Sugbo, Victorio N. “State of the Nation.”

  

Noy Tatong cooks for a Panamanian crew

Of a Dutch cargo ship;

His letters tell of vast oceans and waves

Huge as town cathedrals:

The icy coldness he dreads each time

The ship tosses wildly in the Arctic dark;

Nang Loleng babysits for an Arab couple in Dharan;

She cries when she is left alone

Locked in her master’s house like some convict;

She writes young girls like her jump

Out of windows there;

Nanay collects their dollars always with a long deep sigh;

Noy Tatong, Nang Loleng, I keep your pictures

Between the folds of my notebook;

O how we must live apart

To stay together.

Victorio N. Sugbo 

Victorio N. Sugbo is a Filipino poet and literature professor. He was born on February 20, 1949 in Tacloban City, Leyte. He finished his A.B. English and Political Science degrees from the Divine Word University in 1968, his M.A. in TESL and Industrial Relations from UP in 1983 and His Ph.D. in Communication Research also at UP in 1992. Sugbo writes poems not only in English but also in the Waray language (his mother tongue). He has published two poetry collections in Waray and edited five books for the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). His poems has appeared in various publications (Philippine Free Press, Madras Courier, Eastlit, Taj Mahal Review, Poetry Monthly, The Missing Slate, Sands and Coral, Likhaan and Caracoa).