“One cannot write unless one has known satiety, debauchery, and the intimacy of desire, and can remember them “in moments of tranquility.”
— Luis G. Dato, Philippines Herald Mid-week Magazine in April 6, 1932
By Luis G. Dato The kanda, comely tropic flower In clusters yellow, red and white, It gives with all unfathomed power. An inexpressible delight. Its glossy leaves, cool, spatulate, Its trunk and branches neat Give shade beside the sun-drenched gate…
By Luis G. Dato The wind blows bitter in the cold It bludgeons, triturates The palms, banana trees, and all And wildly each whipped bough gyrates. O mercilessly the storm blows By reeling stalk and swaying palm, A whitened pallor…
By Luis G. Dato The rain envelopes every ground, In gloom and mystery profound, It stabs with endless, silver spears, And Earth hides with her hands her tears. When rain is coming I’ve known long, For rain is old, and…
By Luis G. Dato Mt. Isarog’s a cold, white sheet, It stands unseen with icy feet, Mt. Isarog’s a somber gray, Harbinger of the rainy day. The dark hills hide, pale clouds hang low, The crickets sing, the sad cocks…
By Luis G. Dato In Arcady, day after day, the earth, After her chilly slumber, as of death, Blooms with the sun to resurrected birth, And the green land wakes with the morning’s breath. There Nature trembles with her growth,…
By Luis G. Dato My lady fair is dressed in white , She turns to day the darkest night. My lady fair is dressed in black, Of Sorrow’s grace she does not lack. My lady fair is dressed in blue,…
By Luis G. Dato I have flown over flowers of perfume, Fondled and touched them before, I have kissed them so often and hotly, That their lips seemed unmeaning to mine. I am haunted by a meaning of petals, Hovering…
By Luis G. Dato Stars of the sky come out on the earth, Out of the void of the sky, Out of the clouds, Come, Come for the moon is pale, Pallid and spectral, As the night, Dead as the…
By Luis G. Dato Little, lone swallow frequenting the skies in the bleakness of oncoming rain, Gloating on the view by the river reflected when days of sun reappear, You who can sing in the fullness of sorrow, and in…
By Luis G. Dato A cruelty and tumult fill the cities, They roar with gasping breath, And thunder beats upon the pavement, Thunder that came from death. The stranger’s heart at even-tide is lonely, But weary must he roam, As…
By Luis G. Dato We have been reading T.S. Eliot, And, much we fear, a blooming idiot Breathes on our neck or reads o’ er his, His point, if he has one, we miss; If he has one, we cannot…
By Luis G. Dato Charito here shows quite too much of thighs (Though there are those who think she shows still little), The dispute, pro and con’s not worth the spittle, Her pose as is draws much too many ayes…
