by Paolo Concepcion (Poetry)

After W. H. Auden

About selfishness, they’re seldom mistaken,
The pyschologists: how well they’ve researched
The human ego: how it takes over
While someone takes a picture broadcasting his meal;
How, while everyone is devotedly, fervidly obsessed
With their image online, bodies with cardboards are dumped
In vacant lots, and emaciated kids stare blankly at cameras;
They never care
That unrequited love for oneself may end in suttee
Anyhow in a podium, in some popular spot
Where the lions roar about their grandiosity and the moss
Photosynthesizes underneath the shadow.

In Brenda’s selfie for instance: how her eyebrows are on fleek
Quite the time and effort spent; her lipstick
Like the Joker in Batman, all to be noticed by the public.
But for her those are important keys; the duck face
And the tattoo on her legs accentuated on the LCD
And the abomination that is the daiquiri
She’s holding, trying hard to climb high society,
Her way of telling people she likes to party.