POEM
by Erlie Lopez
“Gray November in My Soul”
it was, that literati’s folk house in Manila
dim and other-worldly
with cigarette smoke dancing
over heads huddled close
to hear each other’s pains
being drowned by guitar strings
and slurred by beer.
Why the memory should return
I wonder, now long disembodied
from that decade of angst
and muflled rage,
and some habitues are now
where all the flowers have gone.
I can only matter-of-factly
say, well it’s the month,
the dreary and gray November
of lyric poets forlorn.
Or maybe closer to home,
a virus has made many days now
blah, enclosed in walls
that yesterday’s free spirits
are languishing, aching
to break loose.
Memory, what a jewel you are
just by being there,
and more so when the candle
goes a-flickering in the night.
About the Poet:
Erlie Lopez is a Filipina retired from the frenetic world of Public Relations and Advertising in Metro Manila. She was, in the last 18 years, head of a PR agency she co-founded. In her independent and sedate world now, she mostly reads, writes, stays socially connected, soaks in Nature, and develops new interests and skills adapting to the pandemic mode of life. She has also returned to a first love – poetry – which keeps her heart open to the grace and rhythm of the universe.
