Listening inside Plato's cave

 

Walang Mabanaag (Unable to Decipher) by Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles (University of the Philippines Press, 2026)

  

“Never mistranslate. Translation is sacred,” says a character in Bong Joon Ho’s film Okja (2017). In Walang Mabanaag, the latest offering from the prolific Filipino writer Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles, the poet-translator has committed an unpardonable sin in the practice of translation. He has mistranslated! Gasp!

Arguelles does not understand the Cebuano language and yet he decides to translate into Filipino the debut poetry collection by Jona Branzuela Bering, titled Alang sa Nasaag (Bathalad Inc., 2016). Instead of translating the meaning of the words, he decides to translate purely by sound. He bravely calls it a “mistranslation.” 

The sinner has readily confessed. So better keep your calm, members of the translation police force. Be gentle, gatekeepers of language. And be flexible, auditors of translation projects. You can let go of your checklist on translation faithfulness. The auditors will need to sharpen their auditory skills to evaluate the soundness of this translation.

The poet flexes his linguistic skills by using sound as the material for his undertaking. He set out to demonstrate, dare I say it, the right ear for translation. 

SABADO, ALAS-SAIS SA BITAG

 

Ang kuneho sa kuryente

Nalapnos sa biglang pusok

Ng ulan. Bawat patak matindi,

Ang kalsada luhaan

Sa nabuwang na langit. 

This is not a “bilingual” edition. We only have the Filipino version in front of us. Asked why he did not have the “translated” poem side by side with the Cebuano original in the book, the poet said he wanted to somehow distance the translation from the original, to recognize their separate artistic presences. The original counterpart looks (or sounds) like this:

SABADO, ALAS SAYIS SA BUNTAG

 

Ang kutay sa kuryente

Namabdos og daghang lusok

Sa uwan. Kada tagak niini,

Ang kalsada lubnganan

Sa nakuhaang langit

Cebuano and Filipino may be distinct languages, but the same vowels and consonants will carry the workload of the homophonic translator. Below is a translation attempt—a semantic take this time—on the Filipino, since this reader could not decipher Cebuano either. A homophonic English translation of either version will be a far more daunting task; English may be too catholic for this kind of linguistic transformation.

SATURDAY, SIXTH HOUR ON THE DOT

 

The rabbit in shock

Electrocuted by the power surge

Of rain. Excessive rainfall,

The streets weep

Beneath the crazed heaven. 

Noise! The poor fate of the rabbit is the result of sound effects. The poet, known previously for his erasure poetry, sonnet-deconstruction, and other innovative concepts, chooses this time to focus on the sense of hearing. 

In “Ang Pagsuko” (“Ang Pagtubo” in the original), the sound creates its own path out of the unwieldy brambles and branches of the original.

Wala akong talinghaga

sa paglingon. Bigo akong mapatitikom.

Sadyang sumusuko ang salita para maghilom.

 

Original Cebuano:

 

Wala baya ko mahingangha

sa iyang giingon. Igo ra kong mipahiyom.

Samang ang sabila motubo ra sa hilom.

 

Translation of Filipino:

 

I don’t harbor metaphors

about eternal return. I cannot be silenced.

The words surrender to heal.

The poet said it took him almost nine years to complete the task of mistranslation. Along the way, the labor must have been punctuated by ‘hearer’s block.’ As the poet tries to capture meanings out of pure sound, he is also constructing meaning in the target language to fill the pages with legible and intelligible jottings.

It is easy to fall prey to the poet’s mind games. The poet’s project seems to negate the entropy of sense: out of linguistic uncertainty and Cebuano-Filipino incompatibility, it generates new meanings. This is a kind of negentropy (negative entropy)—not a transposition of the original’s meanings, but the creation of new ones through their disruption. Here is how “Lagom” (Summation, “Dagom” in the original Cebuano) ends:

At ang luhang nakapalayo

na sa pangingilid sa itinakdang mga mata.

May isang kathang walang batas

at itinakdang kagalakan ng anti-kanon.

At ang mga saksi ay hindi na

muling makalilingon.

 

Original:

 

O ang duha nakahibawo

na nga motipig sa gagmayng mga butang.

O di ba kaha, wan-ay tastas

nga angayng kabalak-an ug atimanon.

Ug ang mga gisi di na angayng

panumbalingon karon.

 

Translation of Filipino:

 

And the tears run away

from welling up in their designated eyes.

A literary work doesn’t follow all the rules

and is the toast of the anti-canon.

And the witnesses shall

no longer look back.

In the same anti-canon spirit of the work, the reader squints his eyes even if he can’t see. He marvels at the creative gumption of a poet filling in the blanks, inserting his political commentary and literary intents into innocent words and punctuation marks.

The poem “Dyslexia” probably carries meaning further into terra incognita. Here is the entire poem:

Bugtong!

Ligalig ka sa iyong salita,

ay, kanino ba, natisod

sa pagbasa sa binuod

na istorya.

 

Nilumot na sa pagbasa

sa inog ng pagbuklat

ng mga mata,

na namimilog:

haraya, haraya.

 

Original:

 

Uy, Dong!

Tingalig naa ka ining sakita,

kay, unsa ba, maglisod

man kag basa sa tinuod

nga estorya.

 

Samot na sa pagbasa

sa tingog sa budlat

nakong mata,

nga naglanog:

ikaw ra, ikaw ra.

 

Translation of Filipino:

 

Riddle!

Your words are in turmoil,

ay, for whose eyes, you stumble

while reading

Cliff’s Notes.

 

Grown barnacles from reading

the cycle of pages the eyes

flip through,

the eyes popped out:

wanted: metaphor.

The invisible process of hearing becomes the work’s subject as much as its final product. The translator deliberately mangles and destroys the original poetry to create a new disharmony of music.

I would like to interview Bering, the author of the source book, to find out what she thinks of this translation project. As a concept, the whole idea of homophonic translation fascinates me. On paper, I mean on the page, the renditions are a riot of comic possibilities.

Meanings are posthumous. I cannot explain why I could not contain my laughter while reading every other poem in this book. It is the same experience I had reading Chi for the first time, the middle collection of Arguelles's Three Books (Broken Sleep Books, 2020), as translated by Kristine Ong Muslim. Chi is an erasure of Say ni Chiz (ICatcher Productions, Inc., 2009), a memoir by Chiz Escudero. 

Like Chi, Walang Mabanaag makes its own process of construction visible, transforming material from an existing work into something new while leaving traces of the source behind. But where Chi erases and reconfigures a memoir, Walang Mabanaag remakes poetry through sound, generating new meanings from the distance between the Cebuano source text and its radical Filipino transformation.

Who can begrudge our translator for opting to remain faithful to one aspect of the source text that he does not speak? As Damion Searls wrote in The Philosophy of Translation (2024): “In judging a translation, then, the ideal of ‘faithfulness’ is an empty tautology: we are really judging what the translator sees in the author or text and chooses to be faithful to.” Thus, the translator simply earmarked certain passages for his own hearing. 

This volume shows that it is sometimes productive to be in the dark, allowing meanings to serendipitously find their way to you, rather than actively seeking them out. The full weight of existence is hard to bear when data and information bombard you left and right. We need air and airy language to let go of the burden of communication.

This opening stanza from the title poem, “Walang Mabanaag” (Unable to Decipher, “Alang sa Nasaag” in the original), is illuminating, in a manner of speaking:

Nang nakita kita sa daan tungong aplaya,

sinarhan ko na ang lumang bintana

at nag-uwian ang naghuhuntahan. Umalingaw.

Naumid ang baybayin, lumipad

ang mga kabág sa mga tumana:

Nabanaag ba riyan ang anino?

Kaninong anino ang anino sa banaag?

 

Original:

 

Samtang nangita kas da’n padu’ng sa atoa,

trangkahan nako ang tanang bentana

ug ablihan ang purtahan. Ug molakaw.

Mamidpid kos baybayon, manimpa’d

nga matubag ang mga pangutana:

Masaag pa diay ang suheto?

Unsa kasuheto ang suheto sa pagkasaag?

 

Translation of Filipino:

 

When I saw you on the way to the beach,

I hurriedly closed the old windows

and the gossips went home. A shout.

The coastline receded in shame, the anxiety

was exorcised from the fields:

Has the shadow been detected?

Whose shadow is the shadow in silhouette?

In Walang Mabanaag (Unable to Decipher), Arguelles has robbed us of the sense of sight. All we see are shadows of words with shadowy meanings, trying to escape, but unable to do so, from the constraint of sound and the endless possibilities of humor and wit. 

Rather than delivering us from the darkness, the poet deliberately put us right back inside Plato’s cave. It is not always the light that brings illumination and insight. Sometimes, understanding requires not illumination but a willingness to remain in the dark and listen. Ssshhh! Listen. Ssshhh! 

The burden of understanding

a different body by Lean Borlongan, translated by Eric Abalajon (self-published, 2025)

 

If only he could stop
the involuntary movements
of his hands
always shaking
left and right, if only
his tongue and lips were not twisted
if only his head
hadn't filled with fluid
if only he were born full-term
he would not
write poetry
about failed loves.

["The Poet"]

 

By page 30 of this collection, one reads a college application form in which the applicant (the poet) is asked if he has a disability (Yes / No). The applicant puts a check beside No. With that simple lie, the reader can sense a personal world shifting in its course.

Here is a poetry collection that does not announce its difference lightly. It tackles the themes of inclusivity and disability in a manner that suspends and redraws our assumptions about inclusivity and disability. One reads and recognizes the truths behind the lines, the hurt and pain that must have accompanied their writing.

The title of the collection was taken from "Tonight," in which the disabled poet imagined himself in the body of another, "longing / desiring to live / in a different body?" To be different can be a curse, but the poet chose to express his longings and desires to give shape to his singularity.

The whole sequence was capped with "Until Believed," a powerful ending that is as close to a manifesto or poetics as there can ever be about disability. It began with the circumstances and limitations faced by a person with disability "in a society / where a broken body / is nothing special":

To be disabled
is to be mocked
to be shouted at
in the streets
pelted with insults
reprimanded by the guard
refused at restaurants
denied purchase
barred entrance
locked out. 

Each stanza began with the same line: "To be disabled" ("Ang kapansanan"). It was almost like a repeated line in a famous poem, "The guerrilla is like a poet," but here a narrative was being limned, its arc moving from physical limitation to defeat and eventually to resistance. 

As the poet found his voice, he came to terms with his physical self and his literary abilities. The poet as a PWD was also a survivor and resistance fighter.

To be disabled
is to defy limits
and boundaries
to continue fighting
even when the heart and mind
are bruised.

To be disabled
is to dare
to challenge everyone
to question their own beliefs
and to change the order of things.

To be disabled 
is just a part of me.
Not the whole of me. 

And therein lies the poet's mastery of himself. His physical condition does not wholly define him, as he is much more than this. He was not another acronym or a broken body. In this collection, his body may be the site of his poetry, but his poetry shines through to illuminate the fullness of his humanity.

The poet's actual medical records—detailing the results of his medical procedures and diagnoses—were interspersed with the poems in this bilingual edition. These documents authenticate and blur how we receive these lines. The objective value of these unfeeling, scientific documents stands in contrast to the subjective feelings of personal poetry. 

In lines of poetry "lie emotions / that can't be shown openly / ... / lie my passion / my sincerity / my true voice" [from "In Poetry"]. The poet gave voice to none other than himself. 

We were privy to a very personal journey as the poems contextualized an experience that was not only lived but relived.

A tilted, swaying head
is mocked for always being
drunk. I drank and drank –
no matter how bitter
no matter how I sank
I will wake up to my own affliction. 

[from "Drunk"] 

The poet woke up daily to his own affliction. And daily, he came face to face with people's presumptions and assumptions about what he could and could not do. In "People," the poet turned the tables on the able-bodied citizens who had misunderstood him for most of his life.

Though they are unaware 
of their prejudice
I am consciously judging.
These sons of bitches
look like idiots.
I am smarter than them. 

The poet then shifted the "burden of understanding" his condition from himself to the other people, focusing instead on his understanding of their misunderstanding. 

Yet still, I bear
the burden 
of understanding.
They only wish
to get their message across.

The disabled poet's empathy for the non-disabled flipped the perspective. The poet has demonstrated a generosity of another order.

In the body of the poem
the veins don't fidget.
Lips have a voice that is
ready to share secrets
and depth. ...
.......................................
I am conversing
with readers
even only for a moment
with an abled body.

[from "In Poetry II"]

He has put himself in the shoes of others. He has glimpsed his condition from the perspective of others and has decided to express what he found in his poems.

In a different body, an individual has found his profession in poetry. His declaration was unequivocal: here I am in all my profound humanity. This is a book that overcame the odds. Its translator, Eric Abalajon, has made creative decisions that negotiate the idiomatic uses and quirks of the Filipino language. It would require deep sensitivity on the part of the translator to convey Borlongan's poetry. I believe that this is Abalajon's first published book of translation. For both poet and translator, this bilingual edition was a moving meditation on disability and humanity.

 

Missives from a vagabond and reply from a ghost

Epistolaryo ng Bagamundo at ang Tugon ng Multo by Mikael de Lara Co (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2026)

 

Reading Epistolaryo ng Bagamundo at ang Tugon ng Multo, the third poetry book of Mikael de Lara Co, was not a straightforward read. I found myself taking long pauses after every poem, trying to catch my breath. Unable to move on to the next poem, I needed to process the words in front of me and latch on to the ideas and feelings they generated. What I thought was a leisurely read took me days as the images lingered in my mind. Something was eating the poet, and his frustrations and pains bleed into the reader's anxiety. It could be a bruising experience. 

An overwhelming guilt haunted the poet. How could he bear witness to a war in Gaza and carry the weight of history unfolding beyond his reach and firsthand experience? We all saw the images and heard about the atrocities in the comfort of our cubicles but how could a Filipino poet engage with them? 

In "Probokasyon sa Probokasyon sa Probokasyon" (Provocation Upon Provocation Upon Provocation), the poet asked, "Kaya mo bang magsulat / ukol sa pagdurusa sa malalayong bayan?" (Can you write / about suffering in far-off places?). His answer to the provocative question was a pedantic pile of the same words, unable to arrive at a justification that would convince even himself. All translations are mine:

Kung gayon: Magsulat ukol sa pagdurusa
sa malalayong bayan. Matapos nito,

itanong sa sarili kung paano mong kinakayang
magsulat ukol sa pagdurusa sa malalayong bayan.

Samakatuwid, isulat ang totoo,
na kayâ ka nagsusulat ukol sa pagdurusa

sa malalayong bayan
ay dahil wala ka pang sapat na tapang

upang harapin ang sarili mong mga multo. 

 

If that's the case: Write about the suffering
in far-off places. After which,

ask yourself how you can bear
writing about suffering in far-off places.

And so: write this truth,
that the reason you're writing about suffering

in far-off places 
was because you were not brave enough

to face your own ghosts. 

The distance separating the poet from faraway wars was geographic. An ongoing historical event was so far beyond his grasp and yet so near in emotional reckoning. Mikael Co's ethical conundrum was how the circumstances of a distant war could become material for a poem by a poet from the other side of the world. 

It could be that the poet was in denial of his own suffering, unable to "face [his] own ghosts." Wars preoccupy him because the capacity for human cruelty is the same elsewhere. 

Walter Benjamin's idea of history as an inevitable chain of terrifying historical events was acknowledged by the poet: "At kailan mo natuklas / na pinagdurugtong tayo // ng sari-sariling digmaan. / At kailan mo natukoy na ang pagdilat // ay pagdurusa." (And when did you discover / that we are connected by // our own homegrown wars. / And when did you realize that to live // is to suffer.)

For poets attuned to human suffering, wars exact a toll on the mind. "Ang Aklatan sa Shuja'iyya" (The Library in Shuja'iyya) was dedicated to the memory of Refaat Alareer (1979–2023), a Gaza-born Palestinian poet:

Paa ng sirang mesa, unan sa ilalim ng butas 
na ulo ng sanggol, mga piraso ng kasaysayan 
mula sa malalayong bayan: Inunang paslangin 
ng Khmer Rouge ang mga nakasalamin. Mayroong 
tula dito. Kung may bahagi ng pusong 
natatapyas sa bawat masaksihang kamatayan, 
ilang airstrike bago ito tuluyang maubos?
May bubughaw pa bang sugat sa kalangitang 
humalili sa pader?
                     Balang araw 
mangangahas muli tayong magpalipad 
ng saranggola.
                     Maaaring 
wala na ako doon. Mayroong tula dito.
 

A leg of a broken table, a pillow under the punctured
head of an infant, fragments of history
from far-off places: The Khmer Rouge liquidated
first the ones wearing eyeglasses. A poem
dwells here. If a section of the heart
is chipped away for every death witnessed,
how many airstrikes before it disappears?
Is there any shade of blue darker than a heaven which
replaced the walls?
                       One day
we will be brave enough to fly
kites.
                       I may
no longer be around then. A poem dwells here. 

From Cambodia to Gaza, cruelty and hate persisted, and poetry dared to document what was left: broken tables, pillows, eyeglasses. Poetry was recorded on scraps of paper, material fragments of history that nonetheless contained the undying dream to "fly / kites."

The poet immediately refuted this romantic idea of poetry as resistance in the opening of the next poem, "Sin Verguenza," where a feeling of indescribable shame chips away at the poet's conscience.

“Balang araw, matatapos ang digmaan
at mababalikan ko na sa wakas 
ang aking mga tula,” sabi ng graffiti
sa Aleppo, at wala kang magawa
kundi mamutiktik sa hiya
ngayong kakasangkapanin mo na naman
ang pagdurusa ng iba para makasulat
ng sariling tula.

"One day, the war will end
and I can finally return to writing
my poems," said the graffiti
in Aleppo, and you couldn't help
but die in shame
now that you were using again
the suffering of others in order to write
your own poem. 

The poet then prayed a litany to the various gods: the god of worms, of windows, of the throats, of sidewalks, of cable wires, of metaphors.

Diyos ng mga kawad, paano pa bang lilikha
ng kapilya mula sa guho. Diyos
ng talinghaga. Balang araw
matatapos ang digmaan at babalikan
natin ang mga tula ng mga may tapang
ng hiyang tumula sa panahong ganito.

God of cables, how could we create
a chapel from the ruins. God 
of metaphor. One day
the war will end and we will return 
to the poems of those who were shamelessly
brave enough to write a poem in these times.

The invocation was preserved from the poet's first two English poetry books: What Passes for Answers (2013) and Canopy (2017), but here the polished lyricism of the first two books gives way to the rawness and messiness of the Filipino register. What saved the poet from his ethical dilemma was his "self-consciousness" when he couldn't help / but die in shame as he appropriated a suffering poet's graffiti at the outset. And the jumble of gods served to undermine the "poetic" and hinted at a poetry of engagement. "Sabi ng diyos ng mga bintana, / Titigan mo ako, baka sakaling / may makapkap ka pang kapayapaang / nakasilid sa mga hiwa ng mundo. / Walang silbi ang makatang naglilihis / ng paningin." (Said the god of windows, / Look me in the eye, you might / frisk out some peace / hiding in the interstices of the world. / The poet who averts his gaze / is inutile.) 

Stitching the threads of these poems was a select set of recurring images and statements. A few examples were: the knife concealed under the sink, a glass of water by the bedside to drink after the poet's bouts of nightmares, fitting things between two measly palms ("dadalawang palad"), and a body that can no longer bear it (original in italics, "Hindi ko na káya sa katawang ito."). Their recurrence gave the poems a unified effect and seemed to function as a vocabulary of journey and pain shared between the poet and the reader.

Mikael Co used various lineations, indentations, and poetic formats, mixing English and Filipino passages to create hybrid forms of expression, as in "Laging nasa Bingit" (Always on the Brink), a prose poem alternating Filipino and English sentences. This poem contains the line, "Sabi nga: Tungkulin ng makatang di maubusan ng salita." (It is said: The poet's task is to never run out of words.) The line alluded to "The Doomed," a poem appearing in Mikael Co's first two books: "The task of poetry / is to never run out of words."

"Meditasyon sa Parang" (Meditation on Wilderness) began with a compression of Rilke's lines: "Ayon kay Rilke: Nakakikilabot / ang mga anghel, / sapagkat ano nga ba ang kariktan / kundi bukal ng kilabot?" (According to Rilke: Every angel / is terrifying, / because beauty is nothing / but the root of terror?) Stephen Mitchell translates Rilke's passage as "For beauty is nothing / but the beginning of terror ... / ... / ... Every angel is terrifying." William H. Gass goes for "because [beauty] is nothing but terror's herald; / ... / ... Every Angel is awesome." The Rilke device, as well as the meditation on poetry and its uses, reminded me of Mesándel Virtusio Arguelles’s Sa Wala Ka Maniwala (Trust in Nothing), the final volume in his Sonetoismo septology, which also tackles history and the war in Gaza.

Perhaps our brave and shameless poet was justified in never running out of words. Who else would memorialize the bloodied temples and wasted lives? In "Tanging Pananalig" (Only Faith), the poet questioned the Great Poet ("Dakilang Makata") for not intervening with His omnipotence: "may kutob akong / hindi rin Siya nagbabasa ng tula." (I suspect / that even He doesn't read poems.) Thus the poet carried his faith in art while resisting in the only way he knew: "ang tangi kong alam na pag-aaklas / ay ang laban sa pananahimik?" (the only form of resistance I know / is the one against silence?). Never running out of words is a resistance against silence. 

If silence reigns in wars in far-off places, destruction prevails without resistance. To remain silent in the face of war is to embrace death, even suicide. But like the insistent words of a poet (in graffiti, in paper scraps), love itself was an ardent form of resistance, as in "Ang mga Mangingibig ng Khan Younis" (The Lovers of Khan Younis):

May pulutong ng kalapating nakikipagkarera 
sa mga bala. Mahihipo ba ang pakpak 
kahit man lamang sa haraya, mahahanap 
ang batobalaning nakabaon sa bituka't 
gumagabay sa kanila tungo sa kung-saang umaga?
Narito pa rin tayo kahit ubos na ang landas palabas 
ng lungsod. May kargang babala ang mga ulap.
Natatakot ako. Kung darating ang apoy, Sinta, 

hawakan mo ako. Paghinangin nawa ng digmaan 
ang ating mga palad. Pagbuhulin sana ng init 
ang ating mga gulugod. At kung balang araw 
mahukay tayo ng mananakop, maisip 
nila nawa: Sa kabila ng lahat, may nagmahalan 
pa rin dito. Hindi nila napigil ang pag-ibig.

A troop of doves races against
the rain of bullets. Can their wings even be touched
by imagination, can the magnetic attraction
buried in their intestines and
guiding them toward what morning be found?
We're still here even if all roads out of the city 
are blocked. The clouds carry a warning.
I'm scared. If fire comes, my Love,

please hold me. Let our palms be soldered by
the war. Let the heat knot together
our vertebrae. And one day
when the conquerors unearth our remains, let
them think: Despite everything, two lovers
remained here. They could not contain their love. 

The poetic sequence ended with gestures of closure. Some traumatic family event or tragedy (a fire?) was confronted, an heirloom or inheritance might be destroyed, but the poet was sure it would all end with him ("nagpasya na ako. / Sa akin magtatapos ito."). He made peace with his birthright. And he had perhaps forgiven the ghost haunting him. Or it had forgiven him.

Like César Vallejo, his death poem was already composed, "Magtitistis Tayo Hanggang sa Pagpanaw" (We Will Labor Until Death Finds Us). And "Paanyaya" (An Invitation), the collection's final poem, was addressed to another poet (the poem has an epigraph from Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha). Here are the final lines:

ang aking paanyaya: Kung maligaw ka
sa munti naming arkipelago, dalawin mo ako.
Pirming walang kandado ang pintuan
ng tahanan ko. Palaging may tao dito.

my invitation: If you happen to find yourself
in our humble archipelago, come visit me.
The doors to my home are
unlocked. And people are always waiting here.

In an ideal world, Mikael Co, an accomplished translator apart from being a brilliant poet, would produce equally forceful translations of these haunting, bruising poems. Meanwhile, those who read them in Filipino will encounter some of the most fragile and raw lines about being a feeling human being despite wars and corruption. And, after drawing sharp breaths and audible sighs, they will also be treated to gestures of kindness and hospitality. This book is like a hard-earned respite. It is one poet trying to connect with another, one human being to another.