GREED KILLS FISHES

GREED KILLS FISHES

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Greed kills fishes

‘Tis fishy to use fish

To stigmatize greedy ones

As involved in fishy business

Like those

Millions of fishes

Killed

In Taal & Pangasinan

Fish cages swarmed

With stink

Foul odors that

Sickened kids and folks

The stink

Of fishkill carcasses

Is impeccable

Mirror of greedy

Fishcage owners’

Unfathomed stink

[Philippines, 12 August 2011]

A SUM OF PARASITES

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


To serious thinkers an X unknown
is the sum of financial technocrats
and foreign debtors

but to the paupered lot
the sum means
more tasty diets consisting
of liver flukes
of ascaris
of tuberculosis
of kwashiorkor
of bronchopneumonia
of pinworms
of schistosomiasis

A sum of parasites
is always equal to parasites
and nothing less


[Writ. 04 June 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]