Marka demonyo, or poems on love, faith, and duct tape / Lourd de Veyra ; illustrations by Paul Eric Roca.

Assuming a multiplicity of forms-sometimes an inarticulate apparition raging on television, at times a masked gunman on motorcycle, or a man in uniform leaving behind a trail of bodies in the labyrinths of slums. It inhabits our dreams, drudgeries, and dissonances, its tones and tritones timed to the ripping of duct tape-that perfect implement for wrapping around a corpse's head or a gash in the long silence. This second edition of de Veyra's 2020 collection strains to find lyrical shape and meaning in that dark period in our recent memory, one that is stained by gin, blood, amphetamine smoke, gunpowder, formaldehyde, and, yes, duct tape.

In Marka Demonyo, Lourd de Veyra's "poetry of the spoken word" as theater evokes a compelling, "out-raging" sense of our troubled times: coming to grips with dire poverty,
despotic governance, carnage, duplicity, and subservience to foreign imperialism, it stands fast its ground on human dignity and freedom, justice and morality. --Gémino H. Abad Poet, fictionist, literary critic, and historian

Lourd de Veyra's new book of poems insists on dabbing the wound with merthiolate. Here, the overrated formalness and distance of modern verse are interrogated, poked at with various, scintillating contraptions... This collection... holds a torch to the surreal even as it points an accusatory finger to the devil in the detail. Ultimately, Marka Demonyo insists on a toast. Perhaps because these are not only the poems we need, but the ones that we deserve. -Joel M. Toledo Poet, literature professor