Apo on the wall

By Bj Patino

1. There's this man's photo on the wall

2. of my father's office at home, you
3. know, where father brings his work,
4. where he doesn't look strange
5. still wearing his green uniform
6. and colored breast plates, where,
7. to prove that he work hard, he
8. also brought a photo of his boss
9. whom he calls Apo, so Apo could
10. you know, hang around the wall
11. behind him and look over his shoulder
12. to make sure he's snappy and all
13. father snapped at me once, caught me
14. sneaking around his office at home
15. looking at the stuff on his wall-hand guns,
16. plaques, a sword, medals, a rifle
17. told me that was no place for a boy,
18. only men, when he didn't really
19. have to tell me because, you know,
20. that photo of Apo on the wall was already
21. looking at me while I moved around
22. his eyes following me like he was
23. that scary Jesus in the hallway, saying
24. I know, I know what you're doing.
 Justice
By Ralph Semino Galan

There are the accoutrements of her office:

The blindfold symbolizing impartiality,

A golden pair of scales measuring the validity

evidence given, both pro and con,

The doubled-edged sword that pierces

through

the thick fabric of lies; thoth's feather

of truth which ultimately determines

whether

the defendants life is worth saving in J. Elizalde Navarro's oil

painting titled

Is this Philippine justice? The figure of the Roman Goddess

Justitia slowly fades

into thin air, swallowed by pigments

Cloudy as doubts. In my uncertain country

where right and wrong are cards

that can be shuffled like a pile of a money bills,

even the land chief magistrate

is not a immune from culpability, found guilty
he has to face the music of derision
 Cronulla Beach
By
Jose Wendell Capili

Blood surges rapidly

along Cronulla Beach
Armed with bats
White bodies are mad

replications of tents
parasols and sunblinds
spreading all over
what used to be kuranulla
aboriginal landscapes
the place of pink seashells
There is no chieftain
on the shore, no starfish
where dominion shatters

not too far behind

thugs and their hands

maids constrict exquisite

shades of perplexity
to keep generations
pure and sterile
spaces beneath vestiges

of hamlets from long ago

have become driftwood
Shells and cleavers of melting
pots and succession

they are swaying eerily

translucent as postcards
bereft of scintillating light

in the heated-up weather

so racializing, this soap
 Padre Faura Witnesses the Execution of Rizal
By Danton Remoto

I stand on the roof

Of the Ateneo municipal
Shivering
On this December morning

Months ago
Pepe come to me

In the observatory
I thought we would talk

About the stars

That do not collide
In the sky
Instead, he asked me about purgatory

(His cheeks still ruddy

From the sudden sun
After the bitter winters
In Europe.)

And on this day

With the year beginning to turn
Salt sting my eyes
I see Pepe,
A blur
Between the soldiers
With their Mausers raised
And the early morning's

Stars
Still shimmering
Even if millions of miles away
The star itself

Is already dead