Five-Metaphor Offensive

 

—another one for KripYuson,
who depressed us with a story
about a confusion of advisers
in Malacañang¹

 

No pick-and-rolls, hardly any give-and-go²—the mantra’s furfuraceous pseudo-fastbreak coddling thus sticks for carrots. Some suppose it’s National Geographic’s job to slow down the globe to a trot. Well, us poets must ask (as guards-of-sorts tired sick of this hanging in the dusky rafters), pray, plead, for progress everywhere, anywhere. In national athletics, for one, that ample Olympian symbol court of give-and-takes in struggle. For our simple ambitions can actually be fulfilled by e’en a rookie’s leaps instead of trapos’³ lip service, head-scratchings. Take poets, who sing, and mostly merely sing like cockfighting derby aficionados, mouthing scimitars, debating cuts precise, dreaming of knives. Doing it not in the name of war but in the spirit of bonfire cooking—towards, maybe, a nation’s recipe for café-inspired triumphs, tête-à-têtes, beso-besos, various tagay⁴ toasts. For as in sportswriting, governance needs fans who know the game; instead of PR strategists, armchair economists who’ve no use for ad endorsements as photo-ops. Let’s think covering Olajuwon’s⁵ Nigeria with donated food. We pick a spot, we roll, we give away stuff, shave our heads to be consistently mobile from the get-go. Emulating, say, maximal ground coverage by National Geographic photographers, or NBA.com rolls, with minimal text for self-serving captions.

 

---December 29, 2002

 

---¹the Philippine presidential palace.

---²from a clause in a sports review of a Philippine cage team game in the 2002 Busan Asian Games by the Filipino poet and fiction writer Alfred A. Yuson titled "Baby, what’d I say?" (Sports section, Flip Magazine, November 2002): "Sure, the other guys seemingly conducted offensive rotations, circling around incessantly, finding their unguarded spots. But no pick-and-rolls, hardly any give-and-go, not much screening. Hardly any cuts or slashes to the basket for drop passes. In brief, there was no reliance on fundamental basketball that earned easy points. Primarily it was a time-consuming grind that ensured low scores, helped along by poor perimeter shooting."

---³pejorative slang term referring to the "traditional politician." In the Tagalog language, trapo primarily means "rag."

---⁴a poured drink to a mate or new acquaintance.

---⁵the 2001-02 Toronto Raptors (erstwhile Houston Rockets) legendary center Hakeem Olajuwon, selected in 1996 as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history.

 

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Copyright © 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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