Romancing the lion

tell it to this famished fire

there is still a fountain beneath those parted lips

i have dug with mine before

the youth in you

that tongue- tamed and sometimes wild

endured our beating- the lashing

in the fountain

we played master and slave

deep into the crevasse

there is that water-in-the-well

i once drank it all down

like an arid desert, i preyed

we sketched our souls through these lips

and your mouth i crave

lest old age devour our youth

i paint the days

                       –little lioness; 14october06, 8:33 pm

Erap deserves more.

For the first after a long time, I like what I read about him in the paper today. I have long been complaining why the media can’t keep away from giving him the publicity he has always lavishly enjoyed but I think he deserves more these days if only to peeve him for being asked questions like- exactly like this: “was it not hypocritical of him to presume to lead the fight against corruption, accusing President Macapagal-Arroyo of such crimes when he himself was convicted of plunder?” 

I applaud, and I thank Agence France Presse (AFP) reporter Mynardo Macaraig for the straightforward question.

One can say that his argument is commonplace but why is it that, as Estrada lamented- as if we have forgotten his bastardisation of the presidential office and insult to the gullibility of the people- “nobody had ever asked him such a question in media interviews, not since he walked out of ‘rest house’ detention following his pardon.” My sentiments, exactly. And I think that it is more of a big slap to the media’s face.

It is blatant, he still lives like some god who is invulnerable even to an arrow shot right into his Achilles’ heel. He has a badly calloused shame. Or that he has deceived himself into thinking that everyone in this country, just like him, has lost his moral imperatives, anyway, so it’s okay to keep up with his fooling around.  

“I believe I am innocent. I explained it to him that people have already acquitted me and not the Sandiganbayan justices,” he said.   

I will never have baby Yana read the dictionary that he uses- the one that says acquittal is synonymous to pardon. I am also inclined to believe that somewhere a dictionary says innocence is synonymous to arrogance. 

In the event that “the opposition fails to come to an agreement (on a common candidate),” then he will run, again, for President in 2010.  

Before, being critical of what he says or do was more like wrestling with a ghost. With his most recent annoyance, however, I think that the media can do us a huge favor. It should either be we annoy him to death with the seriousness of our intention to question his credibility (or to validate his incredibility) or we boycott him.    

If the reason why television networks still the cover the affairs of Estrada is because of public clamor, then we rightfully deserve the mockery that we are faced with. But the news I watched on TV last Christmas Day showing Erap playing with his grandchildren and his son, for example, was a deliberate one casted by the media upon the public.  

It is a sad fact that part of the populace still worships Estrada but his messianic movie roles are not really the ones to blame. He deserves a boycott but what the papers and the television tell us is something else- as if nothing happened.   

I was frustrated with the footage as much as I was sometime in November when he was in Sunday Inquirer’s banner being the guest honor in the opening of a Greenhills mall just about a week or two after he was released from prison- if I remember it correctly.  

In the off-chance that the media sees our plight in the context of forgiving and forgetting, then, indeed, it has become instrumental in idiotising the masses.  

This is not to say that the mainstream media is useless. While I think that Web logs are excellent alternatives to searing commentaries and critical thought, I believe that the press remains indispensable and relevant to our times.  

We need to beat the crap out of Erap- exorcise the demon that causes his ego to bloat and scrape off that metaphorical calluse that makes him act like a god.    

It takes two to tango, people always say. Erap can’t dance alone. Let’s stop playing the music that makes him groove.    

You are a brat, and you get what you want. Not that it’s bad- I would want for you to get me if you want.

You didn’t need to petition the courts to have my name changed. And so you enjoy your privilege to call me Scardy Cat.

You taunted me once bitten, once hurt- how sweet.

I am convinced that you are an excellent teacher but don’t attempt at elementary Science. You were alternately calling me Scardy Cat and Chicken Shit as if the cat hatched from an egg like the chicken has.

If a cat copulates with and, eventually, impregnates a chicken, what would it bear- a kitten or a chick? Don’t ask me which came first between the chicken and the egg. I have to deprive you of every opportunity to articulate The Word. Try saying “Ginkgo Biloba” instead. It sounds nicer, doesn’t it? It is like you are some scholar.

Well, yes, you are an intellectual and a leftist- like Jacopo Belbo in Foucault’s Pendulum. But don’t get me wrong for saying that- I don’t adore you because you become less and less fascinated with people when they do. You seem to be always after somebody who can perpetually fight you.

I always want to pick a fight with you.

I was gritting my teeth before I left our rendezvous until when I trudged into the back of the PUJ because you were telling me that I would bring my chicken torment home. Then you basked in orchestrated triumph. Defeat blinded my eyes when I started writing this. But, no, you can’t win over me so let me continue to write merrily.

At the risk of being misunderstood by our spectators, you unhesitatingly called me The Word but I think that is only because we have a telegraphic Thesaurus. You know that from Shit, I can extract shinola.

Very sweet, indeed. You send hidden messages- like Morse Code.

You are loud, and I love that. You were screaming your lungs out in a hypocritically happy Sunday morning to tell the world that this woman’s a chicken shit.

All that is true but only because I don’t tell you upfront that I have warmed up with you. Is that all you want to know?

A rhetorical question, of course. I know you will tell me you don’t need to because you already know. But, yes, you make me adore you. I hate stating the obvious, too, so let me cut the crap.

There was a time when I was almost inclined to believe you are a member of some cult, spying on me- you would suddenly ask me what I was doing aside from thinking of you.

How sweet.

But you are a smoker so you must be smokey sweet. I have to have you chew a candy, somebody told me. I was once asked if I’m willing to lick an ash tray and I had to say yes since I like you- but, perhaps, only because you have told me you like me. It must be some kind of oral fixation.

My hopes committed suicide a day before your Multiple Personality Disorder attacked. The attempt failed but it died, anyway.

Then later on you made me realise you are another scardy cat.

You told me you are scared to bite, scared to hurt- cheap shot, but how sweet.

Sweet like candy to my soul.

Sweet you rock and sweet you roll.