J., a friend of mine who runs a printing press published this collection of poems by the activist Axel Pinpin. Tugmaang Matatabil is a powerful piece of prison literature. The exclamations of Pinpin’s poems lit and ignite one’s perception of the systemic and systematic abuses of power by those in power. It takes guts to convert this personal detestation of corruption into subversion and to fashion from it an indictment of human rights violation committed by the government. The poems renew the tradition of resistance and protest in the writings of National Artist Amado V. Hernandez. Here's an English translation of a key poem in the book. It's a revised version of the one I posted in my other blog.
The First Night of Interrogation*
by Axel Pinpin (translated from the Filipino)
Dark. A pale cross between gunmetal and black.
Dark. Dark and black the blindfold enfolding.
Thick mucus leaked from the stinky ink smell
of newspaper shrouding, coiling around my head
just as the binding python crushed tight
the remnant light of the insomniac night.
Cold. The cold bite of the tip of Armalite.
Thick sweat formed on my forehead. Cold on skin
and so much sticky the plastic chair
rubbing my elbows in sweaty shudders.
I felt the terror behind sinister voices and gazes
piercing the unyielding fight of the peasant.
Who are you who kidnapped and thieved freedom?
Who between us is the savior, who the victim?
Are you my fellow victims victimizer
of the saviors of the victim?
Why aren't we both injured by a bullet from your gun
and the truth spiked in my outspoken verses?
And if we are injured, then to forgive each other.
But one need not forget even if forgiven,
because the handcuffs bequeath an ugly mark on my forearms,
because the gun muzzle bequeaths madness on my temples,
because the cowed cover on my eyes bequeaths darkness,
because the Victim shall exact vengeance on his Savior!
Ah, then you are indeed the faithful Redeemer!
And you shall be damned by our Forgiveness!
Oh, death! Oh, so sweet death!
Lay us in the arms of our fallen comrades,
in the rhythms and songs of loud reports,
and in the seething revenge of my outspoken verses!
* This poem was extemporaneously recited by the author at the end of his interrogation on the night of April 28, 2006, in an unidentified place in Metro Manila (near the airport and railroad tracks). The writer was challenged by unknown armed men to recite a poem when they learned that he was a poet. He recited this while blindfolded, handcuffed at the back, and with a gun pointed at his head. The poet tried to recall the poem from that time and he first wrote it on the 9th of November 2006 when he was already in prison.
