LOVE POEM FOR A DICTATOR
color me scarlet spilled on the pavement
tell me what to do
what not to do under pain or duress
make me a part of
your fentanyl dreams your spittled curses
peppering your speech
color me bruise the size of your hand
put the crook
of your finger on a gun
on my pulse
make my mouth mute under your command
teach me a way
to seize to salvage
what goes against your way
turn me into a wound one among the many
slashed against the ground
dear dictator let me count the ways
how i can splinter
when you break me into a million
little lines like these
—from Poets Respond
July 15, 2020
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Rodrigo Dela Peña, Jr.: “Dissent is not terrorism. With the anti-terror bill signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte, the government now has a way to silence critics and activists in the Philippines by calling them ‘terrorists.‘” (web)
