Babal

[RiverNotch]

So, so, so indulgent. It's a long haul to the next draft, but at least I know what to cut. Profound-sounding but sweet nonsense is my specialty, Achebe! And Plato at the very least promised us the existence of soulmates. The hircine curse's shape reverse-shave makes its own kind of sense that I don't think I need to clarify, it sounds fair enough -- well, not really, since I had to butcher that line for clarity. Yeah, another thing to cut, perhaps. As for loose thought association, it's sorta thematically relevant, since UP was (sort of) established to be the Philippines's very own national university, while Ateneo was established by Jesuit colonials about two hundred years before, and with one of the themes being conquest and the gradual divides on language....but again, loose, since I somewhat abandon that metaphor for the more literal in the next stanza, as Ateneo is established to be more English-English than UP, and the Bible note is a very personal religious one. Mexico's there because, as earlier noted, it is sort of a Shibboleth -- and each heading is supposed to jump off from the last stanza. But yeah, agreed that it sinks into indulgence, and again, it's a long haul. Many thanks!

Two little edits, though: "my Philippines and your Mexico" for the new one, not "my country and your Mexico", I mis-encoded; and, capitulating, I've changed Babalon to Babylon. Not in a new draft, since they're so small.