Jack

Largest humanoid skeleton preserved,
Measuring 14 feet 6 inches, housed in
TheMuseum of Cebuano Peculiars –
Adjudged by international experts/auditors
As “having the second best collection of its kind,”
After the Believe It or Not museum in The Palace
By the Pasig river. The collectibles
My pet hobby after I accomplished
The biggest Philippine greed per capita empire –
Golden Eggs, Inc. – ubiquity umbrella over
What and where Filipinos and the country’s
Visitors eat and drink; how they live, travel,
Get healthier; where to heal or convalesce;
Spend holidays, anniversaries, pastimes;
Grow savings; how to connect communication
Dots; where to educate their children.
This distraction of scouring the island
Of Cebu for brow-raisers a balancing
Respite from climbing life’s beanstalks –
Obsessions making every step a challenge
To my will of reaching the top,
Merciless in getting what I want,
Not necessarily what I need.
Conspiring with my professional
Diggers, bribers, buyers, tracker teams
Calms my mind like cups of chamomile tea.

Tomorrow, my 85^th birthday, I’ll be revealed
As sole benefactor who provokes Cebuanos
Into thinking they’re more gigantic than
Self-appraisals, rarer than others think,
Unworldly, X-factored to excel in art, music,
Poetry, in measuring any angle of the universe
And the universal with precision, Alpha Centauri
Not that far from our evolving crafts.
I’ll be receiving a plaque made from the same
Axed tree. I’ve one last surprise to tickle
The world’s CEOs and bring the house down
Before retiring as Chairman of everything I see
To be the full time granddaddy of them all:
My harp singing the keynote address.









Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared or will appear in numerous journals, including Windhover, Dark Matter, Anglican Theological Review, The Lyric, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Poetry Quarterly, Fox Chase Review, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, PEN Peace Mindanao Anthology, Liquid Imagination, Star*Line, and Inkscrawl. His chapbook Pictures of the Floating World is forthcoming from Kind of a Hurricane Press. He is working on his first full-length poetry collection, Multiverse.