M E A N I N G

 
(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

 
 
 



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

 
(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

 
(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

 
(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

 
(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

 


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

 


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

 
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

 
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

A BROKEN CHINA

 


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

(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

 


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

 

"...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

  

THE PATIENT ANSWERS

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

 
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

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

THE QUIET HEART

 
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

 

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

 
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

 

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

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