IF THIS DIRTY RIVER COULD ONLY SPEAK
by Joel Vega

It used to bring dead birds and dented Pepsi cans
With the evening tide, and with a flaming sunset hides 
A stream of greyish-brown detritus. 
What clever tricks it could make with the five o’clock sun 
Like the way the eggshell white paint hides the cracks 
On the Palace walls or the fine folds of expensive jusi 
Subtly conceals a gambler’s beer belly.

It used to be a beauty, they say. In forgotten songs
It was a femme fatale with a mournful tune and a doleful
Stare. Now it could not even wash its hair. 
Even the foul-mouthed drunks of Tondo would not dare, 
For a thousand pesos, wet their toes in the western shores. 
They say it reeks of ammonia, 
Only suicides and the deeply disturbed will ignore.

But a river, however repugnant, still has it uses. 
It deflected a dying despot’s wish for a grand exit,
Made him fly out in a chopper, his head padded with Pampers.
And still another pretender made use of a fluvial trick
But only after the muddy waters greased his shoes
Replaced the Armani with ammonia
And crusted his eyes with salt.

It used to bring dead birds and dented Pepsi cans
Sees shores not as limits
And garbage as gifts

If only this dirty river could speak.
 

A graduate of U.P. Los Banos, Joel H.Vega works in Doetinchem, The Netherlands, as news editor for an international food business magazine. A fellow in the 1990 UP Likhaan Workshop, his stories and poems have been published in various magazines, periodicals and poetry journals.
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