To The Supermodel (An Original Poem)

I go beyond your outrageous clothes.
Allow me to check instead
your bony knees,
funny moving patellas,
Thighs as slim as your chances
of acquiring
believability.

I go beyond your flagrant adornments.
Allow me to locate instead
your slender throat,
clavicles apparent,
smoothened integuments,
your broken-looking ligaments.
You look remote.

Yes, that hair of yours.
Blown by the winds of caprice.
That painted face,
veiled with stony expressions,
Those measured strides,
steppings on line invisible.

You are another animal.

Dirty, dirty campaign!

The present political campaign has turned terribly vicious. And the viciousness is disgustingly apparent in the actuations of candidates and their supporters. Casting stones and finger-pointing reveal how desperate people have become just to win the elections. The campaign has turned into a shameless display of power-lust.

Issues and platforms have virtually become non-exixtent. What's making headlines is the passionate exchange between the accusers and the accused, the chargers and the charged. And most of them have unclean hands.

If candidates and their supporters prefer dirty tactics to humane approaches, they're actually planting bad seeds. If they win, those seeds will eventually turn into bad fruits. If we start dirty we always end up dirty still. And the nation suffers in the filth.

If I Were a Political Candidate

If I were a candidate who would run for a position in government, I would also wisely consider the possibility of my defeat. Success is not predictably assured to those with money, image, clout and even experience. The present mental health of our nation is not at all excellent. Government seats may have random occupants after a not so trusted electoral process.

If I would lose in the elections, I would continue to serve the people. Not getting the seat I most wanted to have should not deter me from being a public servant. Defeated politicians have no real excuse to turn their back on society if they sincerely had no selfish interests in running for office. In their own unique capacities they can still serve the poor, the disenfranchised and the less fortunate among us.

Losing the election is not a reason to end one's altruism.

NO TO KIDS BOXING

Punch me and call me Wimp. I just don't approve of Kids Boxing. Though the sport has the required protective gear for the young boxers, I remain unconvinced that it is a healthy sport to encourage. Boxing is punching, jabbing and hitting. It's a contact sport that teaches kids to attack, yes, with kid gloves. But what goes on in the mind and spirit of the child as he is trained to do well in the sport?

Picture your grade schooler hitting and being hit by another young pugilist. There will be blood. I don't believe there is pure pleasure to be derived from watching your precious child getting hurt. It's all about aggression. And defense is never primary in boxing.

Leave the sport to the big boys. The kids should be spared from the possibility of getting a brain damage or dying early.

PAPER (An Original Poem)

PAPER

You were a tree,
a tree.

A tree was felled
for me,
for me.

A tree died
for you, paper,
for me, poet,
for this poetry.

I Cannot Hate Marcos and His Family.

I was only a grade schooler in the '70s when Ferdinand Marcos was still the country's president. His political sway was much felt by my parents from the 60s to the 80s. But I did not know about it nor feel it then. It was only when I was in UP High School that I knew something about the "dictator" and what they called was his "tyrrany".

Ferdinand Marcos to me is history. Not having experienced or even suffered from his "dictatorship" as a child is enough reason for me to be incapable of truly hating him. If I cannot hate him, I cannot hate his living wife and their children. Their "corruptions" and "evils" were and are still beyond me. Undoubtedly they are told about in many books.

I am not a hypocrite to raise a fist and say down with the Marcoses. I have not lived to greatly suffer from the Marcos despotism. In fact I like Imee and Bongbong. Though children of a "dictator", they cannot be automatically regarded as "undesirable fruits". I cannot hate the Marcoses. I can only hate the present "evildoers".

"Third World Pa Rin."

Almost everything we want to know about everything can be accessed now via the Intenet. Students certainly have no excuse nowadays to claim they cannot know enough about their courses and subjects. But still I have yet to meet anyone with astonishing brilliance.

Entertainers we have awfully a lot here. And the obvious dearth of excellent scientists, experts, field specialists, creative writers and thinkers is the result of something corrupt in our educational system or perhaps, our present culture as a whole.

We heavily prefer singing, dancing, entertaining and playing money games to studying, learning, writing, appreciating and mastering the arts, humanities, history, literature, science and other disciplines. We somehow look quick towards where the moolah is. This is shamelessly shallow. (A tongue twister there.) And look where we have remained. In the dumps. Overtaken by other Asian nations. Third world pa rin.

DEATH (Original Poem)

*Death*

your weapon is hidden
from us
and
it is for us

not a sting,
not a bullet,
not a scythe,
but
it is something
just for us

your mouth is shut
you never will tell

you just give it to us
and we take it
eventually

until we give up
the ghost

you do your job
pretty well

a round of applause