Posted in Words for Melissa on Aug 30th, 2009
By Alexander Martin Remollino
You thanked me for lending an ear to your story,
which you have said you will not tire of telling.
I can listen to your story a thousand times
or even for a thousand years,
because it is one of those stories that really matter
in an age when stories are rarely stories anymore.
Any story that tells
of [...]
Posted in Words for Melissa on Aug 23rd, 2009
From Kundiman
On May 19, 2009, Melissa Roxas, 31, an activist and Kundiman fellow from Los Angeles who had been doing volunteer health work in Tarlac Province in the Philippines, was kidnapped along with two other health volunteers for a nongovernmental nationalist group called Bayan.
Let us participate in a community of cymbals through poems– bringing noise [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 21st, 2009
Humus
by Melissa Roxas
I.
The composition of earth changes every time something is mixed into it. The rains come and it becomes mud when mixed with water. Seeds, when planted, flower into something that feeds you. The same is true of smell and sounds. Isn’t it often said that when you talk to [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 7th, 2009
Disinter
by Melissa Roxas
Her red shorts were left
in an abandoned shack
a rag on the rotting wood floor
the heavy screen door, shut
the echo of her voice
a scrap between the cracks…
found
a fingernail.
It was said
two women and a man were spotted
somewhere along that road
in a solitary town two years ago
spotted? like cattle?
or deer in the wild?
ready for slaughter?
There is [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 2nd, 2009
[This poem was conceived and memorized by Melissa during her abduction.]
Come before the Night Hour
Come and Sing
before Night
Comes. I am Flame
to the Body.
The Incipient Wing
that can’t Fly.
The Open
Skin on a Foot
that Bleeds
Black. Tonight
I will learn to Die
a Thousand Times
and Be Resurrected.