NBA and Wonder Woman

So this 2015 NBA Finals is turning out to be one of the most tightly-contested championships ever! (It's tied at one win apiece. And it's the first time in league history that both first two finals games ran into overtime!)

Having said that, the truth is, when I was in second grade, I hated the NBA, which game replays were shown on Philippine TV at night. My father enjoyed watching it, and would switch the channel to its telecast when I was watching something, or someone, more wonderful: Wonder Woman.

The NBA and Wonder Woman were shown almost exactly the same time. So while I ogled at Lynda Blair's whistle-bait figure (and those eyes!), my killjoy father would change the channel to watch men...

Now, thanks to YouTube, I can watch her again and again anytime I want. And thanks, too, to cable TV; now I get to watch the NBA, especially this year's finals, live! (Things, indeed, come around.)

(So I was in second grade, and our school bus served elementary and high school students of the three Katipunan ave. QC schools: UPIS, Maryknoll (now Miriam), and Ateneo. The elder girls in the bus used to play with me, and passed me around, one lap to the other. And even then, at seven to eight years old, I was already having a good time.)

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

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3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

Reality TV Realities: "Judges"

With text voting, we should stop calling judges, judges. Call them, ah, facilitators, opinion makers, commentators, front seat ticket holders, etc. -- but not judges! 

Ahahay talaga ang buhay ng ating mga telecommunications companies at television stations! #raket

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

Action Painting

Artists meet at center:
Knuckles, elbows, knees;
Forehead, eyebrows, cheeks;
Draw, drip, sprinkle
Red on canvas.

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

My Sad, Early Encounter with Poetry (or Why I Didn't Get That Bike)

I was in third grade in UPIS, school year 1983-'84. For homework, Ms. Jhonita Rivero, our English teacher, had us rewrite, verbatim, a poem* from our textbook on a sheet of paper, and draw around the handwritten text our visual interpretation of it. The following morning, before going to school, my mother saw me put the finishing touches on my project. And we had the following conversation (in Tagalog):

Mother: Did you do this?! (What she really meant was, "Did you write this poem?!")

Me: Yes, Ma! (I meant, "I did all this stuff: the verbatim rewriting of the poem and all the drawings.")

Mother: I'm so proud of you! I'm gonna buy you a bike, etc...!

And so my proud mother went to work, and I went to school with the nagging feeling that we meant things differently and I wasn't gonna get that bike.

Evening came, and she asked me again (and as I recall, she was more specific), "Did you really write that?" And I replied (and was likewise more specific), "I did the drawings, Ma." And my mother went, "Oh..."

But that was three decades ago, and everything's fine now between me and my mom (and my writing, which I still sometimes ask her to edit -- in lieu of the bike). tongue emoticon

*Forgot exactly what poem it was, except that it had three stanzas: the first began with "Past...," the second "Present...," and the last, "Future..." And it was part of our Man and Technology module. Anyway...

Note: This article, now with small revisions, I posted originally in a thread of the wonderful (and recently-finished) 2015 How Writers Write Poetry MOOC offered by The University of Iowa. 

(The Quezon City Memorial Circle, where my childhood friends used to bike...without me. Photo by Niko Cruz, from Yssabela Cordero's Magagandang Pasyalan blog.)

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

First Aid for Dodo Bite Wound

In case you run into a Raphus cucullatus, or dodo, for short,
or, a Raphus cucullatus, or dodo, runs into you,
and it bites you with its believed-to-be sharp beak on your forearm
(for our evidentiary convenience), and wounds you, here's what you should do:

1. Seek professional medical treatment immediately; otherwise
2. Cleanse your wound thoroughly with soap and water;
3. Use a disinfectant, rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide;
4. Apply antibiotic like neomyacin or bacitracin, and
5. Cover the wound and keep it clean.

Pray that it heals fast but leaves a scar, and (if you haven't yet) 

take a selfie showing bitten forearm, and post photo(s) 

on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...Better yet, hunt down that dodo 

and display it -- dead or alive! Let the whole world know 

about your bloody encounter with what has long been thought

of as extinct since 1662: "Wtf, I got bitten by a dodo! #dodo 

#raphuscucullatus #lazarusspecies #secondcoming"

("Oxford Dodo display" by BazzaDaRambler - Oxford University Museum of Natural History ... dodo - dead apparently.Uploaded by FunkMonk.)

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

Midnight Moon

Nearing midnight, the moon, from up here in San Mateo mountain, 
lords over the stoic streetlamp right across the crossroad 
(from where I stand waiting for the passenger jeep 
that will take me down, back to the city). Finally,
down at another crossroad, of the lonely city highway 
that has decided to rid itself of traffic,
the moon glowers and appears heavier,
nearer, than it was an hour ago -- 
then it explodes.

(My painting, 1991.)

Note: I'm giving credit to poet and painter Jay Zimmerman, whose poem's first line of "The moon explodes" prompted me to write my own.  

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City

The Truths of the Blind Elephant

Man has many hands, and when you divide the total number of his hands into two,
you'll get the number of his voices -- all speaking at the same time,
all disputing one another. And man touches you with his many
hands while arguing with himself in different voices,
all the while without so much as my permission.

(My confession: When it got too scary I laid
on my side he's been touching and crushed
him, dividing him into pieces, as many
as his discordant voices.)

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Check out My Personal Anthology (12 Poems). 

This blog is sponsored by Limitado

phone nos. 09167840522/ 023588753

and S.P.R.A.W.L.-MMA

3rd floor JN Building, 657 EDSA corner Monte De Piedad Street, Barangay Immaculate Concepcion, Cubao, Quezon City