Eduardo Duarte

Bacolod, Negros OCC, Philippines

Eduardo is a senior analyst of the Corporate Insurance and Stock Tranfer Department of Victorias Milling Company, Inc., a sugar firm in Central Philippines. A journalist, he is a stringer of the Philippines News Agency and contributor to national magazines. He is active in unionism and cooperativism. Eduardo's poems were published locally and by The National Library of Poetry. He is coming up with his first volume of selected poems entitled, Midnight Sun. Says Edurado, "I write for the oppressed and lowly."

Sand Castles

I grew up
In a little village
Nearby the sea
Where I built sand castles.
I knew every time
I left
The rising sea
Destroyed my fancy.
Now, I don't build
Sand castles anymore
I am building
A community.
Together
With a hardy race
I am doing
A masterpiece.

The Fisherman

My small boat and the mighty sea
Are brothers to me
Sharing and caring for each other
Each day.
I fashioned my boat
From a chosen wood in the tradition of the old
As they taught me
To understand the language of the sea
There have been times
The vast water turned unfriendly
Almost killing me
Giving me a lesson of overcoming difficulties.
Patiently, as I reach the shore
I always empty my dear boat
With the water it gathers from the sea
As I call it a day.

Corporate Jungle

I am lost
In a working place
I call now
My second home.
A place I had discovered
In my youth guided by destiny
Where I found life akin to paradise
I almost believe for real.
Only I discovered anew
I am in a labyrinth
Of a corporate jungle
Where aping is the game.
Clowning
Empty hallelujahs
A pageantry of illusion
Of a lost civilization.