Brief Bio for an Anthology

I stare at it like the beginning of a flatline,

that dash next to my year of birth.

Two lines down, a paragraph with nothing

but blurry snapshots of a life

unwillingly summarised for imagined readers,

strangers, for posterity.

Then that uncontrollable laughter kicks in.

It is shrill, like the wailing of an ambulance,

and drowns out all dramatic gestures

I have conjured for myself

on that page. Delusions of grandeur

stripped naked on a stretcher.

Sometimes oneself can be the cruelest critic,

the first to hold the blade

against such tender skin.

June 2008

-o-

(from Alien to Any Skin, UST Publishing House, Manila 2011)

This poem came to mind when a good friend, SA poet Raphael d’Abdon shared his bionote poem with his friends on Facebook. I hope I haven’t posted this before here. The book where this poem first appeared, Alien to Any Skin , was published around August six years ago (if memory serves me right).

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Filed under: Alien to Any Skin, Filipino poetry, Filipino-South African, Jim Pascual Agustin, Literary News & Articles, Mga Tula / Poetry, poetry, Uncategorized Tagged: Alien to Any Skin, bionote, Jim Pascual Agustin, Raphael d'Abdon