Welcome to Manila.
Feel free to fill your lungs with the nocturnal breeze
Signed by the nation's capital as it flows its life on the roads that lie under the moon's lunar glow.
The scents of Sampaguitas, rugby, human excrement, and the smell of burning gasoline
Constituting the sources of a rising problem that pollutes the air of a land
A land where people ignore the screams of health issues
For the latest news about events in the envied personal lives
Of hypocritical second-rate and overpaid actors who have become the annoying faces
Of household television screens in the Philippines.
To the left you'll see a wooden cart filled with discarded recyclables that serve as a livelihood by day,
And a bed by night as it stands on the road lined with the gutters
The gutters that serve as stomachs of the city, the only stomachs of the city that aren't suffering
From starvation and Ulcers as they are filled to the brim with the population's toxic waste,
Reeking into the air with a stench that only compliments
The smells of poverty and corruption, as the taxes that are meant to pay for progress
Are redirected to the politician's own pockets to be spent on his prostitutes and casino gambling.
Hear the music of manila; the harmonious sounds of infants that weep
As they are trapped in a living nightmare as they toss and turn and try to sleep along the roads
Buzzing with the sounds of beeping horns through the late rush hour traffic
Mixed with the sounds of the occasional clink of the falling silver peso coin into beggars' cups,
And other homeless people under the delusional impression
That pedestrians actually care for their well being and listen to their creaking voices
As they beg for spare change, while deep down they beg and pray
For a total change in the states of their starving lives.
The dark reveals the most candid face of the nation
like an ironic twist in nature as in the shadows, more is seen than under the burning light of the
pretentious day.
The street lights are like the eyes that witness ice picks piercing innocent flesh
and purses being taken from passers-by
While in the shadows of alleys nobody sees the slow and painfully traumatic scenes
of young teen-aged girls being *****
And motorcycle gangs that rain semi-automatic ammunition into skulls of lawyers just stopping by at Shell for gasoline.
Seldom heard in the air are the faint whispers in heads that hold the scattered thoughts and memories
of depressed drug addicts walking along Chinatown near the railroad tracks
Inhabited by people who blame their neighbors, their families, and the government,
And never blame themselves for their lives that have brutally fallen beneath the vicious line of everlasting poverty.
Experimenting with an execution of poetry far from my traditional style