Tag: Tara Yakob Montiflor

Urban Embrace

Poetry by | March 27, 2023

July noon, the city laid bare below an endless sheet of blue,
Davao’s downtown sprawl naked, its dusty urban flesh
crisscrossed with the implicit loom of wires,
Corrugated walls rust-colored like lipstick stains, or bruises.
Summer light, smoke scent, the siren call of engines—
These all add to the texture of cacophony,
The all-encompassing weight of a city onto the senses.
In this purgatory light of noon the world itself is unclothed,
Burnt by cloudless horizon, its sounds and stains uncovered
Without shame, without secrets,
Even when its embrace makes it difficult to breathe.

***

Tara Yakob Montiflor is a graduate of BA English (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines Mindanao, a Best Thesis Finalist for their poetry collection “The Streets will Not Embrace You.”

There is a forest beneath my city

Poetry by | October 17, 2022

“There is a forest beneath my city…” Artwork generated by Midjourney AI.

There is a forest beneath my city
A hundred narra and acacia and mahogany
Hiding beneath the streets,
The buildings, the endless concrete.
There are stories of flowers
Blooming through the pavement,
piercing upwards in incrementing movement,
A process taking weeks, days or even hours
After they were buried.
Such soft things can’t deter a planted seed.
A tree is not a flower, yet their branches
Like veins adorned with dancing green petals
Also reach upward, towards the sun.
There is still a forest here, beneath my city
Poking through the avenues and empty lots.
Particles of greenery, before a time
Of noise and smoke and streets
piercing through
The utterly finite concrete.

Tara Yakob Montiflor is a graduate of BA English (cum laude) from the University of the Philippines Mindanao. He was a Best Thesis Finalist for his poetry collection “The Streets will Not Embrace You.”