poetry

Saprid’s Man Taming the Tikbalang
by Ernesto Superal Yee

On precarious nights
Yellowed moon,
This medium struggles
To be.

… the man gripping the tikbalang’s hair
knowledge to overcome him.
the tikbalang amused, a defiled look
in his bronze-shot eyes, saying,
“all depends on him”-

Disrobe the story’s conclusion we all know
Feel the unagitated struggles
In the silence of mind obscured.
For a mind which goes in all directions
Sees them step out strangely
In lone dark. Even a flea paced to be,
A tikbalang.

Only when one meets his feared Tikbalang
Eye to eye, will he cease to pull
Hair, and the moon will be,
Just.

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