THANK YOU, Philippines Graphic, for having my poems...

...grace the whole page 42 of your current July 20, '15 issue! It is truly an honor. (Philippines Free Press in 1998, then now Philippines Graphic. I guess getting published in the country's two esteemed news-and-literary paper magazines, in two consecutive centuries, ain't bad. ;) )

Now, on other "related" news. Ayon kay Senador Ralph Recto ('SONA IS POETRY, BUDGET IS PROSE'):

Poetry: State of the Nation; prose: Technical Report to the SONA and the proposed national budget.

What he isn't saying, the common Filipino's experiences and struggles:

Epic poetry: The true state of the nation.

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Anyway, print on photo of page, bottom of this post, is a little too small already. So here they are:

Shadow on Bathroom Floor

I watch my shadow stare back at me without eyes,

omniscient as I perceive it to be, knowing all about me...

when it's just a splotch the lit light bulb on the ceiling,

above the toilet bowl, casts before me,

upon the tiled floor cum Rorschach test.

Okay, all-knowing it isn't. Neither is it dumb.

Or anywhere in-between. It's just there;

dark and futile mimicry of reflection.

Wing envy

Grounded humans we, wax only figuratively,

When we refer to ourselves as having those

Pairs of “membranous appendages,” of feather,

Flesh, and bone, that our avian cohabitants

Flap vigorously to fly, or hold still and extended

To glide in the blue, gray, or blue-gray sky.

But there is no direct relation between earned respect

And altitude, it seems, for those naturally endowed

To leave earth for a while.

And so the treatment, “accordingly”: If we can’t fly,

At least we do vicariously, through piercing steel

Projectiles, launched from lethal devices, also of steel.

As experts, we have learned to reach and decimate

What we can only see and aim at, but can not touch

nor soar with, solely with our bodies.

Such immense satisfaction:

To see eagle or dove plummet like a shuttlecock,

Except with feather, flesh, and bone – and blood.

(And, what's with the computer "program" that erroneously conjoins two separate words? removing the space in-between? I didn't know "norsoar" and "solelywith" would appear, prior to submission. Sorry...So please consider the above the final texts... :p Though now, with this blog post, I got a problem with the spacing between lines/stanzas/paragraphs... :( )

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

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