POST-HABAGAT LIMERICKS

Fiery and dark, the god of wind and rain got extinguished
Dry and trampled, in the pavement of Ayala it lay vanquished

Sunday Markets applaud its extinction 

Whores came out for mass in Poblacion

Age is a fine wine but not Chava whose beauty time has ravished

The Phantom Biker purge daily wastes from the inbox

Slags, a trimestral conversation spiced with clever angst

A willowy seller, a lanky barber 

Chained, wheeled like clingy lovers

Visions of the age of AI conjured from a routine podcast  

Three champions emerged from the jungle of the fourth round

Victors of a fortnightly learning that weigh less than a pound

Bangkok booked for departures

Emails for the oculist in Melbourne

The Ironman counted hours and planted stubs all around

Charred marinated chicken devoured by a red horse in a hotdog

A final payment and the second disputed account is flogged
An extension card misspelled 

One application reactivated

Old pussy flicking the bean like a downstairs DJ on the phone 

REDEMPTION POEM (with apologies to Bob Marley)

Internship, yes, was marked “F”

Rectified by the leadership

Two "3s" were fished out

From the “Incomplete” pit

Like the haunting of the Balete

Quezon is Baler's almighty

PRISMA delivered in our generation

Though partially

Won't you let us swim

This ocean of beer?

'Cause all I ever hoped

ADMU reclaimed  

CLSU reformed

 

OPAs emancipated(?) from delays

Social Protection will free our minds

ASEAN shall have clean energy

'Cause OPR can't stop the bike

How to Speak Up on Climate Justice

While we drink lagers and swoon?

CANSA is CANSEA in New Delhi

The Ironman fulfilled a wish

THE SOLEMNITY OF ST. JOSEPH

he died in Nazareth?

 

the butcher smelled of soap, fumes from two meetings and a convening, a bath bubbling in midterm assessment, she doesn't know

why the solemnity?

they marched in red jackets, blood drawn twice from energy finance, a username and domain activated, they have no idea

a feast of what? 

her departed Dad, transcriptions inscribed in prescriptions, a caraVan of kaldereta/catered food/tiim, banquet reheated twice

he patronize who?

a biker prepped for a midday head, buxom vendors, husky contact center agents, Cigna reclaimed and a PIN repossessed 

three days after...

a reverence, to an ancient head gate and Apo Baket; the Ironman walketh, patched and altered; Bulan in Overdrive mode

THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM FAULKNER AND e.e. cummings

the Hack responded to the Melbourne Assessment through a TeamViewer portkey probing into the case of the missing emails, the mystery of the Monday meetings overlap, why the line to Kuala Lumpur is in Rio De Janeiro when a reallocation was approved to develop content for Jakarta with an OPA amendment as the aborted rumble in Phnom Penh was reenacted in a condensed appraisal report, the flight to Luang Prabang imperiled by an intense electronic exchange inscribed in a project charter and a memorandum about an MCP review on why the Phantom Biker was enrolled in both MSH International and Cigna Healthcare     

'twas pooping cat and dogs

and a vegetable medley wrapped in tripe

warm and airy, short and gamey like salt bread 

a delicate curtain of soft college rain

St. Peter's milkfish, dressed in mud then fried in bottles of extra strong lager, stood between two nights of pure libationism, a wall of bottled amber for the advance nights of a fatback on a crisp February evening, plated and skewered, as the pool filled up with exceptional blended Scotch whiskey to celebrate St. Valentine's abstinence in a week when a "prose of complex and unconventional sentence structure" was fused with "modernist free-form poetry"

a benediction, a warm morning feed, a wet market

a party of saints and kings at a Lakers ballpark

ripe fishwife carved  in a plump green plastic mesh

a homily, a bike wash, pickled tank goby

LYRICS FOR A SONG (The Guerilla Ride Anthem)

trash, breakfast, lunch

quick rides between a report submission and a seccesion
Let's Talk! of guidelines, of a big event in Luang Prabang

credit cards, Compass 2,  and a JET network conversation  

breakfast, lunch, dinner

mornings that smelled of smoked fish, phone bills and a ToR
Linked boosted, like climate to social security and the Sequoia slides

ACE delivered, enveloped in a virtual world, a policy retreat

lunch, dinner, breadfruit

old nuts in scraps of umeshu, I-Phone 13 in a retail warehouse
a community mall, a crime scene, a ghost load spewed  

stale tofu, fried shumai, and a half tank of l'eau de vie

dinner, sweet bulbs, green gram

burning sweepings smoke a swath of bone-dry road verge
a free bird in the market, a man confused by church lauds 

the Almaguer Account signed with ink from charred muscles   

A POEM (sort of)

Once

the internet died in Yangon

"save to survive" it hummed

harsh verses for Vientiane

Twice 

partners spent and tell

a line spoken and heard

KL and Jakarta acceded 

Thrice

poked, probed, crossed

eager Melbourne reformed

civil and secured as a Sequoia

Frice

square as a Lenovo ThinkPad

boxy like the bike from Manila

that's me safely programmed

-o0o-

Rides and vice rhyme

like peddlers and bakers, servers and menders

remittances and riddances

debits for a hermit

not cantaloupes, groundnuts, or a fritata  

nor handy men beating the clock

but routine meetings gone sour...

THE UNEMPLOYED 4: A Delegate to ANCOM 2024

10 am on Friday the 26th of April was the clock

10 aprons and jewels went up the tarp

10 relieved gentleman in a satisfying jaunt

10 stubs for one final Chinese lauriat

he was the Maj. Harold M. Clark who crashed

she is Camille X who flashed her blinkers

her niece Diane was the willing replacement 

she's at Number 2 after the CDO appointment

red cleavages, cigarettes and lighters

tight white butts and nicotine pouches

nubile umbrella girl, bosomy masseuse 

chivalrous sexism, chauvinist merchants

an Ironman in the MOU for a workshop

chicken grilled twice, one more dollar account

Phantom riding for a water bill and a haircut

21 beer bottles when you're single at 21

THE UNEMPLOYED 3: A Consultant in Kuala Lumpur

it was the wet biryani

a virtual account unlocked for the seeker's liberation of a hostaged last pay as PR 527 poured two cans of beer into a bento box of half-burnt kretek butts  

but online check-in won't budge from a confusing arrival procedure to manage five paid sessions at the Ramada Hotel

and review the Bangkok framework

that was the red shirt

daylight for a night tour 

royal guards throw bolts of wet shoes at a spire and the minaret while the rain waltzed with the twin towers to warm a cold haram dinner in Bukit Bintang

 beer, kaoliang and whiskey

a duel of fish skin and roasted chicken in honor of a departing keisatsu who traded a salted egg shrimp for the mountie's poached fish and a Sarawak love song 

Hanuman is not a beer

she is a proud uncovered breast herding monkeys from Batu Caves into guardians of the Putra Mosque who cover Chinese tourists with the Prime Minister's maroon robes 

a Saturday night fever

it was the masked lady who absorbed all the pheromones in PR 528 for a white lady in the bus who summoned the virus to Baloc with a case of Red Horse on a Sunday night...

THE UNEMPLOYED 2: A Houseband in Bakal 2

The Ironman versus The Waterboy

frozen kappukan, a mummified bluefin tuna, two ancient gurami fused by ice

they melted like beer in the ricefields, like dead heroes after breaking the fast

a duel of software updates for draft application requirements

The Chef is The Dishwasher and The Sweeper

nucleared pinangat, pinapaitan boiled twice, kinilaw embalmed in soy sauce

recycled like a contract for Kuala Lumpur, like an updated CV and Cover Letter

juggling funds for an aircon replacement and credit card payment

The Laundryman and The Marketman

withered amaranth crushed,green brandy canned twice, a job advert goes live

morals and dogma from the checkerboard floor, tales of coitus on a Sunday night

seven portraits of a Phantom Biker in a canvass of creamy tofu and pasta