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LOVE THE PHILIPPINES
People complain that our country's new slogan
is missing a comma, it's either too forceful
or too forced, but really
it's perfection.
Case in point: for this rainy season
I learned of a way to our church
that does not flood.
Not much of a metaphor to say
so many wires stretch over those streets
the people who live there need no umbrellas,
even less that along one crossing
opens a drugstore proudly named "Arsenic"
or, along another, I was overtaken
by a motorcyclist in a plastic Stahlhelm
blazoned with a three-color swastika
while an actor-turned-senator complains on the radio
the ICC's a bully by investigating
our so-called "War on Drugs".
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(07-23-2023, 02:27 PM)RiverNotch Wrote: LOVE THE PHILIPPINES
People complain that our country's new slogan
is missing a comma, it's either too forceful
or too forced, but really
it's perfection.
Case in point: for this rainy season
I learned of a way to our church
that does not flood.
Not much of a metaphor to say
so many wires stretch over those streets
the people who live there need no umbrellas,
even less that along one crossing
opens a drugstore proudly named "Arsenic"
or, along another, I was overtaken
by a motorcyclist in a plastic Stahlhelm
blazoned with a three-color swastika
while an actor-turned-senator complains on the radio
the ICC's a bully by investigating
our so-called "War on Drugs".
RN,
Really enjoyed this poem. I had to do a double take to understand that the title is the slogan mentioned in first stanza.
My only comment/suggestion is that the final stanza brings up politics, which doesn't really fit into the loveliness of the poem, the heartfelt descriptions of your ride to the church.
TqB
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Reads like prose, but the imagery is vivid. Your love for the Philippines is clearly evident, so you've accomplished the mission set out in your title. The image of clothes lines across the streets as umbrellas is particularly nice.
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Hey River, I enjoyed this - to my read, it is a purely political poem.
The streets flood often in the rainy season, and the wires are telephone and power lines that evoke industrialization and pollution.
The pharmacy sells poison, nazis walk the streets, and the politicians are rehearsing for the theater.
The slogan can either be read as a forceful command from a strong-man government, or a desperate plea - neither of which is very attractive, and that represents the narrators view of the current state of the Phillipines. Of course, the narrator probably does love the Phillipines, but not because a slogan tells them to, and not because of the current state of the nation.
I know little about the country, its politics and its history, but that was how I interpreted the poem.
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Reading Wjames' thoughtful interpretation, I take back my comment regarding the last stanza.
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