Jul 7, 2008
I don’t think I’ll make a real transvestite,
wear my heart in fire-engine heels,
and still walk straight, head high.
No, every morning, before I put on
my acceptable black pumps,
I cup the soles of my feet and
feel the weight of regret at
what I could never be: proud
and comfortable with my identity,
unafraid of being packed away in
the labels that would make
anyone craven, shirking
inside their own closets.
[this was a free write in gotpoetry.com’s tag-team-poem project the first line from lordfuznut]
Oct 11, 2007
ashes
She flicks her last cigarette
on the ground and steps on it
then grabs a broom to sweep
the street of the ashes
that remind her of him.
She doesn’t stop
until the asphalt is clean–
no filters left in the ditch,
until there is only the quiet
that comes after the sound
of the last embers fizzle out
like her memories of him:
how he loved to smoke
after they made love, how in turn,
she loved to watch him hold fire
at his fingertips without getting burned,
how the smoke he inhaled through his nose
always looked like they were tendrils
of her hair he loved to smell.
She sweeps these thoughts
into her dustpan and allows herself
to only recall the sound of her voice
when she promised to quit smoking
at his death bed.
Dear readers,
Please sign this petition I authored. It's my first to write for a cause. I really need your help in getting this message out. I will be eternally grateful.
-rax
===============
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ghwphil/
* Over 30 M Filipinos will suffer debilitating diseases and painful deaths due to smoking. Another 30 M Filipinos will suffer the same due to second hand smoke.
* 40 of the chemicals in cigarette smoke are carcinogens, like carbon monoxide, butane (used as lighter fluid), cyanide and formaldehyde, arsenic (rat poison), and ammonia (toilet cleaner). Ads do not disclose this.
Right now the textual health warnings for tobacco products cannot be understood or appreciated by the Filipino people. Other countries have recognized this and have since used picture based warnings in order to warn their citizens of the hazards of smoking. Statistics will show that such method is effective as it has significantly improved the overall health of their citizens.
The Filipino people have a right to life and health just as much as other citizens. They have the right to a better if not the best method to warn them of the danger inherent in smoking. The text warning right now is STILL NOT ENOUGH. Many are still smoking and dying while the young ones are curiously taking up the habit not knowing its effects, creating a vicious cycle of death that could be prevented through the use of picture based health warning that is universally understood by the people, especially the many who cannot read and understand.
Sign now. Because a picture can save millions of lives.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/ghwphil/
==========================
Labels: cigarettes, politics
Aug 22, 2007
They serve Democracy
on a chess table
with Morton's Fork.
Pawns are skewered
this way, unevenly roasted
for the sake of majority rule:
"Political equality
are for those who belong
to the same rank and file."
Come Passover, rooks
are poised to take flight
by dessert, to storm
the endgame fortress
of fundamental freedoms
threatened to fall
to a Fool's mate
Labels: chess, law, philosophy, poetry, politics
Jun 20, 2007
She eats moon shards on Sundays.
Quickly, when no one is looking,
she plucks the moon from the sky,
then snaps it into little pieces of jagged light.
She promises to save fragments in her pill box,
but then presses them on her tongue;
resolve dissolving like wafers.
After all, she could always choose,
from a host of Sunday moons,
to chew more holes in her eyesight.
Labels: dark, moon, philosophy, poetry, politics
Jun 7, 2007
She hovers above the casket
draped in the nation's flag:
the brute's widow keeping vigil
dutifully unfurls at sunrise.
Eyes closed, she lifts her arms,
imagining herself soar through
the still air— a banner of freedom
she knows will never last
because at sunset they will
bring
her
down
with
ropes
that
bind
her
ankles
to the
flagpost.
Labels: female, philosophy, poetry, politics
May 24, 2007
For Nellie Banaag and Leticia Ramos, who died in a fire set off by five gunmen who wore bonnets and poured gasoline on ballot boxes then set them ablaze. They were found hugging each other in a toilet where they sought refuge. Nellie was a high school teacher and experienced election canvasser while Leticia was a local poll watcher of the political party Kampi.Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."And those people should not be listened to who keep saying, 'The voice of the people [is] the voice of God,' since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness." [by Alcuin, Charlemagne's adviser) c735-804: Works (1863) letter 164]
From beneath the charred remains
of the school, we found her
clutching the soot-covered genitals
of her killers- faces neatly wrapped
in fabric with holes for eyes, folded
and slipped into the pockets
of leaders who gagged the exordium,
that took centuries to ferment,
labeled, Salus populi suprema lex,
we found the absinthe bottle
lodged in her spine, a cork
to seal in posthumous air.
When we pulled the stopper
from its neck, it spilled the cries
of her last moments, flames
gushing forth onto our feet-
rising, louche clouds of gas, boiling
the eyelids off our parens patriae,
revealing its bone chalices
filled with the liquid lacrimations
of a million sacrifices locked away
in ballot box caskets of a nation
burned and buried alive.
They screamed for an exorcism–
not of the dead but of the living,
to purge their obdurate flesh
of the pungent tang of blood
staining the rubble,
rising from the ashes,
the grave no bar to their call.
Labels: dark, death, philosophy, poetry, politics
Feb 11, 2007
Senatorial candidate and House minority leader Francis “Chiz” Escudero has migrated to the World Wide Web for his campaign. According to GMA7, he is the first Filipino senatorial candidate to use live Internet technology to explain his platform of government.
He has already launched his official website and FRIENDSTER account [hats off to him... Friendster is probably the most widely visited site by Filipinos with over 5 Million users. His first account is already full, by the way, so he made another one...with already a friend count of 740.]Escudero said:
“The Internet is the best way to reach people outside the country and share ideas with them in real time. Through this technology, I hope to hear what is on their minds. I am ready to answer questions they raise and explain my stand on issues relevant to my candidacy.”
Already more politicians are hopping on the internet bandwagon, after all it does level the playing field since the internet and its innovations, like blogs and podcasting, can be availed of without spending as much resources as one would normally spend on traditional campaigning.
According to the rules of the Commission on Elections and the Fair Elections Act, national candidates are limited to 120 minutes of television broadcasting time, and 180 minutes for radio. Asked whether these rules allow the poll body to regulate political advertisements appearing on the Internet, Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos replied: " How can we control that? We have no jurisdiction [on the Internet]."
As usual, the law is slow on its feet, it has yet to catch up with this technological evolutions. But how does one regulate political advertising on the internet without bashing heads with Constitutional issues, like freedom of speech. I feel this is just the beginning. But as early as now, one can hear the warhorn sound in the distance...
Labels: cyberlaw, law, philosophy, politics
