Lawrence Ypil (b. 1978)
SELECTED POEMS
The Nature of a City
The nature of a city is that it is built for someone else. Otherwise, a covenant. Otherwise, a show. A script was written for the hero but only on the premise that after a long bout of a lovebird illness, she was willing to be someone else. Four men did not equal four men unless the last one standing was laughing. As on a church ceiling, five devils flicked their tails snickering against the sun while a god sat on his throne and by the gesture of his right hand extolled the virtues of humanity’s diminishment. Outside, the bazaars gave and gave, but there was not enough space for: hemp, rope, basket, stone, fruit, market, screw driver, cabinet, glow. There were toys peddled outside in the street where you pulled and pulled that monkey of the self and it climbed without reaching anywhere other than itself.
by Lawrence Ypil
from The Experiment of the Tropics (2019)
