Always More Beyond

R A I N B O W

2008-09-03T18:54:00.002+08:00

Rainbow

Today as I skip to the rhythm

of nursery rhymes and hop-scotch from Narnia

stories to fairy tales, I see a rainbow.

Perhaps because I have never seen

Jacob’s ladder, I imagine the rainbow

a Rapunzel’s braid of coloured hair,

and leaving behind my toys of gold

I climb it to reach the door-less

castle of the sky.

Perhaps it is something else, I think

God, in a moment of Disneyland fun

throws paints into the sky and then

rain – colours them into a rainbow.

And the ends of the rainbow

are like God’s two hands, holding

the pots of gold of my sister

and I, inviting us to play

C I R C U S

2007-12-30T09:23:00.000+08:00

C I R C U S

“No one lives his life.
Disguised since childhood,
Haphazardly assembled
From voices and fears and little pleasures,
We come of age as masks
Our true face never speaks.”
Rilke II,11

“How would anyone know if you’re
Sad or happy unless you are wearing a mask?”
Mirrormask

No one recognizes the shadow
In my bedroom mirror until
I put on my mask.

When I perform, the audience
In the big top forget
Their tiger-striped anger, elephant
Trunk despair, lion-tamer anxiety.
The tight rope tension in necks
Disappear, All the Damocles fear
Are sword-swallowed.Their joy cannon
Balls to trapeze heights.

I am a consummate performer,
Everybody loves me. Every night
My saw-dust dread is exchanged
For star-dust dreams. Every morning
I wake, vowing never again
To be a clown.

But then the Ringmaster cracks
His whip, shouts, “The show
Must go on!”

Respiration

2007-12-16T07:07:00.000+08:00

RESPIRATION
“You hear me again, as words
From the depths of me
Rush towards you in the mind.”
Rilke II,2

Exhale completely, sweep clean
The dusk from the house of your rib-cage.
Inhale deeply the dawn-filtered air
Filling the empty chambers of your heart.

And this is prayer, an exchange,
The pollutants from which one expires
For the power which The One inspires.

1 Corinthians 13

2007-11-11T10:46:00.000+08:00

1 Corinthians 13

“I have hymns you haven’t heard.”
From The Book Of Hours”
Rilke 1,40

My Loving
Is not ordered
By the definition
I give to the act
In words
But by the thesaurus
Of meaning
I make
For every act
Of my living.

L I F E

2007-11-04T19:29:00.000+08:00

L I F E

“God, give us each our own death,
The dying that proceeds
From each of our lives.”
From The Book Of Hours,
Love Poems To God, Rilke III 6

God, give me three deaths.

The golden-calf-I-can-milk image
Of you.

The impulse to shout before
The cock crows thrice and thereafter
A rock silence.

The colt love that carries
A neighbor’s load only on convenient
Palm Sundays.

I M M E N S E

2007-10-28T14:53:00.001+08:00

I M M E N S E
“There is no image I could invent
That your presence would not eclipse.”
From The Book Of Hours, Rilke I, 60

No one can know where you begin
Nor where your immensity ends.

You are so vast, when I chase
After you, you have already caught
Me, in my yesterday.

When I run away from you
You are my shadow in the sun,
My silhouette in the moon and there
In all my tomorrows, the first face
I wake up to.

You are the shadow when I lift
Up my palm to shield my eyes
From the always vertical sun.

But you are also the light stealing
Into the page of my conscience
When I write of closet secrets
In bony metaphors.

Your limitlessness is both alluring
And frightening, it has two poles,
Previous and to come, cloud shelter
And saber light and between them
The globe of all I can never
Imagine.

MY OTHER THINGS

2007-09-29T15:09:00.000+08:00

M Y O T H E R T H I N G S

A Prayer: I desire above all things that my other things come
under the lordship of my Everything.

Yesterday, when I was praying, I caught
Myself thinking about other things.

I felt like a bird that did not
Dutifully sing the song it was taught.

I was distraught until the sudden
Revelation, sweet and sharp, “A bird
In a golden cage may not sing
The song his captor wants to hear.”

Today when I am thinking about
Other things, I catch myself praying.

And now I know, in the way
A homing bird knows. A never learned
Knowledge that I am a songbird
Fast becoming the Song.

Second Mad Pencils Club Poetry Writing Contest

2007-09-06T20:32:00.000+08:00

Digital Art by North Design

Second MPC Poetry Writing Contest
A month back I was invited to be a judge (one of three, there were two others, one of whom was Lawrence Cheong aka dsnake1 of Urban Poetry) in a poetry competition organized by Mad Pencils Club, Singapore (http://poetry.sgforums.com) . The moderator of this competition was Alson Teo ( Age of Insanity, http://jungleinablog.blogspot.com ). 15 poems were short listed. I was to pick what I thought was the best and that would count as the Judge’s Choice. Here is my choice, No.11, entitled “Serpent In Disgust.” The original poem is reproduced here, what follows is my critique( oops, this is one word I dislike, it is not just the sound but the letter q that makes it so unsightly, perhaps comment is the better word) and after that is the edited version. When the results were announced, the author of this poem was declared the winner! (I am glad I was correct!!!) Your comments will be appreciated!! (Aurora, Russell, Christine, Paula………I will appreciate your feedback!!)

Serpent in Disgust

the smell of
freshly steamed buns
was too alluring
a bite into it
my stomach turned
my taste buds protest
in an uproar
what lousy
meat bun is this
tasting like cardboard?

i must rinse my mouth
to rid of its foulness
the smell of fresh mint
fills my toothbrush
and mouth
the television in the room
is broadcasting
about a certain toothpaste
i stared at the tube
and vomited

flopped onto the bed
stared at the ceiling
a few fine cracks
stared back at me
then a few dust of cement fell
onto my started face
as the cracks enlarged
and started to crumble
i ran out of the room
and the hotel

the awakening dragon
turns out to be
a serpent
in disgust.

I picked poem no.11, “Serpent in Disgust.” Of the other 14, some are twice-told tales. Others give me a sense of déjà vu, the poems are places I have been to, the images are not digital photographs but dog-eared black and white prints.

Poem 11 is a new country. But the setting for the story was the old country. The trigger for the poem was a “da bao” event. A journalist, with the aid of a very graphic video clip, had reported that a bun maker had added pieces of discarded cardboard to the meat in his buns. Everybody swallowed the story, bun, meat, and cardboard and it was a culinary first in recycling until someone broke the news and revealed that it was a hoax.

The public reaction was “an uproar.” It was a cheap imitation of an Ern Malley. The indignation of being hoaxed and hoaxed exceedingly was something most people could not stomach, “my stomach turned/ my taste buds protest.” (Paragraph 1.) Indignation ran like a great wall across 8 kingdoms.

It was not just a single indignation. The initial indignation was against the bun maker who cheated. The second was directed at the journalist, it was a greater indignation, the indignation of being fooled by someone who, instead of dishing out the truth, cooked up a tale taller than the highest “long mountains,” “the television in the room/ is broadcasting/about a certain toothpaste/ I stared at the tube/ and vomited.” (Paragraph 2.)

In paragraph 3, the poet moved from judging others to self examination, “stared at the ceiling/ a few fine cracks/ stared back at me.” The poet suddenly realized that only those without cracks can cast the first stone. The hotel room is perhaps a metaphor for one’s own self and the self is not so perfect after all. It can collapse as hotels have been known to collapse. Self examination can be so frightening that the poet “ran out of the room/ and the hotel.”

The last paragraph is the revelation; we who pretend to be “awakening dragons” are but “serpents in disgust.” (Paragraph 4.) The dragon is always associated with all things auspicious; the serpent is the scaly, slimy, slithering architect of the Fall.

I picked poem 11 because of a number of reasons. The weightiness of the theme. The clever use of images. The vitality of expression. The economy of words. It is a poem you want to visit again. And you probably want to postcard it to a friend.

But I would have worked harder at the title, Serpent in Disgust are not mellifluous words. And I would have preferred a title that is more redemptive. An epigraph about the “da bao” story, if included would have made the poem easier to access. And easier for the reader to own. The third paragraph was too hastily written. In lines 5 to 8, there was a lapse in the careful crafting and control of lines that was so evident in the first two paragraphs. The end result was a cracked mirror image. I would also have worked harder at the concluding paragraph, it was too abrupt and I would have preferred the poet to show and not to tell.

And here my revision of the poem:

Awakening Dragon

“Bun Hoax reporter jailed and fined.” Zi Beijia, a reporter who fabricated a TV news report saying that a Beijing dumpling maker used cardboard as a filling, was sentenced on Sunday to one year behind bars with a fine of 1,000 yuan for the crime of “infringing commodity reputation.” From Star, 14 August 2007

the smell of
freshly steamed buns
was too alluring
a bite into it
my stomach turned
my taste buds protest
in an uproar
what meat bun is this
tasting like cardboard?

i must rinse my mouth
to rid of its foulness
the smell of fresh mint
fills my toothbrush
and mouth
the television in the room
is broadcasting
about a certain toothpaste
i stared at the tube
and vomited

flopped onto the bed
stared at the ceiling
a few fine cracks
stared back at me
then dust fell onto my white
washed face, as the cracks widened
and lengthened, the crumble started
i ran out of the room
and the hotel

i’m no awakening dragon
but a serpent, who, when tempted
by eve, fell from the card-
board tree.

Giant Vending Machine

2007-09-02T16:01:00.000+08:00

GIANT VENDING MACHINE

A prayer never ends, Even after the petition is granted,
there remains the sweet mystery of why you are the
recipient of that blessing.

We teach the formula, “In this manner
pray.” A single line becomes singular
law. “First believe, then you will receive.”
A sleight of words, like the slide
of coins into a giant vending
machine. No need for importunity, faith
is the substance of coins inserted,
the evidence of selections available.
A slotted prayer makes miracles instant,
canned wealth, decaffeinated health, low sugar
absolution. There is no need to “Press
here to retrieve money,” for the kingdom
of power and glory without end
is where the Amen cannot amend
the will of a man.

S L I P P I N G P I L L S

2007-07-29T17:39:00.000+08:00

Breaking Through Dark Clouds

SLIPPING PILLS

Don’t ask for a clear inventory
Of reasons for my decision, too much guilt
Stemming from dishonorable desires,
A lack of understanding from parents, friends,
As they add up simply
To a loneliness.

From “notes to a suicide” by Cyril Wong

These pills are seeds that will
Grow a dream forest. Each seed
Will make a tree with fingers
That pluck silver linings from cumulus
Skies. The leaves will take
The humus of hurt and make of it
A photosynthesized bliss, fresh
As chlorophyll. The fruits will not
Poison your serpentine sleep with comma
Tossed rousing, its seed will lull
You into an Adam slumber
With many a rib awakenings.
See, how easy it is to slip
From sleep into Eden
In this bedroom where there is no
Cherubim with flaming sword,
Only a chariot drawn by flying
Horses.

Fruit Of The Spirit

2007-07-14T22:47:00.000+08:00

Fruit Of The Spirit

2007-07-07T17:31:00.000+08:00

As Large As The Universe

2007-06-24T15:32:00.000+08:00

As Large As The Universe

“The universe is so vast that it takes a beam of
of light (which travels some 700 million miles per hour )
over 100,000 years just to cover the distance length of our galaxy
called the Milky Way. But our galaxy is only one among many
billions in the known universe.”

“Grandpa, how big is God?” The chocolate
Flavored voice skipped, jumped from behind
The geometrical colors of his Lego-world.
“Oh, He is as big as the Universe…..” the musty
Drawl shuffled from the shadows of a library
Of theological dissertations.

“And how big is that…………………………?”
“Well, if you start counting the stars
Of the universe now, you will still be counting
Them when you are as old as Grandpa.”

“Oh, Grandpa, I love you like this, God-much!”

Clouds parted, the words like a Dove
Descended, cutting through the veil
Of the temple and once again I am like
Jesus at the River Jordan, baptized
In the waters of serpent-wisdom.

STILL A SMALL VOICE

2007-05-27T15:14:00.000+08:00

“Kneeling”

“Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for God
To speak…………………
…………Prompt me, God,
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.”
R.S. Thomas

What is this I hear above
The drone of to-day’s weather
Forecast? Is it not the beginning
Word of the breaking news
Coming from the frequency of my heart
Beats? Is it not the still
Small voice that Elijah heard?

I know it is not
A tinnitus because the ringing
Does not stop even when my ears
Are unstopped. I’m sure it is not
The sound of God taking a rib
From the side of my thoughts
And making it a metaphor more beautiful
Than Eve. I believe it is not
The hiss of the serpent
In the tree of my mind offering
The apple of the full sentence
In place of the seed
Of the singular Word.

Perhaps it is a clever trick
Of throwing the voice. The speaker
Is light years away, yet I hear
His words like the fevered throbbing
Of the arteries of my temple.
And like the dumbstruck doll
In the lap of the ventriloquist
I catch the thrown and make
It my own. Yes, my own, still
A small voice that belies
The clarity with which it largely
Stills the questions, “Am I loudspeaker
Or am I speaking aloud?
Am I prophet or am I full
Of new wine?”

Adam Speaks His Mind

2007-03-22T18:59:00.000+08:00

Adam Speaks His Mind
“The vast part (95%) of our minds is the “unconscious” that which we
have little awareness of. The unconscious know things we have not learnt.
Jung believes that in our unconscious is stored the collective wisdom
we inherit from our ancestors. This is the knowledge we gained from
lives we never lived, from the experiences we never experienced. This
knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next through the genes. One of the ways we know of the existence of the unconscious is through our dreams.”

It is like the Tree
In Eden, this arabesque
Of my mind.

Herein, leaves of variegated
Thoughts jump synapses from twig
To twig at the speed
Of a photo-synthetic adultery.

Herein also the often sudden
Flowering of things I do
Not know and things I did
Not learn, things the Original
Apple promised the Digital Apple
Would deliver.

And herein also the dreams,
The cloning of Eve
From the marrow of my rib,
The fig leaf shame
Of an exile, Eden now
The room next to my
Nursery rhymes, the serpent
In the tree moults to become
The dragon in the dungeon
Of Harry Potter minds.

And I, a latter day Adam
Know that the flaming unsheathed
Sword is the belief
That good and evil
Is learned, not inherited
From the First Adam

The Art work on this post was created by North Design.

2007-03-01T07:36:00.001+08:00

In The Doctor's Waiting Room

2007-02-25T20:06:00.000+08:00

In The Doctor's Waiting Room

" as if she had discovered

the train was bound somewhere;

as if the conductor

had told everyone on board

they never had to bear the weight

of being strong again."

from" Medicine"

by Tony Hoagland

It is like being in a railway

station, suddenly amnesic, unsure I have

arrived or embarking on a new journey.

On the wall a clock

that keeps station time, brusque hands

flagging away the hours, the minutes,

the seconds.

The patients are like

passengers, shoulders drooping from the weight

of excess luggage, an overnight bag

of lost dreams, a suitcase full

of travellers' vertigo, a trunk bulging

with memory aids and a map

showing roads of varicosities running

from volcanic ankles to Mt. Fuji knees.

Nearby the dispensary, where patients purchase

tickets, Anti-Histamines for a cold trip,

Anti-Hypertensives to high pressure destinations, Valium

to Nirvana, Cytotoxics to the Middle-East

of a malignant continent.

But what of my own

journey? Will it be like

the sleepers running until

the South tracks meet the North

station? Or will there be a

whiplash braking, a molten steel screeching

as wheels burn rails, a shearing

of the flesh of my dreams

from the bones of my sleep-walking

and two slippers, strewn on sleepers

announce my arrival at the station

where the

parallel lines

finally

R E S T I N G

2007-01-28T16:05:00.000+08:00

collage: Mind's Garden, 07
On the seventh day..........

R E S T I N G
" This is the most remarkable of the power of poetic language: to convey to us the quality of experiences which we have not had, or perhaps can never have, to use factors within our experience so that they become pointers to something outside our experience- as two or more roads on a map show us where a town that is off the map must lie. Many of us have never had an experience like that which Wordsworth records near the end of Prelude 13; but when he speaks of the "visionary dreariness" I think we get an inkling of it."
C. S. Lewis

RESTING, Eight Images.......................................................................................................................

1 a japanese garden
a lotus man
the wind chime of a haiku
awaiting the breath
of his thought

2 shadows dance all night
sudden breeze of his prayer
snuffs out the candle

3 last call to board plane
at the back of jostling crowd
nun without luggage

4 old men playing chess
nothing at stake except for
the coin of patience

5 the armchair cradle
the ceiling fan lullaby
the milk of his word

6 just before the walk
over smouldering charcoal, he remembers
the soles' dross
and the reincarnation
of a dream

7 old lady by hearth
fingers rosary, contamplates the god
who changes rocks to bread
who also changed the beads
of perspiration into an abacus
of blessings with beads
her fingers trip over

8 the
rest
when
i'm
in
i
am

M E A N I N G

2006-12-31T16:49:00.000+08:00

(Photo Montage, "The Real Image")

On the Sixth Day......

M E A N I N G

"I had unwittingly stumbled upon a universal image. The meaning that another person had "read into" that image was the real meaning: and as soon as I was shown it, I accepted it...I am here to admit that I did not see the full meaning of what I was writing: I am here to admit that, when the full meaning was "read into it", I was ready to accept and acknowledge that meaning for the real meaning."
Dorothy Sayers

He is a David Blaine, his wand
is pen that writes a sleight-of-hand
language, his incantations are words
that bypass the intellect to arrive
at the heart.

Effortlessly he conjures up sudden
images: A card. A coin. A dove
in flight. A bouquet of flowers.
But the magic is not
in his clever tricks, it is in my
seeing beyond the illusions.

See what I see when the curtain
is rent. This playing card is no
plaything, it is the quick card cutting
me to the quick for not seeing
beyond the runes. See, am I not
the lost coin, now found
whose worth is greater than the widow's
two mites? See, am I not
the tossed denarius, caught in the fish's
mouth, unconcerned about the use
I've been put to as long
as I serve a Master greater
than Mormon? Is the dove not
the bird of the heart set free
from the prison of my ribcage
by the dropping of the kerchief
of words? And surely this bouquet
of roses caught in the bramble
of his gloved fingers is the dew
and fragrance of a near Eden!

He
casts
spells,
I
make
magic!

I have no need to see
David Blaine levitate, I'm Icarus
flying to the sun, not fearful
that my reading of your poetry will wax
and wane.

(Happy New Year, the seventh in the series is in
incubation, I hope to complete it in 2-3 weeks.)

L A N T A N A D E L I G H T S

2006-12-05T19:51:00.000+08:00

IT IS CHRISTMAS, AGAIN!

I AM TAKING A BREAK FROM POETRY, I AM IN THE MIDST
OF TRANSFERRING 159,000 PATIENTS' CARDS (THIRTY YEARS
MEDICAL PRACTICE) TO THE PC...AND THATS NO POETRY, I
CAN ASSURE YOU BUT I WILL STILL BE IN TOUCH WITH ALL
OF YOU, MEANWHILE HERE ARE THREE CHRISTMAS CARD TO WISH
YOU ALL PEACE, JOY AND LOVE. (Number 6 and 7 in the
series will be back soon....Agape, Kianseng Ng.)

M I R R O R I N G

2006-11-27T18:15:00.000+08:00

(Paper Batik MOntage, Entitled "Poetry, The Mirror")

On The Fifth Day......

M I R R O R I N G

"The furies are at home / in the mirror; it is their address. /
Your face approaching ever / so friendly is the white flag /
they ignore. There is no truce / with the furies. A mirror...
is a chalice held out to you in / silent communion, where gaspingly /
you partake of a shifting / identity never your own."
R.S.Thomas

1. Kaleidoscope

You look at the kaleidoscope,
the pieces of coloured glass
are metaphors and whichever way
the tube of life is shaken,
the mirrors of poetry will rearrange
the shards and make of brokenness
a picture that catches more
than a child's fancy.

2. Infinity

Ensconced in a barber's chair
I see in front mirror
my reflection created in the image
of God. This is the law
of physics working. When my gaze
is not on myself, I see in front
and back mirrors, my reflections
creating an image of God.
This then is poetry
where the law of physics
is multiplied infinitely.

3. Dwarf

Is poetry not the mirror
on the wall I look into
expecting commendation for my snow-
white complexion, receiving instead
disapproval for my stepmother
scowl? I think myself
princess until the cloud
of my apple breath clears
from the mirror and I see
clearly the dwarf I am!

P R A I S I N G

2006-11-18T06:46:00.000+08:00

(Photo Montage, Title "Poetry, The High Praise")

On The Fourth Day...........

PRAISING

"Say, poet, what it is you do.-I praise.
How can you look into the monster's gaze
And accept what has death in it?- I Praise.
But, poet, the annonymous and those
With no name, how do you call on them? - I praise.
What right have you though, in each changed disguise,
In each new mask, to trust your truth? - I praise.
Both calm and violent things know you for theirs,
Both star and storm: How so? Because I praise."
Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Clive Wilmer

I can write His-tory like a news
reporter. In fascimile language, where pronouns
are always black and white, where adjectives
are straitjacketed in columns, where predicates
conspire with full stops to end
sentences.

Here is a newspaper report:
"Charismatic evangelist attracts stadium
crowds. Street Magician performs signs
and wonders. Usurper to the throne killed
in mediaeval ritual."

Now let me translate that:
"When He preaches, fishes are caught
on the lines of His Words, When He multiplies
fishes, wordlessness preach, His silence
is not a line weighed down
by hook and sinker but a rope
afloat with a life buoy."

"He walks the second mile
on the waters of our disbelief.
He moves mountains in the lever
of a mustard seed."

"He is a hare in a round
world who runs ahead of us
to show the Way and then runs on
so fast that He comes alongside
us, a constant Companion to tortoises."

"In the end which is also
the beginning, He becomes a scare-
crow to frighten away the birds
who steal seeds from ploughed
hearts."

Yes, I could use prose to tell you
all about God, but poetry takes you,
honoured guest, to the throne room
to celebrate the coronation of your
King! You may not understand the words
of the anthems but your feet will pirouette
to a cadenza that comes from verse
plucking the chords of your heart.

I dance
when prose
is translated
to high
praise!

S E E I N G

2006-11-08T05:35:00.000+08:00

(Photo Montage, Title "To See Not With The Eye")

S E E I N G

"Poems take a second look at things which we often take
for granted. It leads, almost necessarily, to fresh
permutations of experience, of uncovering, of new
understanding of the old, and the familiar. This in turn
demands the expression of what we have felt and known,
but had no language to give it form and utterance. And
when we find the words it moves and expands our sensibility."
Edwin Thumboo

You gave me kestrel eyes and now
I see the horizons beyond the bend
of the globe. I see midnight infinity
with midday clarity. I see the night-
sky and I know which stars
have died because the speed
of my sight is greater than the speed
of light.I see places so far
away that the zodiac seem as near
as the pictures of a travel
guide.I see that last place
in the sky where eclipses are metaphors
because the sun behind the crystal-
ball of my mind throws not shadow
but more light on the moon
of my imagination. Because I see further
I travel further than a cartographer's
pen. Any place that cannot be imagined
is imaginary, any place that can
be imagined is not imaginary,
it is a space-station I will soon star-
trek to in my satellite spinnings.
And this is my diary, each entry
is not a man's small step in the pages
of a log-book but the heart's giant
leap in the orbits of the universe.

M U S I N G

2006-10-31T18:33:00.000+08:00

(Paper Batik Montage,Title "Philemon, The Muse")

On the second day.......

M U S I N G

"Philemon....brought home to me the crucial insight that
there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which
produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon
represented a force which was not myself.....I observed
clearly that it was he who spoke, not I."

C G Jung

What do I call you? Your names
are as many as the aliases
of a chameleon. Philemon, the Paranormal
Phenomenon. Ern Malley, the myth greater
than its makers. Muse, she who is An
Other. These names are flower-less bouquets
and you are no topiary in a botanical
garden, you are the jungle spirit whose rain-forest
leaves cannot be trimmed by human
shears. Your epithet is a multipennate
title but it does not tell us
whether you are the "white swan
that lies santified upon my trembling
intuitive arm or the peacock perched
on the sole Arabian tree."*

You are before the first name and beyond
all names. To name you is to imprison
you in the far country of my vocabulary.
The only way to set you free
into the Kingdom-at-hand that you
baptised me into is not
to christen you for no name
can contain that which my uner-
standing cannot evengelise!

*phrases borrowed from Ern Malley's poems

ANOTHER KIND OF MAGICIAN

2006-10-21T22:43:00.000+08:00

ANOTHER KIND OF MAGICIAN
"Yet Long ago, there was another kind of magician.
His was not the magic of illusion, jugglery or
smooth sleight-of-hand.
His arts were real and transformed reality.
His counter-sign was the spoken word, unravelled
from long study of ancient runes."
Aaron Lee

"Writing a poem is like pulling something out
of a hat, but with a difference - you may think
yourself the magician but not even you know
what you're going to get."
Lee Tzu Pheng

In the beginning darkness was on the face
of the deep. Then God said, "Let there
be poetry!" and there was poetry, making
light from darkness, shaping forms
from the void, creating the big bang
from the one hand clapping.

On the first day........

BEGINNING

"In that it eludes definition, poetry is a mystery. That it is
so, comes from its having a common origin and source with dreams.
It is of the nature of dreams, constituted of a language of
symbols or signs and like dreams, is autonomous in that its
appearance is not subject to the will."
Wong Phui Nam

I know where you slumber, in clouds
reached by a Jacob's ladder.
I know where you awake, in ravine
darkness, the light of the mountain peak
only a retina away. I know where you
hide, a pterodactyl between the limestones
of my mind, the dry twigs of your skeleton
waiting to kindle a phoenix to life.
I know how you begin, you are
the pages of a book before the falling
of a tree. You are the words incarnated
on leaf before the thoughts puckered
the brow. You are the dream
of a dream!

PARODY OF HEALING

2006-10-07T05:27:00.000+08:00

Parody Of Healing
"When she thinks of home,/ the word home echoes
in her mouth / like the dead / echoes in the
mouth of the living." "Home" by Selima Hill

I like Selima Hill's poetry, here
are some lines that pair oddly
with her poem.
When I think of healing, the word
healing echoes in my mouth
like the word healing in the mouth
of a dead as he passes through
twelve pearl gates en route to a Paris
whose walls are adorned with twelve
types of precious stones
jasper joy
sapphire sparkle
chalcedony cheer
emerald elation
sardonyx singing
sardius smiles
chrysolite celebration
beryl bliss
topaz tranquility
chrysoprase contentment
jacinth joviality
amethyst ascension
And suddenly I think healing
means home

THE FINAL DIAGNOSIS

2006-09-22T19:49:00.000+08:00

The Final Diagnosis
"Basically all patients come to psychiatrists with
'one common problem: the sense of helplessness, the
fear and inner conviction of being unable to "cope"
and to change things.'" Dr. Hilde Bruch in "Learning
Psychotherapy".

Hallucination
When the priest hears voices, the penitent
hail him prophet, spread their clothes
for his feet, when I hear voices
they hail me legend, took my clothes
exchange it for the uniform of a penitent-
iary!

Delusion
I'm a Van Gogh who does not
cut off his ear. My "Sunflowers" master
piece:A last supper portrait not graced
by the cord of a Mona Lisa
smile, hybrid colours and mutant lines.
Like Van Gogh I have a butterfly
mind, flitting, fragile, yet most beautiful
when set against the backdrop of a "Starry
Night".

Paranoia
I am fearful of some things, the woman
who is a shadow of her cosmetics, the man
who has two shadows, the Pandora box
of my cupboard where the skeleton of my
hope is kept, the mannequins who spy on me
through the binoculars of the glass window.
I'm glad I do not have claustrophobia,
agoraphobia, acrophobia.

Investigations
Temperature chart:x-----x-----x-----x
the secret places of buried treasures
I go to each day on the tightrope
of a fevered mind. EEG: The runes shamans
inscribe in my file to tag the demons
they cannot exorcise. Laboratory Reports: Names
borrowed from a terrorist manifesto, numbers thrown
up by the Russian Roulette. All these cannot
diagnose mental illness, only the doctor can
and he wears a stethoscope he does not
listen with.

Diagnosis
They say I am 'schizophrenic', I think 'life
is a skit, the soul frenetic', yes, I believe
that's the final diagnosis.

SEEKING ASYLUM

2006-09-09T13:35:00.000+08:00

SEEKING ASYLUM

"I have Schizophrenia and I am treated like
a pariah. I hope I have Alzeimer so that I
can forget the bad, the ugly and the painful."
xxx, a patient.

I
have been
i
n
t
e
r
n
e
d
And now I am in a cell I am not
nucleus of, my crime, "Teenage
graffiti on the wall of an adult
mind!" says the police of my mime.

Hallucinations
I see hobbits, aliens, flying Harrys and UFOs,
dinosaurs and dungeon dragons. No one believes
me, I see the smiles beneath their smiles. Suddenly
Hollywood makes movies of them, everybody raves,
"A tribute to the imagination, the temple
of the mind...." But that is where I worship too!

Portrait
They show me my pictures. Chest X-Ray, a white
dove trapped in a black bird cage. MRI
of brain, a plate of negatives, I am black
moon casting white shadows, the darkroom unmade
me. This is box camera technology that
under exposes my colours, prints my portrait
in post-mortem black and white.

Moon-dial
My clock is a moon-dial, it chronographs
the stolen hours, the short hand counts hours
amputated by drugs, the long numbers the shock
hours spent in the convulsive eye of an
electrical storm.

stigma
i learn a new word
stigma is not botanic
the term is social

Sin
Today I think about sin, the unseen
and the seen. I know my own seen
is as many as the leaves of a deciduous
tree, each leaf the serpent of my right
mind seducing the eves of my left
days. And I know that the difference
between my seen and your unseen
is the thickness of a fig-leaf
I don't care to wear.

Your Joy Is My Joy,Multiplied

2006-08-26T07:09:00.000+08:00

A BROKEN CHINA

2006-08-21T06:33:00.000+08:00

A BROKEN CHINA

I have a thread / round each wrist /
which I know I can unstitch / anytime I
wish. / Hands freed, thumb crossed, /fingers
restless as wings, / I have become that
crow / roosting in my dreams.
From the poem 'notes for a suicide' by
Felix Cheong

My marriage was a match
that unmade me, my husband
has Malaria of the mind.
But I will make my own
escape, fly away, like Icarus
from this medieval maze
of the Minotaur. My husband
is no myth and you will
never know him until you break
the code of my silence
and decipher the writing
on the war and the Braille
copy of it on the paper
of my flesh. Read then,
with your fingers the abrasions,
bruises, contusions, dislocations,
ecchymosis, fractures, gashes,
haematomas, indurations, wounds.
My husband is two nations
warring within one continent,
the divided, the split,
the cleaved. Sometimes he's the potter
I'm the Ming vase shaped
on the wheel of his fury.
Most times he is the bull
in the shop of my ceramic heart.
Twentieth floor high but I believe
I can fly. It is midnight
and there is no sun to melt
the wax of my wings
but does it really matter
when I'm already a bruised
b
a
t
t
e
r
e
d

b
r
o
k
e
n

c
h
i
n
a
?

(Art Work: "Paper Batik", wax and water colour,
entitled 'A Broken China', 2i August 2006 )

TRILOGY, PHOENIX IN PARADISE

2006-08-13T13:35:00.000+08:00

(This is a trilogy, water colour and wax on paper,
two paintings, photographed and then superimposed,
created for Naomi Chin, Glasgow, 13, August, 2006)

PARKINSON'S DISEASE IN HAIKUS

2006-08-06T09:24:00.000+08:00

Parkinson's Disease In Haikus

"I'm Petrushka's doll. My face a mask,
my gait, a shuffling ape's, my posture bent.
My clumsy hands ignore the brain's intent.
The pilot seat is vacant in my brains.
I barely live, in chains."
Marj Koshky (1923-2001) Australian poet who suffered from
Parkinson's Disease.(Here are 7 haikus, each preceded by
a short desciption of a characteristic feature of Parkinson's
Disease.)

1.Facies:Fixity of facial expression, somewhat
staring, immobile.

hieroglyph of wrinkles
face of a sphinx full of dark
pyramid secrets

2.Tremors: Rhythmic tremors most pronounced
in the hands, frequency of 4-5 per second.

tremors of fingers
the sleight of hand faster
than slide of mind

3.Freezing Phenomenon: Feet transiently glued to
the ground.

once a flitting bee
now a dinosaur stuck deep
in a mangrove swamp

4. Bradykinesia: Slowness of movements.

not a leap, each step
a moon walk, never reaching
the heart's space station

5.Festinating Gait: Quick shuffles at an accelerating pace
as if to catch up with the body's center of gravity.

chasing own shadow
it's caught when moon eclipses
the sum of his fears

6.Rigidity: Stiffness of musculature.

when rigid limbs move
rusty cogwheels are singing
mechanical songs

7.Dementia: Dementia afflicts up to 1/4 of all
patients with Parkinson's Disease.

the pool beneath chair
not sign of second childhood
reeks of more than age

(Painting:Wax and water colour on paper,
digital collage,entitled "Flying In Paradise"
August, 2006.)

MOON OF MY HEART

2006-07-28T20:30:00.000+08:00

"...my living is like chasing
after my own shadow,
I catch it only when the moon
of my heart eclipses
the sum of my minds..."

THE PATIENT ANSWERS

2006-07-22T23:47:00.000+08:00

THE PATIENT ANSWERS

2006-07-22T23:27:00.000+08:00

THE PATIENT ANSWERS

“We learn the social map / fast. Beneath the ordinary chat, / jokes, kindnesses, we’re scavengers, / gnawing at each other’s histories / for scraps of hope.”
From “Knowing Our Place” by Carole Satyamurti

House Officer, “Tell me, what is the pain like?”

Yes, I will tell you, I will tell
you, I will paint it, sometimes
it is a black hole
in the canvas of a midnight
sky, sometimes a fresh carpet
of snow unmarked by animal
tracks. Sometimes an abstract
explosion of Mesopotamia colours,
cubist images of fallen soldiers,
poisoned oases, in the war-torn
canvas of my desert heart!

Oncologist, “The primary is in the lung. The secondaries are in the liver.”

But the pain is the greater
cancer, it spreads not into adjacent
organs but metastasizes by jumping
across chasms, from body to mind,
the secondaries in the psyche
causing the greater distress.

Nursing Sister, “Good night!”

What’s so good when the silence
at night is a gramophone loudspeaking
my pains, its slow hours the needle
stuck in the groove of my long-
playing record?

Visitor,”Here’s an Agatha Christie, to keep you occupied…”

But I’m occupied, counting
my pain. Every unit of pain
is the many digits of fresh
pain multiplied by the power
of the remembered pains.
The numerator of its waxing
is an astronomy number.
The denominator of its waning
is the logarithm of morphine.

Church member, “God does hear your cries of pain..”

Do you not hear them too?
The sigh of a hospital-pale
bouquet as it sheds tears
of petals. The high strung
weeping of morphine as it travels
a plastic route from bottle
to body. The sobbing of the cardiac
monitor as the screen numbers
the minutes of a fluttering
heart. The groans of the trolley
wheeling in the many last
suppers……………………………

Pastor, “I will pray for you, God will surely heal…”

I wish you could submerge
me in the disturbed waters
of the pool at Bethesda,
prove God true or that even
an erect man can drown
when the water is an inch
of platitudes…….
.

WHISPERS OF SILENCE

2006-07-19T22:25:00.000+08:00

old men playing chess
games are won and lost
without the creasing of brows

in tousled garden
where tall lalang runs amok
petite bonsai blooms

last call to board plane
at the back of jostling crowd
nun without luggage

A SABBATH

2006-07-16T12:46:00.000+08:00

an armchair cradle
a ceiling fan lullaby
the milk of a poem

THE QUIET HEART

2006-07-14T20:09:00.000+08:00

dark clouds in the sky
the washing on laundry line
is unflappable

footprints run away
waves scamper to horizon
driftwood, unmoving

in the crowded park
enjoying the strange quiet
man without cell phone

PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING

2006-07-12T06:07:00.000+08:00

man kneels in chapel
sudden breeze snuffs out candle
shadows disappear

in quiet waters
perfectly poised on surface
the statue insect

watching live football
old man fingers rosary
counting nearer goals

I N F I N I T Y

2006-07-08T06:27:00.000+08:00

Infinity

You cannot multiply, add
to or subtract
from Him. The science
of mathematics cannot help us
reach Him but the abacus
of love compute otherwise. Take
His love for you and divide
it by your love
for Him, the answer is that
which makes Infinity the calculable
distance from your seat
of unbelief to His Throne
on the Cross.

F A I T H

2006-07-07T06:11:00.000+08:00

Walking on water
requires sinews of faith
that can be developed
only through the daily exercise
of walking the second
mile!

C A M E L

2006-07-07T06:06:00.000+08:00

Try threading your life
through the eye
of a needle, you discover
you need to be single-
standed, unknotted!

H I G H-K U

2006-07-07T06:00:00.000+08:00

the highest mountain
you can climb lies in your heart
everest of self

DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH

2006-07-04T20:41:00.000+08:00

A strategy that is not out-
dated, fight fire with fire,
the bigger doused
by the smaller, like the forest
fire kindled by an untamed
tongue snuffed out by the tongue
of fire so small it sits
on my head without singeing
my hair.

PILLAR OF FIRE

2006-07-04T20:36:00.000+08:00

When it is night, you imagine
every star to be a pillar
of fire. When it is day, the column
of cloud is mistaken
for a mirage.

SUMMON A GENIE

2006-07-04T06:51:00.000+08:00

Religion is like a lamp,
some of us rub a lamp
to summon a genie, others
trim a lamp to await
the bridegroom.

THE UNHALLOWED GROUND

2006-07-04T06:47:00.000+08:00

There are no bushfires
in New York, only Twin Towering
fires and religion the unhallowed
ground on which terrorist boots
stomped.

TO SEE BUSHFIRES

2006-07-03T06:26:00.000+08:00

To See Bushfires
If you want to see bush-
fires on the hillsides of your hearts
you must move away
from malls and close your eyes
on the tinsel lights of christmas
trees.

LAMP TO LIGHT

2006-07-03T06:19:00.000+08:00

Lamp To Light

Some use the lamp to light
the Way they're taking,
others use the lamp to light
themselves up so the world
may see they're on the Way.

THE OTHER FIRE

2006-07-03T06:15:00.000+08:00

The Other Fire

There is a fire that will
burn away the chaff
and there is the other fire
whose one constant fuel
is the chaff.

EASTER SONG

2006-07-01T06:32:00.000+08:00

EASTER SONG

2006-07-01T06:29:00.000+08:00

Easter Song

“Well, it’s in poetry that I find that that sense of the mystery of creation is at its most intense and most immediately palpable. It’s like I wrote it, but it wasn’t all of me that wrote it either. It is like something in me wrote it, which I don’t consciously control 100 percent.” Lee Tzu Pheng

I want to write a poem
where butterflies play hide and seek
in the garden. Where Lepidoptera words
flitting from flower scent to sunshine
sheen of tousled leaves coquettishly lead
you to a mandala of the mind.
Where winged images peep from behind
leaves to surprise you with more
than colors. Where wings beating
in the air is a metaphor
for chrysalis silence. Where the caterpillar’s
wriggling is a native samba.
Where the sunlight combing the shadows
discovers the newborn, poised to break
free from the cocoon, meditative antennae
catching for the first time the music
that has metamorphosed from silence.
Where winged creatures are not formalin-
preserved specimens in museums of natural
history but are framed by the mind, exhibited
in a gallery and viewed each time memory
walks through the door. Where I’m butterfly
feasting on a King’s supper, sleeping
the Sabbath quiet and waking each day
to a Easter Morning Song, which although
inaudible to others, is to me an anthem
that will last for eternity

ERN MALLEY REVISITED

2006-06-27T20:51:00.000+08:00

2006-06-27T20:48:00.000+08:00

ERN MALLEY REVISITED

“It is necessary to understand
That a poet may not exist, that his writings
Are the incomplete circle and the straight drop
Of a question mark
And yet I know I shall be raised up
On the vertical banners of praise.”
“Sybiline” by Ern Malley

Once again Ern Malley not content to be
the proverb perched on the sole Arabian tree
descends with feline feet the staircase
of flesh to where in a shuddering embrace
of fluttering heart, he begins to prophesy.
And once again the dream of lotus eaters
calligraphed on the veils of dawn will refract
through prisms of dew to fall like Noah’s
rainbow on the mountain of the mind. And once again
I will cry, “This is real, I tell you, this which cleaves
the innocence of the hyperbolic is real.
Lazarus resurrected from the cave of my dreams
is real. Jonah spewed from the belly of a fish
swimming in the waters of my imagination is not a lie.”
Ern is not the faded cumulus receding
into the horizon. Nor is he the man
in the moon preaching the tenets of a third
testament. No, he is certainly not the sun
eclipsed by the moon of your making.
He is more! He is a tiger prowling in a cage
whose mind-drawn bars keep the zoo
out of his jungle. He is the breeze visiting
the reticulated skin of the Tree of good
and evil, tempting us with sibilant whispers
to climb to vertigo heights. He is the fiery
arrow that flies suicidal from the crossbow
of tradition into the red eye cauldron of noon
where his fire consumes towering infernos.
And I? I’m the servant, I’m the scribe
and I write what is dictated by the voiceless,
a poem motionless as the climbing moon,
a poem that is as dumb as an old coin
held between finger and thumb, knowing that
as I do Ern has split the infinitive,
and beyond is nothing and everything.

MIRROR ON THE WALL

2006-06-25T11:28:00.000+08:00

"That which the heart seizes
as truth
is most beautiful..."

MIRRORS AND WINDOWS

2006-06-25T11:23:00.000+08:00

MIRRORS AND WINDOWS

“Making a poem is / taking charge of yourself, / your fears, incapacities, tears: / being tough, taking yourself / by the scruff and saying: / say it, you fool, / for how else are you going to know / what a fool you are - / which is, / as anyone knows, / the beginning of wisdom.” Lee Tzu Pheng. The following poem was written after reading the above and also after reading ‘Mirrors and Windows’ by Fadzilah Amin.

In the beginning God
created a room taut with darkness,
formlessness hovered over the face of silence.
We could not see where ceiling accosted walls
nor hear the sound of one hand clapping
nor understand why
the moon stood still
when our minds continued to move.

Then God created light,
the windows of this small room
gathered light like an inept
mountain gathering clouds.
And through the windows
we saw other Edens
where full breasted tulips
opened their pink blouses,
where resided the pure acetylene
virgin, attended by roses, by kisses.
But the alphabets in the Tree
spelt out hymns
that belonged to another tongue.

Then Man created the mirror
so that we could see
the image of God we were created in.
Through parallel mirrors
we marched into transparent infinity
where we discover the infinite
was no quirk of optics
in a far country
but a high fidelity print
in the album of the heart.

Mesmerized, we hung up other mirrors
and caressed them with questions, asking
“What is the most beautiful in the land?”
The answer from shimmering sheets
came in silver flashes
of reflected revelation,
“That which the heart seizes as truth
is most beautiful…………………..”
So now we live in this small room
with seven large mirrors
making our language as we go along.

A PTERODACTYL'S WINGS

2006-06-24T20:22:00.000+08:00

It is always light
in the heart where love
reigns, the only darkness
is the shadow
of a pterodactyl's wings.

SILENCES MAY SPEAK

2006-06-24T19:38:00.000+08:00

SILENCES MAY SPEAK

“On the brink of an amen / the mystery retreats, leaving/ not questionings,/ not confidence,/ but simply a silence, / absolute, waiting.” (From the poem ‘ The Brink Of An Amen’ by Lee Tzu Pheng.) The following poem was written after reading “Silences May Speak, the poetry of Lee Tzu Pheng” by Felicia Chan.

Her verses are like the breath of jasmine
misting the dawn air!
She is wordsmith Extraordinary,
each word petals the air with hybrid fragrance,
each sentence the flowered branch
speaking ikebana grace into life’s wild garden,
each image the full bloomed flower strutting,
coquettishly bidding to draw you into its nectar,
each alliteration the stigma waving,
tremulously coaxing music out of the wind
blowing in your ear!

Even when she stumbles in a sentence
& stalls because of despair,
her paragraphs are bouquets Against The Next Wave*
And when she pauses,
we stand with her at The Brink Of An Amen *
& tremble at the Prospect Of A Drowning*
in her perfumed silence.

And in that silence, absolute, waiting
are the words of the Spirit, unfurled petals
yet impelling a fluttering of our hearts
& testifying that her silence is always loudly
overflowing.

Read, hear that breath-bated silence between
words & then like the breeze-tossed Vanda
Joaquin, dance the Lambada By Galilee*
to a music of no sound.

(* Titles of four volumes of poetry by
Lee Tzu Pheng)

WEARING A MASK

2006-06-22T22:57:00.000+08:00

To peel away the ceramic
mask and to discover
that because I have worn
it too long, my face
has been created in the image
of the mould;that is the beginning
of prayer.

A F T E R P O E T R Y

2006-06-22T07:00:00.000+08:00

AFTER POETRY

“For me, behind every poem or maybe within every poem, there is a kind of large silence. By which I don’t mean a void – the silence is not a void. It depends on the reader’s capacity for receiving a sense of those other silences that are behind that poem.”
Lee Tzu Pheng in Silences May Speak.
The last syllable
of your poem
ran to the edge of the page
and fell into scripted silence.
And I was left holding
the alphabets of your whispers,
wondering if you will once again
gather the clouds of your words
and etch the calligraphy of the heart
across the azure lines on my sky.
Your answer is the star-pierced
quiescence of the night sky,
the vast emptiness of the flyleaf
mourning the loss of verse,
the inarticulate maze of dead letters.
But your silence is not voiceless
for you taught me
that silence is an earlier language
learned from the womb of creativity.
Unless I return to the womb
I will never know
the delight of being born again
into the poetry
that comes after your poetry.

THE POET WRITES

2006-06-20T22:48:00.000+08:00

THE POET WRITES

“There comes a time in every person’s life when essential stock-taking becomes necessary-one thinks, reflects and writes as if impelled by something from deep within. No, this is not hallucinatory or even visionary but simply necessary. It is almost as if one writes to exorcise, get rid of something dirty which has been gnawing away and which has always demanded articulation.” Kirpal Singh in ‘idea to ideal’.

The throbbing of creativity
will no longer lie dormant
in the volcano of his heart.
Creation will answer Creator,
this inferno will erupt
& splatter the white of paper
with the lava of words.
Pick up these molten voices,
liquid fire will lay waste
the dead leaves that litter
the garden of your past.
You will be set aflamed
yet not burnt,
consumed yet unscorched.
Stand afar, a spectator,
not a hair will be singed.
His words will be no more
than flickering embers,
soon to embrace frozen darkness.
No phoenix will arise
from their ashes.

H A R M O N Y

2006-06-17T23:53:00.000+08:00

A Muse Amused

2006-06-17T23:32:00.000+08:00

A MUSE AMUSED

And I must go with stone feet
Down the staircase of flesh
One moment of daylight let me have
Like a white arm thruist
Out of the dark and self denying wave
All must be synchronized, the jagged
Quartz of vision with the asphalt of human speech.
Ern Malley in The Darkening Ecliptic

I am roused from etherized slumber,
alive, yet so much like the dew that flies
suicidal into the red hot blades
that knife darkness from dawn.
And suddenly I’ve become J. Alfred Prufrock
wearing the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
I am delirium in Fever 103 degrees,
my head a moon of rich, rice
paper burning like a Chinese phoenix.
I am reliquary of unsung hymns,
the cathedral of a thousand hills
sheltering unrepentant Jews & Gentiles.
But you say that I am the sole Arabian bird
perched on a camellia, juxtaposition of
verbal baubles on a string of broken lines,
tattered cloths sitting on barb wires
that weave a canopy of lies.
You say it is all modish, full
of wise saws & modern instances.
Look within the well of your heart,
see that far tunneled reflection
of you that is me, interloper
brighter than 10,000 suns
impinging upon the macula,
louder than the remembered thoughts
of adultery, nearer the jugular
on your neck. I’ve split the infinitive.

2006-06-17T15:10:00.000+08:00

MUSING

Artists (and poets) sometimes describe the Muse as the “paranormal nature of inspiration”. It is thought to be a faculty that resides in the realm of the unconscious. G.C. Jung called this entity Philemon. “Philemon,” he contended, “represented a force which was not myself. I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. I understand there is something in me which can say things I do not know and do not intend, things which may be directed against me.” This “paranormal” is the fertilizing agent in true imaginative conception…………………………………

This is no opium-filled vision
of lotus eaters,
but the dream of the ancients.
This dream naked in its slumber
becomes fully clothed when it trespasses
into the night of my wakefulness.
Like Jung who found Philemon
and Rimbaud who discovered an other,
I awake to find my dreams real.
This is he who treads
on the arc of a time unseen,
inhabits the place of space unformed,
yet occupies the whole circle
of my knowing and unknowing.
This is the voice that explodes
into the sky of my conscience
and gathers clouds of verses
saying things I do not know,
speaking words I do not intend.
These words are no dead letters,
no modern hieroglyphics
embalmed in an ancient scroll.
These are words that live on
in the winds that romp
across the lines of my face
and dance to the rhythm
of the longings of my heart.
These words live
a life greater than their own
a life bigger than my own,
I tell you, this dream is real.
And one day, I the dreamer
shall fade into the infinity
of its stunted shadow.
But my dream will be the
exalted banner in the sky,
immortalised in the reason
of my being.

Do You Know Ern Malley?

2006-06-16T22:49:00.000+08:00

Ern Malley

“What they seem not to have heard of is the very real existence
of the Muse and the belief attested to by true poets that on every occasion of writing a poem, the poet is in effect invoking her presence, which becomes manifest in the persona that inhabits and “speaks” the poem. Rimbaud wrote in awe, almost in terror, of that presence outside the self in the famous letter to his teacher Izambard: “Je est un autre” (literally, “I is an other”).Wong Phui Nam in “On Invoking the Muse”

Ern Malley
is no shrunken interloper
who scours dead men’s dreams
for visions of the living.
He creates art out of the
ashes of mental verbiage.

He is in me,
yet more than me,
the sum total of my being
is a hill beside this mountain
that steals through the
mathematical
maze of the unfathomable
outback of my mind.

He is the paranormal that peels
away the façade of pretence
from the material world
plumbs the dark secrets
of the fourth dimension
sees the quintessence of my soul
& translates the forbidden
& sacred into living verse.

He is the white swan
that treads on my familiar
unreflecting waters.

Waters Of Bethesda

2006-06-13T07:04:00.000+08:00

Fire In My Heart

2006-06-10T16:54:00.000+08:00

Haikus To Disciple The Da Vinci Code

2006-06-10T16:39:00.000+08:00

Haikus To Disciple The Da Vinci Code

“The Da Vinci Code” is handsome, expensive-looking and filled with impressive
castles, churches, chateaus and museums. It even has a few provocative theories about history. The only thing missing is actual human beings.” David Ansen reviews the film in Newsweek, May 29, 2006

1 only thing missing

peopled, yet lifeless
like hereafter, only life
is the fire of death

2 the mona lisa

beneath crescent smile
is moon laughter deriding
eclipse of reason

3 no morse code

the da vinci code
long dashes of fantasy
stopped by dot of truth

4 last thursday’s dinner

no trite travesty
on john’s face, the cosmetics
of the last supper

5 the holy grail

the grail is no veil
for secret bride, it’s the cup
judas coveted

6 the dark con

a con when you trust
man’s wisdom, i will rather
be a fool for god

7 licence to write

write the wrong, never
wrong the right, licence must not
become the lie’s song

8 the knights templer

it is a dark night
in your temple when you make
knights templates for lies

“Well, I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the
front, saying, ‘This is fiction’.” British actor Ian Makellan, mocking demands that screenings of his most recent film “The Da Vinci Code” should run with
disclaimer stating its fictional basis, Newsweek May 29, 2006

9 right to disclaim

the famines have passed
we the stiff-necked pharaohs have
forgotten joseph

10 the bible code

the code of the heart
dashes in pursuit of god
full stop of fool’s talk

11 the gamaliel warning

and let them alone
men’s work will come to nothing
asses to ashes

12 to change history

the last temptation
is not sex, it's to rewrite
his story your way

Sunrise And Sonrise

2006-06-03T13:15:00.000+08:00

Sonflower
"The Sun of Righteousness shall arise
with healing in His wings."
Malachi 4:2

Sunrise,
see
sunflowers in the sun,
Son flowers in the sun,
sun flowers in the Son
see
Sonrise!

Architecture Of My Heart

2006-05-29T06:49:00.000+08:00

An Old Master

2006-05-25T22:22:00.000+08:00

"Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you.
You're so like the lady with the mystic smile.
Do you smile to tempt a lover, Mona Lisa?
Or is this your way to hide a broken Heart?"
Sung by Nat King Cole, 1950

I am climbing up to chapel
ceilings, scaling refectory walls.
I am recalling renaissance
wizardry to frame your Mona
Lisa fire. I am making
a mystic smile. I am drawing
dreams that dance at door-
steps. I am immortalizing the face
that is love's patented prison.
I am adding last supper
colours, burnished brown of clenched
fists, Good Friday red
of a heady wine. I am working
on a cornerless cloth, nailing
it to the stars, moons, suns,
hanging it on the wall
of my left ventricle. I am painting
you on the canvas of my mind.

Blue Rhapsody Dreams

2006-05-20T22:01:00.000+08:00

"I tell you, this dream is real.
And one day, I the dreamer
shall fade into the infinity
of its stunted shadow.
But my dream will be the
exalted banner in the sky,
immortalised in the reason
of my being."

Rude Silence

2006-05-20T14:26:00.000+08:00

"My quiet is inhabited
by inner voices,
the solitude of silence
is but an illusion."

Colours Of My Palm

2006-05-18T21:09:00.000+08:00

The Kingdom Of Decimated Bells

2006-05-18T19:46:00.000+08:00

Sssh-ilence
I am thinking about silence……the sounds of silence, a cliché, the silence of sounds, the uncircumcised ear of Jeremiah 6. Descriptions of the kingdom of decimated bells…….Hush: Living room, black and white photographs on one wall, digital coloured prints on another. Mute: All the king’s men when they discovered Humpty Dumpty climbed the wall to see the Emperor’s new clothes. Lull: When the lalang in the wasteland of the heart is transplanted into the greenhouse of the left brain. Muffle: Mona Lisa without Da Vinci code to decipher the agnostic gospel of the smile. Aphony: ( A phoney) Plagiarism. Quite quiet: Opus Dei, opening of the seventh seal. Museum silence: His Master’s Voice in the hearth. Messiah silence: My Master’s voice in the heart. Silence born again: An empty manger, no more hay of the flesh to feed the animals of desire!

S T O N E D

It is not the forbidden
I eat but the fruit
I bid for with the widow’s
two mites of my flesh
and now the serpent of the tree
is the Medusa
of the head, its stare
has turned the apples
of my conscience into stones
to silent a prophet.

Another Poem For Mothers' Day

2006-05-13T14:53:00.000+08:00

P A T C H W O R K

My mother was good at patchwork.
She painted the days of our lives
with the colours
of discarded fragments of cloth.
Prim and proper squares,
mystical triangles,
rumbunctious hexagons,
cut, trimmed, matched,
and joined together by the common thread
of her pain and tears.
Her deft fingers weaved the harmony
of surrealistic magic
and unfurled in splashes of rememberance
a blanket to warm our nights.
Mother is gone now
but I still hear her speak
in the flowers, colours, patterns
of this extraordinary patchwork
which is love's tapestry spanning time.

The Colours Of Dreams

2006-05-11T07:16:00.000+08:00

You Are My Mirror

2006-05-10T17:19:00.000+08:00

"I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful.
The eye of a little god, four-cornered."
from "Mirror" by Sylvia Plath

I remember when you laughed
and I laughed and you suddenly
said, "You are my mirror!"

The breeze moving through green leaves recited pantuns
the field of lalang waved in gentle riposte.

I answered, "Yes, I'm your Snow
White mirror who each day
answer your step-mother question
saying, No, you are not
the most beautiful in the land,
you who come again tomorrow
will be more beautiflu than you
today."

I'm like a child who scooped water from a basin
and discovered I have stolen the jewel of the sun.

I am the silver and exact
eye of a little god, four-cornered,
not cruel but truthful, so I said,
"When you look into me
you are so near I read
the map of your iris, yet always,
always, the glass like a glacier
separates us. When you trace
the topography of my cheeks
your fingers run like rivulets
of rain down the window pane.
This sheet the glazier cannot
cut holds the silver that allows
you to come again and again
to me at the back
of the mirror where truth
continually lies."

The moon tired of making shadows shorter, stops its climb
up Jacob's ladder, hid in a pergola of dream-cumulus.

A Poem For All Mothers

2006-05-06T20:20:00.000+08:00

Remembering Mother

Once again
I'm an exile in this room
where the walls are painted
with the baptismal white
of dawn's first light.
And once again
I remember you mother
who gave me first lights.

The walls I face is naked
save for the wooden frame
that has captured in monochrome
a moment of your life.
I see not the black and white
of time and space in distant past,
but the inimitable colours of love
that like a rainbow spans
the eternities between our worlds.

On the opposite wall
the whites of the room coalesce
and recede into the infinity
at the back of the mirror.
But on the surface,
the looking glass catches my image
and I see you mother in me.
The reflection tells me
you never really went away.
You could not have
for this room has no door,
and this is where your shadow
has been gathered into my dreaming,
in this chapel of the heart.

This poem, in memory of my Mother,
Khoo Siew Ching, was first published
in the New Straits Times (Poets Corner).

Joy In The Tree Tops

2006-05-05T22:24:00.000+08:00

A Haiku To Make Your Day High

2006-05-05T18:55:00.000+08:00

One Umbrella

And if I had a second left,
or a million too few,
I know I would live it
in one instant,
if only, with you.
from Beyond A Certain Point
by Daren Shiau

in my dreams, we hug
I wake, find my pyjamas
wearing your contours

the whole universe
is one umbrella, beneath
just the two of us

you walk past a stream
eddies clamour to mirror
your diamond dimples

ring on fourth finger
like belt on middle age waist
the sparkle, teenage

i read your letter
then run fingers over lines
read what my eyes missed

A Page From Eden

2006-05-03T19:19:00.000+08:00

2006-04-30T23:11:00.000+08:00

2006-04-29T21:48:00.000+08:00

2006-04-29T21:47:00.000+08:00

2006-04-28T20:37:00.000+08:00

Ghazal Of A Remembered Light

"A universe simpler than the design of a seed.
One star rules its galaxy, in its sky one constant bird.
Only in my dreams does his feet touch the ground.
When I smile for no reason, it is he who etches the dimples."
From Ghazal of Love by Alfian Sa'at

Sun eclipsed, the moon of your absence,
my sundial dances to a remembered light.

My fingers read the lines of your smile,
my heart recalls all the secret metaphors.

You're the mirror, I'm the room caught in it,
I am completely filled when I fill you completely.

I smile, not so much at your words of endearment
as at the dimples that paraphrase the unsaid.

Your heart in my hands is a pound of flesh,
your heart in my heart is a pounding of flesh.

Kian Seng, the traffic light green of love makes hearts skip
but it is the amber of waiting that makes hearts trip.

Your smile, you painted it for me, an audience
of one, even your mirror is not privy to it.

Your hand in mine, a pendulum swinging,
the world around us a stopped clock.

The flounce of your head, the hair swept over your eyes
& the slow motion replay in the video of my heart.

You're the flower that gives and gives, losing all your petals,
yet you bloom summer colours in winter nights.

Your finger-tip touch, my skin trembles like the water
at Bethesda, I'm healed of the pain of a long wait.

Kian Seng, love cannot be sculpted by chisel & mallet in hands,
it is shaped by the hammer driving nails into palms.

2006-04-27T22:18:00.000+08:00

Footprints

"He kneeled long,
And saw love in a dark crown
of thorns blazing,and a winter tree
golden with fruit of a man's body."

RS Thomas

The places
of trampled grass
where love trod,
one could mistake
them for the foot-
prints of God.

2006-04-26T22:45:00.000+08:00

Prayer

"Most of my time at prayer, I am not so
much talking to God or listening to God as I
am just thinking but doing so with God
in mind."
M. Scott Peck

It is like a window through
which I catch glimpses
of the heavens, the stars punctuating
the silence of the night, the cursive
writing of the clouds on the wall
of the sky, the invisible scaffold
holding aloft the moon
& the sun. Sometimes God looks in,
sees the hidden world
of my bed-room, the sea
of unmade bed, the Everest
of books I have not scaled, the cliff
of curtains hiding dreams.

Glancing out, peeping in, each view
a postcard until I no longer
look for pictures but persons, then
the wall is wholly window
& I'm truly praying.

2006-04-24T19:13:00.000+08:00

Wish Upon A Washy Star

"Yes, love's like that: just when we least
needed or expected it
a part of us dips into it
by chance or mishap and it seeps
through our capillaries, it clings
inside the chambers of the heart."
In Defence of Adultery,Julia Copus

Love is not a giant
slip into a black hole,
it is a man's small step
into the weightlessness
of an inner space, an odyssey
into dizzying orbits, an astral
knot away from home.
It is a landing
on the dark side
of the moon where craters
deeper than cartographers' ink
are illuminated only when shooting
stars explode into a million
shards of pain.

2006-04-23T20:42:00.000+08:00

2006-04-23T20:20:00.000+08:00

2006-04-23T20:03:00.000+08:00

Naomi, My First Grandchild

"She caught the moment
of happiness. A butterfly
flew in the sun."
George Bruce

The shedding of chrysalis clothing,
a sudden butterfly flutters
my heart, a new life
making complete the metamorphosis
of my own.........................

Your first cry is a piping,
a tartan song with Loch
Lomond lyrics. From cocoon
of white, you signal to us
with the antennae of fingers
as if to say, "The code
of a new language is easily
broken by the cipher
of love!" Again and again
the petals of your lips
break into pollens of smiles,
the day's weather forecast
of the Spring you bring
into our lives..............

I pause to drink deeply
the nectar of this moment...

12.53 pm, 8 May 04
Spring, Glasgow

2006-04-22T23:42:00.000+08:00

2006-04-22T23:21:00.000+08:00

The Room

Victoria was silent for a long time. `Science tells me
God must exist. My mind tells me I will never
understand God. And my heart tells me I am not
meant to.’
From “Angels & Demons”
By Dan Brown

I’m tenant in this room
that is bigger than the house
I own, it is as large
as a garden, like Eden
before the twig of Adam’s
rib became a sprig of dragon
fruit.

It is bigger than Good
Friday darkness, its dimensions
measured by the light stealing
through the torn will
of the temple of my mind.

It is bigger than emptiness,
bigger than the unoccupied
heart, yet this same heart
when inhabited by One becomes
as large as this room.

The walls are the compass
points. The East to the West
wall is the distance graffiti
fled when it is erased
by the hand that makes
walls from the first stones
we cast at those who commit
adultery in their minds

The floor is made
for walking, when I walked
every tile, I have traveled
the circumference of the equator
but I have not reached
the heart of the room
until I walk the next
mile.

This room is located
far away, at the line
where sky meets sea, also
nearby at the line
where foot meets sea,
the near line further
than the far line.

This room is not
a dream, yet you need
to dream to reach its door
and arriving you will not believe
it is not a dream
and that the door
is the door of your heart!

2006-04-22T23:16:00.000+08:00

2006-04-22T23:07:00.000+08:00

2006-04-22T22:49:00.000+08:00

2006-04-22T19:23:00.000+08:00

The New Magician

first snow
the neglected yard
now perfect
ES Jacques

Touchdown, the wheels of the plane
flees the cold of the tarmac,
the sudden wind blows like a schoolboy’s
ingratitude, the passengers, breathing like Rowling
dragons, disappear into top hat taxis.

But you, dear Abigail, in Birmingham
are another season, the light of the first
snow flake caught in your eyes,
your dimple, like the winter moon
at noon, invisibly present, makes you a silver
shining in every crowd.

And when you speak, it is the language
of angels I hear, every word names
a flower, ivy, zinnia, campanula, tulip,
lobelia, daffodil, rudbeckia.

And when you smile, it is the smile
of a magician whose sleight of hand
has made the present past and all
the future winters Malaysian summers.

Abigail, my grand daughter, you are the new
magician, Harry is only pottering around.

Birmingham, 17 November 2005

2006-04-21T23:36:00.000+08:00

2006-04-21T23:31:00.000+08:00