemen
Behold
The
Theater of the Absurd.
Before
you,
In
real life but onstage
Good
as dead.
Nothing
here is real but
Everything
is.
Contradictions
abound
But
Consistency's
the point.
Don't
Hold
your breath, exhale it.
Satire
Overturned.
It's on you,
Not
the comic.
It's
on us, not the farce.
You
Are
the farce this time,
Onstage
Is
real as hell is real.
Reel
Is
you, keep on keeling
As
he kills.
The
future is here, folks.
No
time
To
hide or play nightmare
Unfolding
Before
you right now
Without
Compunction
while eliciting
Sympathy.
Oh,
tears! Asking for gentleness
Babes.
The
comic's no Lothario,
No!
He
doesn't go for married women,
Mestizas
Met
in Hongkong for the tryst.
Faithful
To
two only. Telenovela of our time.
Opening
Tomorrow.
~~
Mila D. Aguilar (born 1949) is a Filipina poet, revolutionary, essayist, teacher, video documentarian, and website designer. She wrote the poetry books A Comrade is as Precious as a Rice Seedling and Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995).
As a poet, she has written about 400 poems in English, Filipino, and Ilonggo, about 125 of which are in Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995), a collection published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1996. The poems in this collection were culled from six books printed in Manila, San Francisco, and New York City between the years 1974 and 1987 (including A Comrade is as Precious as a Rice Seedling), as well as from her writing in subsequent years up to 1995. Chronicle of a Life Foretold: 101 Poems (1995-2005) was published in 2012 by Popular Bookstore, and two more collections Poetry as Prophecy (2005-2013), and an untitled book, remain unpublished.
In 1971, Aguilar went underground, disagreeing with the policies of the Philippine government; she was arrested in 1984.
Aguilar has also written more than a hundred essays. A handful of these were done when she went "underground", first as an ordinary member, later as head of the Regional United Front Commission of Mindanao, and finally as head of the National United Front Commission of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the rebel organization from which she resigned in 1984.
She has produced, written, and directed almost 50 videos on subjects ranging from community organizations to regional cultures and good manners for government employees.
As a "webweaver", a term she invented,[citation needed] she has designed her own web pages as well as the website of a non-governmental organization.
She taught at the Department of English and Comparative Literature of the University of the Philippines, Diliman from 1969-1971, and again from 2000-2006.
She also taught at St Joseph's College.
Her full autobiography is entitled The Nine Deaths of M. It is a Kindle book and can be downloaded on Amazon.
~~~
Tags: Philippines, Filipina, poetry, literature, books, poems, writer, martial law, revolutionary, #PhilippineMartialLaw
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