Poetry by Maed Rill Monte

                        


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Odyssey of the Free

Up before the sun was up
he leaves the secluded house
harboring creaks of age
slamming the plywood door
and sets out to the high
grass and the low waters;
shoes an inch too large
for skinny feet, t-shirt,
jeans failing to recognize
bone-framed body rice-fed
and much more seldomly
pork-chops cooked to its
own crackling oil; now the
big dogs roam about the
sideroad so he collects a
twig and holds it up like
some pistol or sometimes just
wag it about such as a dog's
tail, cut away lizard-like,
and the rabid animals would
flee and the boy would run
and run someplace where he
didn't need to think and
rethink the inadequateness
of the self: no time to for
bits of wisdom, no front door
to slam, no shoes, no shirt
no jeans. Just one free man.

​



Men of Purpose

Grow steering wheels
For hands Same smell
Same texture Flicks
Waxy luggage eyes for
Headlights and roars
In belches down the
Road of manning up
On slick leather thrones
High with the air of
Gasoline Caffeine with
A whole treasury of
Untreated cholesterol
Doing penance for
No sins With wires
For hair soaked in
Petroleum for sixty
Seventy years More
Dust flying from all
Sides Dust of bones
Skin Dust of other
Big guys Same DNA
Same track record
Been there Done that





Religion Recession

Consider the scratches
On parts of the settee
Fungus on the bedsheet
We couldn't even chew
On the paper of craft
Confessional tidbits
The repeating annals
From a house of sheer
Redundance Learned love
Arrives at margins A
Point of faith fatigue
Stopped whirling the
Coffee and unshaken
Granules settled to the
Bottom Took that bag
And left The leaves
Scattered The fences
Symbolic Swear I heard
Your getaway car pull
Up to a score of trumpets
A little pride should
Go a long away like
Ambulance sirens

​

Maed Rill Monte writes from Ormoc City, Philippines. His time switches from reading works of Stoicism and Existentialism to watching anime.

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