Ordinary

by Ramuel Mendoza Raagas

Everywhere, poverty.

Everywhere, racketeering,

as keeps alive the underground economy.

How do we measure poverty?

Wrigglers?

Each wriggler is just about a centimeter--

none of them not quite worth a verse,

much less so a hexameter,

although it would hatch into an asterisk

seeking a footnote of blood.

What is poverty?

Miscoordination,

especially of such extent

that pervades the nation.

Oh Tondo is not so poor that there are more wrigglers

than rice grains, but the creek waters are far more black

than there is the white of rice. The residents cannot even toy with the red

of mountain rice. The black waters will not nurture rice

of any color.

Shall we bottle the body of water that serves

as the foundation of the stilted homes

on the Badjao Minor spot East of the Avenue

past the Arranque mini-zoo,

so as to have it as clear but human body-tasting

as the single-serve mineral bottles of water

that bus-lane hawkers along the Metropolis' spine vend?

Oh, Manila, the dirtiest city in the world,

dirty not just because of Dirty Harry,

and detergent Ping only works wonders

for Lacson Plaza...

Manila dirtier than Mexico,

although no longer so grimy is the Caltex

of Texaco,

still may you be designated as a Corporacion Toxico.

Why must the serious celebrity

who'd point out your title as "that ghastly city"

have to be a foreigner?

Did it take an Ivy League student, her,

to point out the obvious?

Must we be

of our conditions so oblivious?

Must you give up eyes and limbs for syndicates?

Why in Libertad must the homeless sleep

astride three worn chairs each

in the double-feat-

ure theater?

Why must the middle class give up brains for

contorted kiddy expressions, cliques

and escapist cinema?

UP Manila academics did set about to portray your

sorry state.

They did so by means of pathetically scrawny pamphlets

and monographs.

They charted out

a couple of tables

of statistics;

statistics can tell a lot

but only if they come with conclusions,

and organic recommendations.

Man, your poverty, like the latest two

of its scores of decades,

is at least a sculpture, if it carry

not the form that is epic's

(as it would be hard put to be now,

lacking in recent grand narratives---

for what was Edsa Three but the cheap gimmicks

of a fallen angel of a public servant:

Edgardo Javier Angara?).

Oh, in Pier Four, there are security personnel

conspicuous enough, but oh

the little man who contrivedly wrapped his own entire head

with a black cotton shirt turned steel gray,

with sun glasses above his eyes,

oh I will not talk to him.

What is the opposite of poverty?

Candor.

Quoth Stevenson Ke, nemesis of the weed-happy UP Mountaineers,

he, the infiltrator, sex perpetrator,

complete opposite of the idiotic Doplhy-Kenkoy dork Romeo Lee,

"Everywhere, anywhere, you will catch sight of a beautiful one."

There was the Guest Relations Officer from Tondo,

who captured the heart of a younger Filipino Chinese bachelor.

So, a hunk from a Quezon City subdivision has proved

that there is a spot to hit at night within Tondo.

A single bill of Benigno

is worth a night's fill of a hostess' table-side

companionship.

Oh, Tondo, bustling with boys,

brown skin and hair dyed brown,

of course here and there is a Fookienese youth

far more white than yellow.

He's as welcome by the powdered pool table.

Tondo, I cannot say that I know your essence.

I know you're not the heaven that your local councilor

has echoed from the title of a novelist.

Recto-- oh Avenue-- you are not F. Sionil Jose's "Rectum"

You are a creature of the sun by day, by far no tomb

as would be the neck of the bridge bordering Quiapo,

but can you give me my pleasure by night?

In Recto all between the two branches of National Bookstore,

we do not see F. Sionil's books in plain view.


Candor, you come indeed as snow,

after which you were quite clearly named---

at least like ice cream, when the local patches of skies so

disapprove.

Everywhere there is God.

I surely believe the arch statement greeting people to Tondo--- Zone 2 was it?

It promptly did not say, "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'intrate."

It was far more a pleasant sight than the black-backgrounded "UP Atheists Circle"

that serves as a "Kick Me" label in my Faculty Center Kiosk West panel hang-out

Anyway, Mia Tijam and Aynruth Tolentino are just stupid idiots---

the one holding ever crown as the queen of middle class mediocrity,

the other being a bratty-most drug addict.

You are not everywhere,

for you are not God,

but wherever you are ensheathed,

oh how I would draw you out

far more than any Earth-bound landscape,

be it the railway horizon spanning Tondo borders to Divisoria's

main thoroughfare, or else the Manila sunset

which has now and then underlined

history.

Are you a charm against the violence of

urban myths?

Oh, though it be of greatest reserve

certainly outclassing any whiskey,

your charm is not at all one of

idleness, as had been the character of

that of a now fading two-term senator,

and yet your are so tucked away.

Oh, how I would draw you out Carlos-fashioned like the end-cloth of

a long-

sleeved pol’.

You would shine as the bol’

of Andres Bonifacio,

which outfamed his practical pistol.

The more if you flashed your ever-fresh smile

which may compared to those cleaned straight out of

the upper floor

Thursday dentist clinic along

Recto

facing Tondo.