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.)