"Huling Lagapak ng Kandado" (Axel Pinpin)

The Lock's Last Thud
BY AXEL PINPIN


The calendar is weathered and withered
The chain is clanging and slamming
Time is slowing and speeding
The bars are bruised and skinned
The cold is here and gone
The heat rose and receded
Boredom mocked and endured
Anger, sneering and jeering

Eight hundred and fifty-nine days
Over and over, a spiralling dance

Two years and four months
Back and forth, spinning with no end in sight

This freedom expected to battle the deepest
darkness of the tomb of the living,
was snatched stolen buried
by the dump of flawed laws
which were even the first to rot and agonize
over the demise of the acrobat, a witness inexpert
in the lessons of walking and balancing.
Ay! He slipped from the rope of lies
knotted by the corrupt fiscal, all reason
mumbled and stumbled,
turned into black magic
each time a false witness sprang
a surprise from the box of evidence, not
the white rabbit which was trained to be swift
and clean, fooling the stunned
masses, guardians of justice
in the Judge’s carnival court.

Eight hundred and fifty-nine days
Over and over, a spiralling dance

Two years and four months
Back and forth, spinning with no end in sight

In an instant, before eyes blink,
The fracas is ended!





     TRANSLATED FROM FILIPINO
     ("HULING LAGAPAK NG KANDADO")