Allelujah [poem]
Media
Part of The Carolinian
- Title
- Allelujah [poem]
- Creator
- Racoma, Rene
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1965
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- the uninvited black clouds departed. The moon rose and shone above the houses that bloomed like sickly flowers in the dead heart of the lifeless city. 7 have no more phantoms, No more weird darkness in My world. Now you can look Into my eyes and see there The cool serenity!’ The man on the bongos howled: ‘Bravo!’ From nowhere a Voice thundered: ‘Liar!’ The audience of young men with jackets clapped and smoked and laughed and looked. "Dance, Extrano, dance!” “Sing, Extrafio, sing!” Thus he danced and sang in the manner of an angry Ilonggot warrior. Then from the room upstairs a baby cried. It was a cry of innocence protesting the savage bedlam below. Panting, Extrano stopped. He took a long drink from the bottle in his pocket. Whisky! Then, strumming his guitar, he heaved himself into a song again: "Cry, baby, cry Until your eyes Become dry! Blotv, tears, flow Blood the world And drown all its Ancient sorrows!’’ Upstairs, the baby cried in obedience. “Dance, Extrano, dance!” “Shut up, scalawag! I’m not your slave!” Guffaws. Then silence. Extrano opened a window and looked at the sleeping world outside. The scavengers of the night — cats and dogs and rats and brats — tumbled over garbage cans. Almost every night he peered at the window to watch this cruel thing. The waifs rummaged the garbage cans only to find there the scraps of human wrath. He lighted a cigarette and decided to go out into the cool of summer night. He proceeded to the door... “Are you going home now?” Ramon asked. “I have no home, brother.” “What a catastrophe!" Cornelio sneered. “Then why don’t you join us?” Prospero asked. “I’m not of your kind, brother.” “What an insult!” Manido boomed. “You’re a fool!” Rackmaninoff squeaked. “How about you, brother?” Then he was gone. The young men looked at each other. Silence asked the silent faces only to receive a silent answer. IN HIS room, the Professor, after knowing that his wife was out again with her coterie of ‘charitable’ women, wrote: "Home without love Is inconceivable And TV alone is Not enough. Tell Me, Dear, in the Absence of publicity Where does charity go?’’ WHILE in the empty streets, in the cool of summer night, Extrano, the eternal stranger of the tired old world mumbled: Shantih! Shantih! Shantih! THE END yt((e(u.jak First prize, USC Literary Contest a huge shining axe chopped down a tree young and fresh while a tree stump stood, holding a concentric circle exposed to sun, to rain winds sang and the raindrops brought the hymn of a native a wanderer who roamed mountains and hills, slept in caves, sculptured and tattooed his skin, burnt incense in the dwelling of little gods there were little gods whose ire and impatience brought rocks rolling, rolling, crushed down a deep, hungry gorge.............. these little gods slowly, slowly turned flowers when the ripples of a stream, the moss-covered stones of a river, like the poetry of a star mosaic fastened and introduced into a dark, uncomprehending world anchored a light, light that ripped flowing skirts of darkness, unbelief taking tiny wings and tattered fragments awakening slumbering souls! exposed to sun, to rain, the tree stump’s concentric circle held God Omnipotence, Truth, Light and the wanderer no more burnt incense in the dwellings of his little gods, but picked his little flowers, strew them around a tree carried a chalice with prayers the roots of a tree four hundred years of age, the beginnings of a new arc in a circle to eternity, in sunshine or rain spread out to feed on that divine light, year after year, grow and multiply like stars in the skies singing allelujah! allelujah! By Rene Racoma Page Thirty-eight THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965