Jacqui Magno Sings "Summertime" at Par 7, Baguio Country Club

the moment has come to this
Gershwin fragments into scores
of thrilling trills & heaving intakes of breath

the formerly wild crowd now tamed
& too awed to sing along
for how can they?
she is the only one entitled to do
with the song as she pleases,
to hold the mic as if it were a wand
to strike down the skeptics who think
she can't possibly hack it with just
an afternoon's rehearsal with the band
this is Baguio--home to magnificent
drunken pledges & rages,
videoke excesses spilling on roadways
& splitting the holy innocents' sleep,
city of dolorous flyovers,
increasing kimchi corners,
scent of pine vanishing,
odious politicians returning
where a boy mayor wines & dines
pseudo-journalists
& thinks resident poets are of no import.

so here is Jacqui,
devoid of diva airs,
dedicating a whole set of songs--
a samba, a kundiman, a Beatles hit & endless encores--
to poets sober & plastered,
toasting their lines borne
of merriment or pain.

sing to us, Jacqui,
of living that's easy.

--Babeth Lolarga

first published in Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Jan. 6, 2008
photo of Ms. Jacqui Magno performing in the Global City of Taguig in 2011 by Anna Leah Sarabia