Manalo, Paolo. "Jolography."

 

O, how dead you child are, whose spoiled 

Sportedness is being fashion showed 

Beautifuling as we speak -- in Cubao 

There is that same look: Your Crossing Ibabaw, 

Your Nepa Cute, Wednesdays 

Baclaran, "Please pass. Kindly ride on." 

Tonight will be us tomorrowed- 

Lovers of the Happy Meal and its H, 

Who dream of the importedness of sex as long as it's 

Pirated and under a hundred, who can smell 

A Pasig Raver in a dance club. O, the toilet 

Won't flush, but we are moved, doing the gerby 

In a plastic bag; we want to feel the grooves 

Of the records, we want to hear some scratch- 

In a breakaway movement, we're the shake 

To the motive of pockets, to the max. 

The change is all in the first jeep 

Of the morning's route. Rerouting 

This city and its heart attacks; one minute faster 

Than four o'clock, and the next 

Wave that stands out in the outdoor crowd 

hanging with a bunch of yo-yos- 

A face with an inverted cap on, wearing all 

Smiles the smell of foot stuck between the teeth.

- Paolo Manalo 

Paolo Manalo 

Paolo Manalo is a Filipino poet who teaches at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines. For a time he served as the literary editor of the Philippines Free Press. Jolography, his first book of poems, received the 1st prize in poetry from the 2002 Palanca Awards and the 2004 U.P. Gawad Chancellor Para sa Natatanging Likha ng Sining (Outstanding Literary Work).