and cartoons,
in a land directed by hooded captains of software copyright
blanketed by a ratio of household laptops to PCs
ranked 2:1.
I wade in and between Philippines and US
shaking off the
unlikeliness of a democratic messenger
crouching in a machine
unaware of the tired kin hand-layering keyboard innards
Akong dugu (my blood) condenses in a calcite archipelago
a fledging democracy
spotted with human fields typing on
hand-me-down computers leaking,
hissing the American English of Sir Gates
where
multinationals relish in my urban sisters’
full reification, and
flaunt their looted, eloquent 5 ft 2 inch-
I. T.
cash crops.
where
continental cartels’ puerile greed
regulate
intellectual property pirates:
incarnators of educational equality
Two barangays (villages) north
an internet café (a portal of otherness)
is the air-conditioned refuge
from urban Cebu’s stormwater cataracts
Wide eyes and fidgety digits fill a
computer screen
with their own brain-babies,
and sexual plays
Upland from urbania, to rural Cebu’s Oslob
She guides a maid’s elbow and wrist
to alters the space and letter with a mouse
This is mine.
An eggshell democracy
oozing out industrialists betting on illiteracy
birthing poets slash IT cashcrops and
bearing Friendster addicts cum activist bloggers.
« return.