Famous Manila Poems by Famous Poets

• Best Manila Poems by Famous Poets
• Manila Poems by Members
• Best Manila Poems by Members
• Manila Quotes

Intramuros

 She lies in her well-kept apartment
above the spick and span cathedral
in the heart of the walled city
above Manila Bay and she dreams 
of the great, ruined cities of Europe:
Vienna crumbling into the ocean,
Warsaw in a plague of frogs and flies
and London, where all the black men
have learned to talk like white men,
where all the white men have begun
to talk...Read more of this...

gorilla in Manila

It will be a Killer, And a chiller, And a thrilla. 
When I get the gorilla in Manila...Read more of this...

Godwin James

 Harry Wilmans! You who fell in a swamp
Near Manila, following the flag,
You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream,
Or destroyed by ineffectual work,
Or driven to madness by Satanic snags;
You were not torn by aching nerves,
Nor did you carry great wounds to your old age.
You did not starve, for the government fed you.
You did not suffer yet cry...Read more of this...

The Lost Legion

 1895

There's a Legion that never was listed,
 That carries no colours or crest,
But, split in a thousand detachments,
 Is breaking the road for the rest.
Our fathers they left us their blessing --
 They taught us, and groomed us, and crammed;
But we've shaken the Clubs and the Messes
 To go and find out and be damned
 (Dear boys!),
 To go...Read more of this...

For K. J. Leaving and Coming Back

 August First: it was a year ago
we drove down from St.-Guilhem-le-Désert
to open the house in St. Guiraud

rented unseen. I'd stay; you'd go; that's where
our paths diverged. I'd settle down to work,
you'd start the next month of your Wanderjahr.

I turned the iron key in the rusted lock
(it came, like a detective-story clue,
in a manila envelope, postmarked

elsewhere, unmarked otherwise) while you
stood...Read more of this...

Harry Wilmans

 I was just turned twenty-one,
And Henry Phipps, the Sunday-school superintendent,
Made a speech in Bindle's Opera House.
"The honor of the flag must be upheld," he said,
"Whether it be assailed by a barbarous tribe of Tagalogs
Or the greatest power in Europe."
And we cheered and cheered the speech and the flag he waved
As he spoke.
And I went to the war in spite...Read more of this...

Yes

 According to Culture Shock:
A Guide to Customs and Etiquette 
of Filipinos, when my husband says yes,
he could also mean one of the following:
a.) I don't know.
b.) If you say so.
c.) If it will please you.
d.) I hope I have said yes unenthusiastically enough
for you to realize I mean no.
You can imagine the confusion 
surrounding our movie dates, the laundry,
who...Read more of this...

The Betrothed

 "You must choose between me and your cigar."
 -- BREACH OF PROMISE CASE, CIRCA 1885.


Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,
For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.

We quarrelled about Havanas -- we fought o'er a good cheroot,
And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.

Open the old cigar-box --...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Manila poems.