Look Ma, I'm a Writer!

Sat strapped to a chair,
while a man in a mask
brandished instruments of pain.
And pain was indeed inflicted
on the bravest man alive,
with fists clenching in anticipation
at the sound of spinning rotors,
muscles tightening at the
smell of grinding metal,
buttocks rising off the seat
with every touch of
steel blades on bone and tissue.
Yet the bravest man alive
stayed silent throughout the ordeal,
and with one final sound
of breaking bone,
it was all over.
The bravest man alive
smacked his lips
to the taste of blood,
and his tongue could feel
the soft, torn flesh in his mouth
where his front tooth used to be.


*Conceived Saturday, 22 June 2013

It was "Take Your Kid to Work" Day,
and the morning sun reflected
on the little boy's
kiddie-sized aviators
as he rode shotgun
in his father's jeepney.
He was very excited,
and he dressed for it -
a blue ball cap
to match his new blue shirt,
with paper bills sharply
folded around his fingers
like wolverine claws.
He was already in third grade,
yet he had never seen
his father at work,
ferrying passengers around the metro
like the nice man that he is.
All he did was
take the passengers's fare
while his father gave the change,
because the boy didn't know
the different fares
for the different stops.
But he was quite good at math,
this little boy,
and as the sun rose higher in the sky,
he noticed his father
starting to shortchange his passengers.
First 25 cents,
then 50,
then one peso,
then two.
When he looked up
into his father's eyes,
and saw his father
refusing to look back,
the little boy
did not know
what to make of it.


*conceived Sat, 13 Apr 2013

It happened
on his ninth Christmas.

The boy had written
to Santa Claus
and had asked for
a basketball.
But there were no
spherical shapes
under the tree that night.

He examined his present ─
a flat, rectangular box
wrapped in Christmas colors.
He knew it was his, because
it came with a card
from Santa Claus,
addressed to him.

He read the card,
and began to
notice the note's
handwriting; clear
printed letters
slanted at a certain angle,
and the way the letter G
looked like the number 6,
and the way the Z was written
European-style,
with a small bar across it.

Inside the boy's head,
several little worker elves
began turning the cogs,
gears, and wheels
in his brain.
And then the elves
suddenly vanished
in a puff of smoke,
leaving the boy with
a sinking feeling in his stomach,
when he realized that
Santa Claus's handwriting
looked exactly like his mother's.

The terminal doors swung open,
and out came the flight attendants,
gorgeous creatures
with legs like flamingos,
so long you could wrap them
around your neck.
Then out stepped the pilot,
escorted by two flamingos on either side,
and everyone in the terminal smiled and nodded at him
while he smiled back,
his old, experienced face
giving off an assuring smile.
Behind him came
the co-pilot,
a much younger man
without the grizzled and weathered
look about him.
But in reality
he was the pilot,
and the older man
was his subordinate.
You could tell by the number
of stripes on his sleeve,
and by the way he stood tall,
almost on tiptoe,
intent on showing the world
that he was a bigger man
than the one who came before him.



*inspired by a scene at the Manila Domestic Airport, 3 Feb 2012
and the radio show Cabin Pressure

There is
a reason

blowing out your first birthday candle;

why I drag myself
out of bed before sunrise
so I can drive you
to your first day of school;

why I pay double for tickets
despite being blind in one eye
so I can watch you enjoy
your first animated 3D movie.

I do these things
so that twenty years from now,
when you look back
in fond nostalgia
at the memories of your childhood,

I will be in them.


*Conceived 8 Jun 2011

The intense heat of the lights
add to the already-hot and humid air.
Then suddenly, two familiar faces
duck into my doorway,
step into my humble abode,
and make a slight quip
about how long my ceiling is.
I try to remember where I've seen them before,
and when they suddenly pull out
a wad of thousand-peso bills,
it dawns on me.

These guys are hosts
from that noontime television show,
and with their cameras pointing at me,
I suddenly realize that I am on the air.
The words they speak
do not register in my simple mind,
which has now frozen at the sight of money.
They hand me a total of
fifteen thousand pesos
while two more people barge in,
one with a year's supply of shampoo
(from their sponsors)
and another with a roasted pig
that could feed five families
(also from their sponsors).

Then with a friendly tap on my shoulder,
they leave my house,
ducking the same way they came in,
and I couldn't hear the host
laughing "Ho, ho, ho!" as he went,
because I myself
was laughing inside.

This is the override code for the Tear Duct Control System.

The code uses additional security protection, and must be entered exactly. The code is case-sensitive, line break-senstitive, and font-sensitive.

The font used is "Personal Penmanship Small Caps".

---

Let me buy you
a drink.
A (non-alcoholic) beverage
that costs three times more
than my beer.
The price I paid for this
entitles me to un-
limited access
to your skin, your hair,
your cheap perfume
that stings my nostrils,
and to one guaranteed listener
who will listen to my problems,
and nod her head in the correct places,
and who will consider me
the most handsome man in the world--
that is, until the
drink disappears.


*post-birthday poem, 16 Dec 2009
Legacy, West Point, Cubao

I took
(care of)
a child
(not my own),
while back home,
my sister took
(care of)
mine.

I did this
for ten years.

Now, my
child calls my
sister: mother,
and calls
me: auntie.


*Inspired by the documentary Kunyang, directed by Vivian N. Limpin and Kat Loreños

The first time I sunk
my teeth on some
prime, first-
class steak,

I imagined that this was how
Homo erectus must have
felt upon tasting
the meat of the mighty
bison, after he had
finally mastered fire.