tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94696492011-12-17T14:32:21.638+08:00Poetry by Gilbert Koh. Details <a href="http://readerseye.blogspot.com/2000/01/my-published-poems.html">here</a>. All rights reserved.Gilbertnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-21333527523590038342011-06-03T11:38:00.004+08:002011-06-03T11:49:19.065+08:00<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ykz-JxJARw/TehY3OslymI/AAAAAAAAA6o/XrQLIQJSYJI/s1600/526048175_855f8e9a6a.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613834641378495074" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ykz-JxJARw/TehY3OslymI/AAAAAAAAA6o/XrQLIQJSYJI/s320/526048175_855f8e9a6a.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul>Lost<br /></span></strong><br />Heading home, bone-weary,<br />riding on the last train for the northeast line<br />with his eyes closed, his mind fading out on itself<br />one dark memory falling into the next,<br />collapsing into dream. From within,<br />the doubts emerge, one by one, like small,<br />implacable stars, tugging at each other<br />from distances impossible to resolve,<br />until that sudden light, at tunnel’s<br />end, breaks into consciousness,<br />the doors sliding open, the last passengers<br />shuffling out, as he wakes to see that<br />he’s gone too far again, missed his stop<br />searching for himself on the<br />way back home.</ul></ul></ul></ul></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-2133352752359003834?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1127402043158144562008-05-22T23:06:00.001+08:002008-05-19T10:59:34.202+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/goya1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/goya1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong>The Widow</strong></span><br /><br />He died.<br /><br />She lived,<br />or rather continued<br />to exist,<br /><br />standing at a distance<br />from herself<br />to watch her days<br />fall away like leaves.<br /><br />In her mind, she began<br />to rewrite the<br />unhappy plots of<br />their marriage<br /><br />creating fictional,<br />improved endings to<br />better justify<br />her grief.<br /><br />Slowly, she withdrew from<br />the babble and noise<br />of the outside world<br /><br />into the secret inner<br />temple of herself<br /><br />where she alone was martyr –<br /><br />the one betrayed by the other<br />who left too soon.<br /><br />Her prayers were never<br />answered<br /><br />but she remained in<br />that cold,<br />familiar place<br /><br />where all was safe,<br />and always<br /><br />numb.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112740204315814456?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1145413930309491912008-05-21T10:30:00.000+08:002008-05-21T08:04:57.029+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/distillery.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/distillery.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Terminal</strong></span><br /><br />Sipping a little water<br />he calmly talks of pain.<br />He trusts in Jesus (I do not)<br />believes in heaven<br />(I do not), and for a<br />last wish, would have me <br />trust and believe too.<br />Then he coughs, once, <br />very hard - <br />blood and phlegm<br />spilling from his mouth<br />landing on his shirt,<br />a dark patch like cancer.<br />As I reach for the tissue box,<br />he lifts his arms slightly<br />away from himself,<br />a look of mild disgust<br />and annoyance<br />on his face,<br />as if his body were<br />a broken old TV or car,<br />a piece of machinery <br />soon to be thrown <br />away.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114541393030949191?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1149982728723283072008-05-10T07:36:00.000+08:002008-05-19T10:52:55.333+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/censorship.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/censorship.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Hong Lim Park</span></strong><br /><br />a fat man stands<br />announces an opinion<br />as if it mattered<br /><br />in the hot sun<br />the trees yawn and<br />almost sigh<br /><br />the retirees wish<br />they had their<br />park back<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114998272872328307?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1162703506570132422008-05-03T13:10:00.000+08:002008-05-19T11:03:53.918+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/lee.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/lee.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><b><span style="font-size:180%;">On Foreign Talent</span></b><br /><br />All the world’s a stage.<br />We are actors.<br />The script of my country<br />has been rewritten<br />for new and foreign<br />stars.<br />I could leave to act<br />elsewhere,<br />or else forever play<br />the minor parts.<br />“You’re dispensable,”<br />says the director.<br />It’s his call.<br />Although I feel cheated,<br />I know that <em>his</em> show<br />must go on.<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-116270350657013242?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1134027664559163332008-04-29T15:37:00.001+08:002008-05-21T08:08:38.095+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/nguyen.1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/nguyen.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">The Execution of Nguyen Tuong Van</span></strong><br /><br />Death came on a quiet Friday, before sunrise,<br />Slow as the final footsteps to the prison yard<br />Abrupt as a broken neck.<br /><br />So you've crossed, Nguyen, into the clear light,<br />A place without need for answers<br /><br />While we who sleep in darkness<br />Grope and wrestle with our questions,<br />Stumble through our savage dreams.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113402766455916333?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1143285514635600822008-03-20T18:47:00.000+08:002008-05-21T08:16:06.340+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/airport.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/airport.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Business Travel</strong></span><br /><br />Between one delayed flight and the next<br />I orbit in airport lounges,<br />drift from one cup of coffee to another,<br /><br />my mind slipping from the pages <br />of a meaningless magazine <br />into memories of life elsewhere,<br /><br />your touch, the sound of your voice,<br />like signals from a distant planet <br />that I'd missed, and miss again.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114328551463560082?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1133079670609163472008-02-16T23:02:00.000+08:002008-05-21T08:23:04.357+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/train.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/train.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>The Trains</strong></span><br /><br />You sit and wait and watch.<br />As the train approaches, you get up<br />and you walk, to the yellow line,<br />beyond the yellow line,<br />and you<br /><span style="color:#000000;">........</span> fling yourself straight<br />down on the tracks.<br /><br />But you don’t.<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.........</span> You only think about it.<br />You sit and wait and watch.<br />The doors open. People, real people<br />walk, to the train,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...........</span> to the yellow line,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">............................</span> beyond the yellow line,<br />into the train. Then the doors close<br />behind them,<br />and they’re gone,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">........</span> back to their own lives,<br />slow at first, then faster, faster<br />until the train grows thin<br />in the distance,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..........</span> becomes nothing.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113307967060916347?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1128504366921594082008-01-21T17:22:00.000+08:002008-01-21T21:03:47.326+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/caravaggio_s.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/caravaggio_s.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Schoolgirl Kills Herself After Failing an Exam</strong></span></span> <p></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">She jumps from the tenth floor of a housing block<br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">into the brief wild terror of freedom, and transforms<br />into twelve paragraphs of newsprint in the Straits Times,<br />cool and objective, black and white, the verifiable facts only.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">We are told that her classmates are "shocked".<br />And that her parents refuse to comment. We know that<br />for her last exam she scored 41 marks, a fatal result.<br />A teacher describes her as a "quiet, hardworking girl".</span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">We feel obliged to pause to reflect. We wish to search<br />our conscience. <em>She was only eleven</em>, we remind ourselves.<br />There must be others like her. There must be another way,<br />we suspect, for children to grow up in this country.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">But yesterday’s news is quick to slide into the grey of memory.<br />She will become another incidental casualty. We turn the page.<br />We forget. Again we trip and fall head first into the future,<br />down into the depths of a national urge to never stop excelling. </p></span><p></p></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112850436692159408?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-49831025947669731402007-10-11T12:13:00.002+08:002008-05-19T10:56:44.283+08:00<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/Rw2nGy4wPZI/AAAAAAAAAq0/7vewrMeq_3o/s1600-h/moon.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119932086570990994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/Rw2nGy4wPZI/AAAAAAAAAq0/7vewrMeq_3o/s320/moon.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">On Faith</span><br /><br />I disbelieve all religion<br />and ask God's forgiveness<br />for this.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-4983102594766973140?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-24059493691251801692007-10-11T12:13:00.000+08:002008-01-21T21:00:40.464+08:00<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/Rw2jrC4wPYI/AAAAAAAAAqs/QNTptvivIIg/s1600-h/buddha.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119928311294737794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/Rw2jrC4wPYI/AAAAAAAAAqs/QNTptvivIIg/s320/buddha.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">Meditation<br /></span><br />To be still, but for breath<br />And to watch its rise and fall.<br /><br />To sit in your own mind<br />And know that you are sitting.<br /></ul><ul></ul><ul></ul><ul><br />Enter the soundless void <br />and understand<br /><br />That you have never been<br />Anywhere else<br /><br />For there has never been<br />anywhere else to be.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-2405949369125180169?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-56323179999225910102007-08-10T09:55:00.000+08:002007-08-11T10:48:52.162+08:00<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/RrvFqdJdnqI/AAAAAAAAAqk/yTOCAqu3xQA/s1600-h/mantis.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096884736469343906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/RrvFqdJdnqI/AAAAAAAAAqk/yTOCAqu3xQA/s320/mantis.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">Not Home<br /></span><br />I was eight, and alone.<br />Waiting in the garden I talked<br />to trees. Seeds sprouted.<br />Crickets sang. In the house<br />Grandma lay dying.<br />Caught an insect, held it<br />in my hand. Plucked a leg off,<br />as I softly sang. Very cruel,<br />very bad. Surely Papa would<br />come home, if I were bad.<br />Make me hurt, for being bad.<br />One more leg then, and another.<br />Time crawled. I lost count.<br />Finally there were no more legs,<br />but Papa wasn’t home.<br />I dropped the useless insect<br />on the ground. In the house<br />Grandma went on dying.<br />On and on her body twitched,<br />till I crushed it with a stone.<br />Papa wasn’t home.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-5632317999922591010?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-17849157603338880652007-08-10T09:47:00.000+08:002007-08-11T10:51:11.880+08:00<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/RrvExdJdnpI/AAAAAAAAAqc/kgVO1COinKk/s1600-h/body.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5096883757216800402" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_KP-1njdO3FI/RrvExdJdnpI/AAAAAAAAAqc/kgVO1COinKk/s320/body.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><div><span style="font-size:130%;">Osho on Love</span></div><div><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></div><br />You fall in love with a woman<br />because she is so new:<br />the physiology, the colour of her hair,<br />the way she walks, turns, says hello.<br />Everything is new, the territory unknown:<br />you are drawn like a moth at night<br />to a glass-walled flame.<br />As you approach, she runs away:<br />that is part of the game.<br />If she simply says, "Yes, I am ready,"<br />the mystery would fade that very moment -<br />in fact you would think of<br />how to run away. Man is a hunter,<br />so when the woman is chased,<br />running away, hiding here and there, <br />avoiding, saying no,<br />the man gets hot. The challenge<br />becomes intense, the woman must be<br />conquered. Now he grows ready<br />to die for her, to do whatever is needed,<br />his heart will flutter, he will fly,<br />singe his wings on her heat,<br />beat his small head on her glass walls.<br />Before the night ends, he will<br />take her, yes he must, before she too<br />burns out in the first cold<br />light of dawn.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-1784915760333888065?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1122614795150491122007-01-20T13:23:00.000+08:002007-01-23T10:09:19.976+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/sea.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/sea.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:120%;"><strong>My Father Growing Old<br /> </strong></span><br />I imagine him getting up early to make<br />his own coffee. Reading the papers.<br />No plans for the day. Turning on the radio<br />a little louder than it has to be.<br />Alone at home. Then the phone ringing,<br />he goes to answer it and finds me<br />on the line. His son, a grown man now,<br />calling from another country, increasingly<br />distant, more and more a stranger.<br />The call cheers him up, nonetheless.<br />He says, “How are you? How’s everything?”<br />He really wants to know. He is my father,<br />after all. He is growing old. But I don’t<br />know where to start. I want to tell him that<br />I love him and that I’m sorry I have to<br />live my own life now. But these are not the<br />things I know how to say from a distance.<br />These are things I may never learn to say.<br />So instead we speak of smaller daily things,<br />and soon the brief connection between us<br />will unmake itself, and expire. <br /> </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112261479515049112?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1135218862810317932006-12-25T10:32:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:22:49.426+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/magi.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/magi.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>The Adoration of the Magi</em></span></center><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>December Shopping<br /></span></strong><br />Here comes Christmas. Take it, strip it down,<br />wash it clean, then doll it up, prettify,<br />package, add a ribbon. Now offer it up for sale,<br />an orchard road product made new again.<br />See the santa claus reindeer at centrepoint,<br />touch the gold-dusted wings of angel<br />mannequins, feel the softness, the warmth<br />of cotton-wool snow, meltproof against<br />the little coloured blinking bulbs.<br />Do you not rejoice, would you not sing<br />along in a <em>fa-la-la-la-la</em> sort of way?<br />Meet baby jesus and holy mother,<br />starring as takashimaya decorations,<br />the three wise men as props.<br />The crowds are awful, the roads too long,<br />for roads that lead nowhere,<br />but the lights are bright and the sales –<br />oh, the wonderful sales! – are truly<br />a shopper's paradise. What you buy is<br />what you are, and what you are is here,<br />on display, for sale, at a discount,<br />very, very cheap. What joy! What happiness!<br />What a birthday bash! Give thanks,<br />for the power of visa, the size<br />of your December bonus, for this<br />great offering of material things.<br />Let us eat, let us feast like gluttons,<br />swarm like flies, drown in proverbial milk<br />and honey - it’s christmas, after all,<br />Singapore’s greatest shopping season.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113521886281031793?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1165566074276254582006-12-08T16:12:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:23:43.329+08:00<strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2071/598/1600/94833/run.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2071/598/320/72390/run.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Training<br /></strong></span><br />Running means that you will<br />never die. That’s why you come back,<br />year after year, day after day<br />to your training routes<br />the sound of your shoes hitting the ground<br />like a dream of heart and rhythm<br />one beat at a time, then another and another<br />that horizon in your mind still invisible,<br />beautiful, always beyond reach. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-116556607427625458?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1162703203705265142006-11-05T13:04:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:24:35.484+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/ondaajte.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/ondaajte.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>ondaatje’s handwriting</b><br /></span><br />this fine distillation<br />of moments<br />on your pages<br />so cool and<br />clear<br /><br />like one raindrop<br />moving slow<br />along the edge<br />of a leaf<br /><br />then, at the tip<br /><br />pausing<br /><br />as if time itself<br />was<br /><span style="color:#000000;">......</span> breathless. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-116270320370526514?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1161604283406033362006-10-23T19:47:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:24:47.795+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/body.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/body.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Breathless<br /></strong></span><br />When I hold you darkly<br />on crumpled linen<br />in passion<br />without words –<br />search my eyes then<br />you'll know I think<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...................</span> you're<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...........</span> beautiful. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-116160428340603336?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1159926653745220852006-10-04T09:48:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:25:00.637+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/repent.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/repent.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Confession </strong></span><br /><br />If I could stand away from myself<br />And look at me, I think I would be amazed.<br />I fear I’ve gone a little crazy.<br />I sit alone in cafes pondering mysteries.<br />I hear voices where none should be.<br />“Follow me, follow me,” they say.<br />When the weather changes,<br />I read the clouds for messages.<br />Every person passing me on the street<br />is an omen. Most of all, I have seen<br />how all of us are one,<br />Wrapped in the same mystery.<br />When I am cut, you bleed.<br />Now this sight is stripped from me.<br />Now I cry. I weep. I want to write down<br />What I saw. I am an error,<br />I am lost. What is given can after all<br />Be taken away. I want it back.<br />What’s the meaning of meaning?</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115992665374522085?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1159926098443570032006-10-04T09:39:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:25:14.469+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/WhenHarryMetSally.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/WhenHarryMetSally.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Men and Women Can't Be Friends</strong></span><br /><br />Now when I was a kid I watched a movie<br />called "When Harry met Sally" which I suppose<br />must be some kind of classic by now.<br />I think it was Harry who said to Sally, or<br />maybe it was Sally who said to Harry,<br />that men and women can't be friends<br />because sex gets in the way.<br />It's sad that this is true, because right now<br />as I sit and talk to you, I'm wondering<br />what you look like in the nude.<br />Because you look really sexy today.<br />My girlfriend would hit me if she knew,<br />and your boyfriend would hit me if he knew.<br />You would hit me too if you knew,<br />or maybe you'd be flattered.<br />But anyway the point is I can't stop wondering<br />what you look like in the nude.<br />I'm not going to kiss you or hug you or<br />touch your breasts or anything like that.<br />But I really can't or won't stop wondering<br />what you look like in the nude.<br />And maybe this is why men and women<br />can't ever be friends. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115992609844357003?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1159584424729247042006-09-30T10:44:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:35:06.995+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/double.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/double.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Games<br /></strong></span><br />Somewhere along the way,<br />I became familiar with these games<br />of words and politics.<br />Learned to play them well.<br />So did you.<br /><br />Now we know how to smile<br />when we say the things we don’t mean.<br />The half-truth is a useful tool.<br />Every day, we’re masking objectives<br />and planning new manoeuvres<br />in the dark.<br /><br />Although you have my respect,<br />you do not have my trust.<br />We play these games too well.<br />I smile at you, and remain wary.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115958442472924704?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1159583903038504742006-09-30T10:35:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:25:33.326+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Lucas.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Lucas.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Any Different</strong></span><br /><br />Work hard, live long, sleep well,<br />don't think too much, and remember<br />to die quietly when it's your turn to go.<br />Accept the standard definitions,<br />for resistance is useless.<br />Have we not all yearned to be artists<br />or martyrs from time to time,<br />to wear a face in a faceless crowd.<br />Haven’t you learned yet?<br />In the dark we are all the same,<br />just the same, and all your grieving<br />will not make you any different.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115958390303850474?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1159284496833940542006-09-26T23:17:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:25:49.083+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/photo.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/photo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Camera </strong></span><br /><br />You think you know my camera well.<br />The Nikon F2, the reliable silver one, the one I carried<br />For years with me to weddings, birthdays,<br />holidays, the convocations of favourite nieces.<br />To the gushing Merlion, to the National Day Parade,<br />to the sunset views from the Benjamin Sheares bridge.<br />To our vacation on the island of Mauritius<br />where we made much love and swam together<br />in a picture-perfect blue-green sea. To all our days<br />together that mattered, and to those that didn’t.<br />Wherever we went, that old camera came along<br />like a silent witness, preserving what I saw<br />through its clear lens. At home, you browsed through<br />the thick collections of our days and seemed surprised<br />by how people were always happy, smiling,<br />looking the right way. Even inanimate objects like rocks,<br />flowers and the white sands of beaches took on<br />a calm, benign personality. They seemed to assert<br />that the world was full of love and other good things<br />and would stay that way. You did not understand<br />my art. You did not know what my hands and eye<br />had done to those moments, how this camera had closed<br />in what it wanted to see. With care and precision.<br />With a skill I’d honed for years and practised,<br />almost like deceit.<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115928449683394054?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104540832767133312006-09-22T08:52:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:26:03.647+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/112304.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/112304.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><strong>Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M</strong></span><br /><br />You were five months old. New in my life.<br />You lay in the cot listening to nursery rhymes<br />repeated by a battery-operated toy. You couldn’t sleep.<br />When <em>Ba Ba Black Sheep</em> came on for the fourth time,<br />you wept with what sounded like despair.<br />Already you had a taste for the better things in life.<br /><br />From the closet I took the old guitar.<br />I hadn’t touched it for years. I wiped the dust off<br />with a cloth. Tuned up the sad, neglected strings again.<br />But my fingers did remember and my ears were still there.<br />So I played. I sang <em>Yesterday</em> like a clear memory.<br />And there was Simon &amp; Garfunkel’s <em>Sound of Silence</em>,<br />and Presley’s <em>Love Me Tender</em>. All oldies even<br />back when I’d first heard them myself.<br /><br />In the dark you sat, propped against your baby pillows.<br />Wide-eyed and listening, you followed my voice and guitar,<br />gulping down each note. It was like nothing you’d heard before.<br />You were fascinated. You struggled to stay awake.<br />At 3 a.m, the last beautiful stanza of <em>If</em> by Bread<br />finally pulled you into sleep.<br /><br />But I sat there by myself, playing on. Cradling the guitar<br />close to me. You remind me of things, son, that I’d known all along.<br />Like the sound of a simple major chord. And the way the old songs talk<br />of love and tell a story. I teach you words, I sing you songs,<br />and you teach me again their possibilities.</ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454083276713331?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1123146052125987472006-08-09T06:49:00.000+08:002007-08-11T11:00:11.133+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Goya.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/400/Goya.jpg" border="0" /></a><center>Francisco de Goya, The Third of May</center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:120%;"><strong>National Day Parade</strong></span><br /><br />I had a small part in a<br />Big show of a great little nation.<br />My uniformed mates and I were<br />To march out, swing left,<br />Turn twice, and get off the grounds<br />In twenty seconds flat.<br />Meanwhile the music boomed,<br />The lasers splashed,<br />And the darkened crowds hit<br />A new high of pre-planned,<br />Programmed excitement.<br />Later at home, my mother replayed<br />The video tape five times<br />But couldn't tell her tiny toy-<br />Soldier son from any of the rest.<br />"That one is me," I said,<br />Pointing at the screen.<br />I couldn’t be sure.<br />Still we laughed and clapped<br />Our hands like children,<br />Knowing that it was never<br />Supposed to matter.<br /> </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112314605212598747?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1119773905592680652006-08-04T16:02:00.000+08:002006-08-04T07:12:28.050+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/chinese%20art%20tree%20branch2.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/chinese%20art%20tree%20branch.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><em><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">ching ming</span><br /></span></em></strong></span><br />to bright hill temple she has gone<br />carrying joss and money<br />bringing food and drink<br />for her mother-in-law’s soul.<br /><br />lychees oranges and one apple<br />two bowls of white rice<br />three vegetarian dishes<br />ang ku kueh and bean paste buns<br /><br />joss sticks chopsticks<br />a vase to hold the flowers<br />two chinese cuplets<br />to hold the chinese tea.<br /><br />with a weary heart<br />she kneels before the urn<br />to explain for those<br />who are not here.<br /><br />ah seng cannot come<br />he is too busy at the office<br />tua gor cannot come because<br />she is in poor health<br /><br />ah leong will not come<br />now that he is baptised<br />ji gor is not coming<br />but i do not know why.<br /><br />so today i come alone, mother<br />i bring your favourite dishes<br />this money i burn for your<br />use in the other world<br /><br />the years pass and we forget<br />but i am here, mother, and today<br />you shall not be lonely<br />in the season of the dead.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-111977390559268065?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1151559224510393592006-06-29T13:22:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:27:40.891+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/shadow.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/shadow.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Happy Birthday To Me</strong></span><br /><br />33 years old, and starting from scratch.<br />The world as womb. My time has come.<br />As young, and as old, as I'll ever be.<br />What lies beyond? Which doors do I close,<br />what part of me do I take with me?<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115155922451039359?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1151386157169432652006-06-27T13:24:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:29:23.063+08:00<center><a title="Photo Sharing" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/89572886@N00/176059663/"><img height="188" alt="boys" src="http://static.flickr.com/77/176059663_e78ba8b4fe_o.jpg" width="276" /></a></center><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Rainbow Fish</strong></span><br /><br />Teck, remember<br />when we were kids<br />wading barefoot<br />in the stream<br />behind our home,<br />catching rainbow<br />fish those small bright<br />lights making<br />ripples widening<br />in the water?<br />Now we sit here<br />on a rainy day<br />over beer and<br />peanuts,<br />scooping up<br />old memories<br />in a netful of small<br />live colours,<br />see how they gasp<br />in surprise<br />and leap crazily,<br />still alive,<br />after all this time<br />their silver bellies<br />still vivid in </ul><ul>the sun.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115138615716943265?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1151081164192839702006-06-24T00:42:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:33:50.152+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/alberteinsteintongue.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/alberteinsteintongue.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Poor Speaker</strong></span><br /><br />I have a habit of mumbling.<br />My tongue grows thick and I myself can hear<br />how from my mouth<br />one word emerges indistinctly into the next,<br />like porridge poured onto other<br />shapeless porridge.<br />This often happens when I am caught<br />in one of those social situations<br />where I need most<br />to appear sophisticated, intelligent and articulate,<br />in other words, those occasions<br />when people talk too much,<br />say too little and hardly listen at all.<br />At such times, in a certain ironic way,<br />the incomprehensible sounds<br />escaping my lips<br />are in fact the most appropriate things<br />I could possibly say.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115108116419283970?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1145080218835988732006-06-23T13:40:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:28:16.700+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/PaddyChewPlay.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/PaddyChewPlay.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Paddy Chew’s Last Show</span></strong><br /><br />Life is real. Art is its mirror. Or is it the<br />other way round? Paddy Chew has forgotten.<br />His life is here now, on stage, Paddy starring as himself,<br />the final act, before the curtain falls<br />and the lights go out forever.<br /><br />“This is me,” he says to the audience, “take a look.”<br />He lifts his shirt up. A stunned silence.<br />Ribs cast shadows on other ribs. The flesh<br />has fallen away, the body a territory conquered<br />by the relentless virus.<br /><br />This is what Paddy tells his audience:<br /><i>I liked women. I liked men too.</i><br />At least that is what he remembers.<br />These days his body yearns for nothing, not sex,<br />not food or water, nothing but its own breath,<br />exhausted, in and out, in and out,<br />an almost unnatural thing.<br /><br />Lies are for the living. Truth is for the brave.<br />Masks fall away when death comes close.<br />“I am so close,” Paddy says, “to dying.”<br />All he wants is to show the audience<br />what he has seen. That all of us are dying,<br />and none of us should die alone.<br /><br />Paddy dies, but not alone. In a way, he lives on too.<br />Love is his message. Love endures. I did not know him,<br />but I know what love is. I wrote this poem<br />so that others like him will live,<br />and die, but not alone. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114508021883598873?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1150943703816842362006-06-22T10:32:00.000+08:002007-08-10T09:28:23.190+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/old%20man.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/old%20man.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>About My Father<br /></strong></span><br />Back from the hospital,<br />two weeks after the surgeon cut<br />his heart apart and sewed it<br />back together again.<br />He resumes his normal life.<br />Fixing breakfast in the morning<br />for the family - bread and jam,<br />and coffee - then settling down<br />to read the paper.<br />Only occasionally speaking,<br />to express surprise at some event </ul><ul>reported in the press. </ul><ul>It is as if nothing has happened.<br />When he has truly departed<br />I shall remember him<br />as he was, here.<br />A man of few words, inscrutable.<br />Drinking black, hot coffee.<br />His eye steady on a world<br />he'd already begun to<br />leave behind.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115094370381684236?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141419354372105582006-06-20T04:52:00.000+08:002007-08-11T12:55:18.261+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/dentist.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/dentist.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Dental Check-Up</span><br /><br />The week before my<br />appointment, I abstain from<br />coffee, upgrade my brand<br />of toothpaste,<br />and religiously brush<br />the most difficult crooks<br />and crannies of<br />my teeth,<br />regretting chocolates<br />and other recent<br />sins.<br /><br />Now I open my mouth,<br />peer hard into the bathroom mirror,<br />move my tongue from<br />side to side, self-<br />examine, anxious<br />and guilty.<br />Doctor, forgive me,<br />it's been too long<br />since my last<br />confession.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114141935437210558?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1150685918114101242006-06-19T10:56:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:31:22.387+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/campfire.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/campfire.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><center><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Waiting for Inspiration</strong><br /></span><br />I’m trying to write a poem in the shape of a circle<br />but all the words are still lingering<br />on the edge.<br />I hope they will step in soon. </center><center></center><center><br /></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-115068591811410124?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1142728781639802052006-06-19T08:36:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:29:53.679+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/flower.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/flower.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Beautiful</strong></span><br /><br />You want me to say you’re beautiful<br />but I won't use these tricks<br />on you -<br /><br />moonlight walks, sweet words,<br />unexpected flowers,<br />fine wine and candlelight<br />jazz moods,<br />professions of love forever<br />in silly poems<br />on rainy nights made<br />for two,<br /><br />it’s the clever men<br />who know these tricks,<br />the women never do -<br /><br />when I hold you darkly<br />on crumpled linen<br />in passion<br />without words<br />then search my eyes<br />you'll know that I think<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..................</span> you're<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.........................</span> beautiful. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114272878163980205?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1149981785867448552006-06-11T07:20:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:34:56.197+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/klimt%20death%20and%20life.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/klimt%20death%20and%20life.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Alone </strong></span><br /><br />In a secret place, a very secret place,<br />with the world so faraway<br />that I end up whispering to myself.<br />No one knows I'm here,<br />and no one will hear me speak.<br /><br />Just beside me, a clear little stream,<br />running over pebbles, passing moss-covered rocks.<br />If I slipped and hit my head,<br />I think I might stain the water red<br />and die here.<br /><br />Listen to how it breathes, babbles, all nonsense,<br />rushing to irrelevant destinations -<br />see how it ignores me.<br />I just might want to slip, hit my head,<br />to stain the water red<br />and die here.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114998178586744855?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1120302150719183912006-06-04T18:58:00.000+08:002006-06-19T11:01:59.710+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/p069.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/p069.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:85%;">Caravaggio, <em>The Holy Family</em></span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Family</strong><br /></span><br />Late at night I return home<br />from work and find my wife and child<br />fast asleep together.<br />When I lift him from her breast<br />she sighs in her sleep as if lost<br />in distant dreams.<br />But in the dark my son stirs<br />and clings to me,<br />fighting off the drowsiness<br />that drapes him like a cloak.<br />His small arms, recalling<br />his father’s body, lock around my neck<br />as if imagining a drowning.<br />So here too is the language of loss<br />the fear of loss,<br />and this is how he learns to love,<br />as we ourselves have learned.<br />We forget, we crowd<br />our lives with white noise,<br />bright colours, a thousand </ul><ul>irrelevant things,<br />but in the end we return<br />to all there really is –<br />the sons, the fathers<br />the women whom they love<br />and in all the nights ahead<br />this great black fear<br />of absence. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112030215071918391?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1149241519113410052006-06-02T17:42:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:39:47.039+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/as.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/as.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Third Party</strong></span><br /><br />The woman I love<br />is yelling at her mother<br />who is yelling back.<br />I try to intercede,<br />to make peace.<br />She snaps, “Shut up,<br />it’s none of your business.”<br />On this point alone,<br />her mother fully agrees.<br />I sit back, roll my eyes<br />at the ceiling.<br />Taking the spectator’s<br />back seat.<br />They turn back to their<br />rudely interrupted<br />quarrel.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114924151911341005?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1149240845129021322006-06-02T17:30:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:41:51.661+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/clouds.png"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/clouds.png" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:150%;"><strong>When I Was Little</strong></span><br /><br />Dragons used to dance in the sky,<br />and strange animals stretched as far as the eye<br />could see, cotton white against brilliant blue.<br />They would not speak, but I saw them going through<br />their lazy movements, changing shape with the wind,<br />sometimes disappearing, then reappearing,<br />sometimes looking down to watch us crawling<br />about on earth. They knew we wouldn’t notice. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114924084512902132?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1149240484112112852006-06-02T17:25:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:38:23.942+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/005beach1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/005beach1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Bako Island</strong></span><br /><br />Thirty minutes by boat takes me from here<br />to a village where people make their living<br />tossing nets into the sea;<br />but at sunset on Bako<br />no footprints walk the beach but mine<br />and all the world is sky and ocean.<br />Still it seems that no one knows<br />this place, no one remembers<br />how a hermit crab defies, marking<br />a wind-swept, wave-swept beach<br />with the sandy trails of<br />its lonely travels.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114924048411211285?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148889046371632382006-05-29T15:48:00.000+08:002007-08-10T09:01:54.718+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/wed.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/wed.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>church wedding</strong></span><br /><br />The handsome groom, smiling like plastic,<br />systematically shook two hundred<br />well-wishing hands.<br /><br />The nervous, excited bride constantly<br />touched her frizzled hair as she mingled<br />and made silly small talk rapidly.<br /><br />The balding, cheerful pastor, arriving<br />slightly late in his immaculate suit, delivered<br />his well-rehearsed, eloquent sermon<br /><br />on God, love and the bonds between<br />man and wife. The non-Christian guests held<br />brown little hymnbooks and opened<br /><br />their awkward mouths, as others rose<br />to their feet and sang `Amazing Grace'.<br />Somewhere at the back of the chapel,<br /><br />a baby burst into violent tears,<br />and her parents hushed and shushed,<br />trying in vain to stop her.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114888904637163238?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148525770472438172006-05-25T10:36:00.000+08:002007-08-11T12:56:33.254+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/seal.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/seal.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;"><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Swimming </span><br /></strong><br /><span style="color:#000000;">…</span>My breath<br />is bubbling<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…………</span>nonsense<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……</span>talkative<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………</span>but my body's<br />a silent shadow<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………</span> gliding on the blue<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…………………..</span> of pool bottom.<br /><span style="color:#000000;">….</span> Flecks of sun dance<br />breathlessly<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……….</span>on my skin<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…….</span>but in my ears<br />there is only gurgling,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……</span>silence,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…………</span>gurgling, silence,<br />as i submerge,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………….</span>emerge, submerge,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……..</span>emerge merge<br />with the arc of<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………</span>breaststroke<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………………..</span>pulls.<br />Those of you who fly<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…………………</span>will mock my<br /><span style="color:#000000;">….</span>sluggish strokes<br />and call me<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……….</span>a poor little frog<br />but i'm really just<br /><span style="color:#000000;">……………….</span>a very lazy whale<br /><span style="color:#000000;">………..</span>with one lifetime<br />to cross<br /><span style="color:#000000;">…..</span>my oceans.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114852577047243817?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148443316803926322006-05-24T12:00:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:32:21.096+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/gold.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/gold.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Social Ambitions</strong></span><br /><br />I’m doing<br />all the<br />right things<br />moving in<br />all the<br />right directions<br />spiraling up<br />all the<br />right circles<br />to my dreams<br />in society’s<br />higher places.<br />The higher<br />I get,<br />the further<br />I have to<br />go -<br />I’m always<br />almost very nearly<br />there,<br />but never quite<br />there yet.<br />It seems that the</ul><ul>same goes for </ul><ul>nearly everyone else </ul><ul>in this peculiar,<br />perpetually<br />hungry<br />little nation<br />of ours.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114844331680392632?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148259887067081102006-05-22T09:02:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:29:10.969+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/lizard.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/lizard.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>House Lizard</strong></span><br /><br />He thinks the wall is his,<br />and the ceiling too,<br />the little monster,<br />his eyes beady black,<br />his fat body growing fatter<br />as the months go by.<br />Night after night he feeds<br />like a glutton on the<br />helpless bugs<br />that, drawn by the table<br />lamplight, unsuspectingly<br />fly in through the window.<br />He shits on the sill,<br />leaving black pellets of<br />digested insect,<br />and when I'm not here,<br />slithers impudently<br />into my mug as if it’s<br />his goddamned sofa.<br />When I'm in the room,<br />he prudently sticks<br />to the ceiling,<br />beyond my easy reach,<br />going tsk tsk tsk in his<br />patronising voice.<br />I swear he's laughing.<br />He’d better watch it,<br />or one of these days<br />I'll shoot him down<br />with a thick rubber band.<br />Bang. Thwack his fat little<br />head good and proper.<br />He'll fall to the floor<br />with brains puddling<br />around his head,<br />tail leaping off<br />his corpse giggling<br />like a muscle<br />in the throes of<br />death.<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114825988706708110?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148036140207334472006-05-19T18:54:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:33:34.914+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/zen.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/zen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Turtle Pond<br /></strong></span><br />Theirs surely is a small universe,<br />yet they sit perfectly still on the rocks,<br />little heads held up,<br />lost in thought<br />contemplating philosophies<br />too profound for me<br />to imagine.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114803614020733447?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1148035561877760962006-05-19T18:44:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:34:07.024+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Ansel_Adams.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Ansel_Adams.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><center><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Writing Poems</strong></span><br /><br />Some kind of<br />hunting has been<br />going on<br /><br />and it’s the thrill<br />of capture<br />that I’m after,<br /><br />the victory of<br />pouncing<br />on a piece of life,<br /><br />trapping it in<br />the net<br />of language<br /><br />pressing it down<br />into black and<br />white<br /></center><center></center><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114803556187776096?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104550376435034392006-04-16T23:54:00.000+08:002006-04-16T21:26:45.906+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/hands.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/hands.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Editing Poetry</strong></span><br /><br />I am at work<br />today<br />crafting language<br />polishing<br />my lines of<br />verse<br />humming to<br />myself<br />as I bring out<br />the quiet<br />shine<br />of these<br />small<br />creations.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110455037643503439?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141106920096144922006-04-16T21:48:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:33:21.545+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/old.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/old.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">The Beggars in Chinatown</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></strong><br />One of them approaches me now,<br />small and bent-over, shrivelled<br />by age and history.<br /><br />She mumbles and stretches out<br />her wrinkled paw to ask for coins -<br /><br />but I look away, apologetic.<br /><br />I do not see her.<br /><br />I tell myself that by now she must<br />be used to being invisible.<br /><br />The poor do not usually exist –<br />they merely inhabit some mysterious zone<br />beyond the range of our<br />normal vision.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114110692009614492?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1145005794589966472006-04-14T16:58:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:35:34.843+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3060/944/1600/ST_3288925_30_12_2005.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3060/944/1600/ST_3288925_30_12_2005.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Death of Ong Jia Hui</strong></span><br /><br />Your son dies. Your only son dies.<br />Your soldier son dies, not in war,<br />but in peacetime, not in peace,<br />but at sea, drowned in a training accident,<br />an accident they say, but they don’t<br />tell you why, they don’t tell you<br />how it could have happened<br />when others were there, everywhere,<br />in the water, on the boat,<br />yet no one saw him sink,<br />no one saw him slip beneath the waves<br />the singing waves, the rifle<br />slung round his body like a rock or noose,<br />a great fatal noose<br />with God’s hand pulling.<br />No one heard him call for help,<br />which finally came of course,<br />but came too late,<br />so late that all you have now<br />for a son is his body,<br />some damned medals and the memory<br />of that body, so pale and<br />cold and clean, and now as you sit<br />in your small neat kitchen<br />with the solemn, grey-haired colonel<br />you find that you have no more tears,<br />and though the colonel tries<br />he too has no more words<br /><em>Mrs Ong, I'm so sorry</em> one more time.<br />As he stands to leave,<br />he puts his hand on your shoulder,<br />a strong firm soldier’s hand<br />like your son's,<br />as if that could stop the hurt<br />or answer questions,<br />all your pointless questions,<br />they swirl in your head<br />and just won’t wash away.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114500579458996647?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1136342741134982072006-04-13T10:41:00.000+08:002008-05-21T08:11:33.049+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/moon.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/moon.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">XVII The Moon, </span><a href="http://www.fredmartin.net/"><em><span style="font-size:78%;">Fred Martin</span></em></a></center><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong>You Had A Nightmare </strong><br /><br />Then the wide-eyed<br />shock of waking<br /><br />the surprise of bedsheets<br /><br />street lights through<br />the usual windows<br /><br />and these arms of mine,<br />again around you.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113634274113498207?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1144815578095326182006-04-12T11:57:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:36:00.881+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Huineng1p.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Huineng1p.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Why The Buddha Smiles</strong></span><br /><br />Shen Hsiu the senior monk rises from meditation<br />And writes this on the monastery wall:<br /><br /><ul>The body is the tree of enlightenment<br />The mind is the bright mirror that stands before it<br />Take care to wipe it constantly<br />Let not the dust settle</ul><br />Hui Neng the kitchen boy rises from his sleep<br />reads the wall and in reply he writes:<br /><br /><ul>There never was a tree of enlightenment<br />Nor any bright mirror standing<br />Since all is empty<br />Where is dust to settle?</ul><ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114481557809532618?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1144718191481393202006-04-11T09:09:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:35:48.855+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/HellMoney3.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/HellMoney3.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>somebody's ashes<br /></strong></span><br />caught in my mouth<br /><br />as the wind danced wild<br />among the offerings<br /><br />on a night of hungry ghosts.<br /><br />I spat, then spat again<br />vehemently:<br /><br /><i>Choi!</i><br /><br />Not my time yet.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114471819148139320?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1144632442417738952006-04-10T09:24:00.000+08:002006-06-02T17:10:48.923+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/stillwaters.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/stillwaters.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong>the lost poem<br /></strong><br />like a fish briefly<br />breaking the lake's clear surface<br />then slipping away<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114463244241773895?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1144375450011235232006-04-07T09:57:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:36:41.956+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/FossilFish.1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/FossilFish.1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Poison </strong></span><br /><br />For three days now<br />a guppy has been dead<br />and floating,<br />bobbing around<br />the aquarium filter.<br />Each night I come home<br />late from work<br />and observe the further<br />stages of its<br />decomposition,<br />the slow collapse of<br />fins, tail and<br />abdomen.<br />Bad things linger<br />in our lives<br />because we don’t<br />have the energy<br />to deal with<br />them,<br />to fish them out,<br />no, we only<br />watch<br />as if hypnotised<br />while they rot<br />and fester<br />as they will<br />sometimes spreading<br />a slow and lethal<br />poison.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114437545001123523?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104539585728371932006-04-02T10:49:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:36:13.776+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/plant.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/plant.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Plant at my Window</strong></span></span><br /><br />I want to be the potted plant<br />at my window because it exists<br />without fear or worry<br />it understands that its sole purpose<br />is to live and grow<br />and in the most adverse circumstances<br />it will not complain against<br />fate or cruelty.<br />Having nothing to hope for,<br />it will not despair,<br />and as it does not know the<br />meaning of giving up,<br />there will be always be a new leaf<br />a new flower, or an old root<br />pushing deeper still<br />for water, for as long as <br />this is possible.<br />A final day will come,<br />as it must for all that live,<br />but the end, as I imagine it,<br />will be painless and without regret,<br />without a sense of being<br />cheated,<br />or a need for courage,<br />without even a trace<br />of memory. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110453958572837193?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104541666381112902006-04-02T09:48:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:30:48.324+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/swan.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/swan.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>The Ugly Duckling</strong></span><br /><br />In later years, the swan became<br />even more beautiful.<br /><br />The lake was his second sky<br />and across its clear surface he glided<br />like a dancer.<br /><br />But sometimes in the evenings<br />he paused by the reeds<br />at the lakeside<br /><br />to watch the toads in their season.<br /><br />Like a swarm of cold grey warts<br />on infected skin,<br />hundreds of them gathered to mate,<br />belching out their vile croaksong,<br />their ancient sound of<br />the urge<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.......</span>of life itself.<br /><br />Watching them, he would recall<br />his ugly duckling days,<br /><br />and again he would despise himself<br />for his weakness,<br /><br />for his fear of living in a world<br />that would not regard him<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...........................</span> as beautiful.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454166638111290?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104541642169355732006-04-02T09:07:00.000+08:002006-04-02T08:17:08.880+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Tunnel.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Tunnel.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>One Picture of the Two of You</strong></span><br /><br />So that night, you grew wistful,<br />telling me about the man you loved,<br />and why he could not love you back.<br /><br />He was my friend too, I could<br />not hear this, and uneasily I steered away<br />from the private convolutions of your heart.<br />Get over it, I counselled, return for a while<br />to Malaysia, see your family, and remember<br />where home is.<br /><br />So I said what came easy for me,<br />excusing myself from your confidence,<br />how lightly my words moved within<br />the maze of your emotions.<br /><br />Neither I nor you nor he could have guessed<br />then that in a year's time you'd be dying<br />in a KL hospital, an unexpected disease<br />spreading wildfire through your marrow.<br /><br />He would be the one packing a hasty bag,<br />sleepless on the last train rushing north<br />in darkness, arriving late again,<br />too late again as usual.<br /><br />If only you’d known this earlier, or he, or even I,<br />then things might have turned out differently.<br />Then again, perhaps not.<br /><br />I permute the possibilities, ponder<br />the what-ifs, imagine reversing the clock.<br />The futility is mocking. I know absolutely that<br />none of this can matter now.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454164216935573?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104545964704057952006-03-25T18:19:00.000+08:002006-03-25T18:39:38.596+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/deadbabies.2.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/deadbabies.2.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>The Bureaucracy</strong></span><br /><br />We are a cold hard part<br />of a necessary process,<br /><br />repeating through the<br />years repeating.<br /><br />Our names are soon forgotten,<br />our faces do not endure,<br /><br />and as we pass on and on,<br />failing like a memory,<br /><br />only our most tenacious<br />errors will survive,<br /><br />take root, cling to life<br />like slow, steady infections<br /><br />entrenched in the rigid bodies<br />of our harsh institutions,<br /><br />repeating through the<br />years repeating.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454596470405795?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104544514040092842006-03-23T09:55:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:28:54.306+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/crowded.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/crowded.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Taking 151</strong></span><br /><br />The bus is packed<br />and crowded, so try<br />not to touch<br />anybody else and <em>don't<br />look</em> (it's rude) at breasts<br />or moles on people's<br />necks or armpits' black bushes<br />when people reach up<br />to hold on tight you can smell<br />sweat turned sour and<br />people's hair<br />but here's a turn, the bus<br />swings <em>wo-Oaa-oah!</em><br />we hang on<br />for dear life like on<br />a disney roller in slow mo<br />why don't they put more<br />handles for us to grab<br />on to! Bet the bus driver<br />thinks this is fun, the<br />creep, his only piece of fun<br />driving up and down<br />this stupid island.<br /><em>Ahh</em>, but when I get my<br />seat and window,<br />I'll let the air come in<br />to kiss me (never mind<br />the smog) won't look in<br />to see who's beside me<br />won't look out either<br />or left or right or up down<br />I'll just plug into clapton<br /><em>yeah</em> yeah <em>yeah</em> yeah <em>yeah</em><br />live unplugged at albert hall ...!<br />and see if I care about the<br />rest of you - ha!<br />I've got a seat, a space<br />for my body for my mind<br />listenin' to the world's<br />greatest music<br />you can stand there and<br />be pressed by other bodies<br />but I won't be here till<br />I have to get off at<br />jalan toa payoh.<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454451404009284?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104546030579315192006-03-22T10:20:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:37:34.764+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/woman.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/woman.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:140%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Chinese Dumplings</span></strong><br /><br />The old, shrunken woman<br />sits in her warm<br />kitchen on a<br />humid afternoon,<br />offering instructions<br />as her daughter wraps<br />glutinous rice<br />with bamboo leaves<br />into tight, neat<br />pyramids of <em>zongzi</em><br />with small beating<br />hearts of sweet<br />bean paste.<br /><br />The younger woman<br />frowns as she works,<br />concentrating,<br />fingers memorising details<br />of technique.<br />The year may be<br />her mother’s last,<br />and the need<br />to learn has grown<br />urgent,<br /><br />like the strike<br />of oars along the<br />weeping<br />Miluo river<br />as a patriot embraces<br />the water<br />drowns without<br />resistance,<br />the forsaken body<br />beginning to slip<br />away.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110454603057931519?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1142729479071531292006-03-19T08:48:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:28:33.835+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/road.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/road.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Pied Piper of Hamelin</strong></span><br /><br />Yes, they cheated me,<br />but it was not I who stole their children.<br />I merely played my music,<br />and my music is the song of the travelling wind,<br />the song of time passing, the song of<br />all things inevitable,<br />and the children who followed my song<br />followed freely,<br />chose their own steps<br />and left their parents behind,<br />as all young things grow,<br />and come to leave their nest<br />in time.<br />Yes, the mothers and<br />the fathers gather and they weep,<br />but only because they forget<br />how it was when they themselves<br />were children,<br />and heard the song of the<br />travelling wind, the song of time passing,<br />the song of all things inevitable,<br />they forget how they left their<br />own nests too,<br />bold and reckless,<br />followed my strange song freely.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114272947907153129?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1142123721472508742006-03-12T08:26:00.000+08:002006-03-12T08:37:46.026+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/sad.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/sad.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul>What I Didn't Tell You</strong></span><br /><br />We ended up in a bar whose name I didn't know.<br />I had a black russian. You had something that you didn't like.<br />There was a pianist. He played silly love songs.<br /><em>Can't Help Falling In Love. If You Don't Know Me By Now. </em><br />I was all screwed up inside.<br /><br />You weren't crying anymore. I felt like having<br />Another drink. I said that I wasn't ready. Not for this.<br />Not now. All screwed up inside. Had to sort myself out first.<br />Take some time. Nothing to do with you, I said.<br />I thought that this might be a good time to get drunk.<br /><br />So we talked. For a long time. Until the pianist quit.<br />A saxophonist came on. If you get drunk, you can say<br />Anything you like. Or not say it. Nobody will know<br />whether you meant it or not. Nobody blames you<br />for anything.<br /><br />"Drinks on me, the next time." That was what I said.<br />When we were leaving. Just to see how you'd react<br />to the words. <em>Next time.</em> I wasn't drunk.<br />Didn't get drunk after all. Didn't tell you<br />that I loved you.</ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114212372147250874?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1138664462571252622006-03-10T23:37:00.000+08:002006-03-12T09:44:04.866+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/body.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/body.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>We Were Talking Poetry at a Coffee Café<br /></strong></span><br />And then you took out this poem<br />You’d lately written. Work in progress, you said.<br />But even as I ran my eyes over its skeleton<br />I felt the bright red pain of it, the sense of loss<br />Of which it tried to speak.<br /><br />This half-shadow lurking in your eyes,<br />Like a memory. How much of this was truth,<br />How much only fiction? I did not ask the question.<br />I feared the answer would be a wound too deep<br />For me to even try to help you heal.<br /><br />So we discussed the technicals only. The choice<br />Of a word, the colour of a metaphor. Where to break<br />A line. Sipping bitter expressos, testing resonances,<br />We rearranged the bones of your language,<br />Studiously avoided its weeping flesh. </ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113866446257125262?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104551635702279202006-03-10T11:53:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:37:22.773+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/rain.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/rain.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Monsoon</strong></span><br /><br />At the end of storms,<br />we set our paper<br />boats free<br /><br />into broad deep<br />drains swollen<br />with rain,<br /><br />then raced along<br />in slippers yelling<br />wild adventure,<br /><br />riding the waves,<br />dipping, diving,<br />defying death<br /><br />sweeping ahead<br />for miles and miles<br />(we imagined)<br /><br />till currents crushed<br />the boats shapeless<br />like wild water,<br /><br />and the swirling<br />tops of furious white<br />pulled us down<br /><br />like a memory<br />of distant<br />childhood days.<br /><br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110455163570227920?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141418982704433712006-03-10T04:46:00.000+08:002006-03-11T17:57:47.393+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/prison.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/prison.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Ex-Convict at a Public </strong></span></ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Swimming Pool</strong></span><br /><br />In the men’s<br />showers,<br />the deep dark<br />brown of<br />his wet back and<br />shoulders<br />contrasts with<br />the startling<br />white of<br />his bare<br />buttocks,<br />where four lines<br />of dead hard<br />flesh<br />as thick as<br />fingers<br />raise themselves<br />like ridges<br />straddling the terrain<br />of skin <br />once torn.<br /><br />In the cold<br />spray,<br />he is singing<br />loudly<br />as he vigorously<br />scrubs himself<br />clean,<br />defying the<br />many furtive<br />sidelong glances<br />and a few<br />open stares,<br />his scars<br />exposed like<br />the past<br />he will not<br />hide,<br />knowing it<br />can never<br />quite<br />be forgiven<br />or washed<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.........</span> away.<br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114141898270443371?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141418157647510302006-03-04T04:33:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:32:35.280+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/hirsch1942a.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/hirsch1942a.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Isn’t Really<br /></strong></span><br />Thinking loose, morose thoughts<br />is what I catch myself doing<br />too often these days.<br />Putting them down on paper is<br />how I deal with them.<br />So if my poems look black and<br />bleak, I like to think that<br />this isn’t really me.<br />I’m a happier, simpler person<br />than this. I’m not alone.<br />I’m not lonely. Life isn’t these<br />four walls and a window,<br />one mind listlessly rearranging<br />words into gloomy moods.<br />I’m quite sure that this isn’t<br />really me. It isn’t.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114141815764751030?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141417492106130562006-03-04T04:20:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:36:24.805+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/zen%20cat.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/zen%20cat.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Family Cat</strong></span><br /><br />Outside<br />skies are bleak<br />and grey with rain,<br />but here you curl<br />in a rattan basket<br />meant for </ul><ul>flowers,<br />hug yourself<br />like a soft pillow<br />and sleep like<br />a baby,<br />utterly lost<br />in love<br />with self.<br /><br /><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114141749210613056?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141195403068082872006-03-01T14:41:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:37:10.090+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/saf.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/saf.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Sergeant Talking BMT on Pulau Tekong</strong></span><br /><br />Can you take the training? Ha! Stupid question.<br />Look at your rifle, see the signs of age, feel the wear and tear.<br />Many men have passed this way before, many more will come.<br />You're just another one in a great big crowd. They survive. We survive.<br />You're no different from them. Us.<br /><br />But if you want some advice - watch your feet.<br />Be careful. Look where you step and how you land,<br />especially when you're tired. Fatigue has a way of finding<br />holes, uneven ground and stones to break your ankle on.<br />And army boots are bad for feet if you're not a soldier yet.<br /><br />Damn! These mosquitoes. Just grab the air<br />and you might catch one or two in your hand.<br />Use this net at night. It'll save you more than a little blood.<br />Every 14 days you take two pills that bite faster than you can swallow.<br />It's bitter poison, to stop the malaria from eating you up.<br /><br />In the jungle, if you really must,<br />then pee only against grass or other inconspicuous plants.<br />Don't laugh. Stay away from rocks, trees and uncommon vegetation.<br />Remember to apologise, and remember - <em>speak aloud!</em><br />Not all of them can hear your thoughts.<br /><br />I have three stripes but I am NSF like you.<br />You're my last batch of men before I leave this stupid army.<br />So if you don't give me trouble, I won't give you trouble.<br />But you take drugs, kill yourself, go awol or try to homo anybody<br />then I'll be very angry. Then you'll be sorry.<br /><br />Three months is not so long. Here we like to train you hard<br />and keep you busy. There's not much time to think<br />when you're busy. Besides, this is just the beginning.<br />There are lots of places worse than Tekong.<br />Who knows where they'll post you after three months? <ul><ul><br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><br />This poem is part of the <a href="http://readerseye.blogspot.com/2007/12/and-now-note-from-your-resident-poet.html">Please Criticise Me</a> project.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114119540306808287?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141195123424734942006-03-01T14:36:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:31:42.082+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/sandgstreet.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/sandgstreet.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:180%;">Golden Oldies</span><br /></strong><br />You were five months old. New in my life.<br />One night you lay in your cot listening to nursery rhymes repeated<br />idiotically by a battery-operated toy. You couldn’t sleep.<br />When “Ba Ba Sheep” came on for the fourth time,<br />you wept with what sounded like despair.<br />Already you had a taste for the better things in life.<br /><br />From the closet I took the old guitar.<br />I hadn’t touched it for years. I wiped the dust off with a dry cloth.<br />Tuned up the sad, neglected strings again.<br />But my fingers did remember and my ears were still there.<br />So I played. I sang “Yesterday” like a clear memory.<br />And there was Simon &amp; Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”,<br />and Presley’s “Love Me Tender”.<br /><br />You sat there in the dark, propped up on your baby pillows.<br />Wide-eyed and listening, you followed my voice and guitar,<br />gulping down every note. It was nothing like you’d ever heard before.<br />You were fascinated. You struggled to stay awake.<br />It was 3 a.m when the last beautiful stanza of “If” by Bread<br />finally pulled you into sleep.<br /><br />But I sat there by myself, playing on. Cradling the guitar<br />close to me. You remind me of things, child, that I’d known all along.<br />Of love, and the way the old songs talk of love.<br />Every day I teach you words, I sing you songs,<br />and you teach me again their possibilities.<br /></ul></ul></ul><br /><br /><a href="http://readerseye.blogspot.com/2007/12/and-now-note-from-your-resident-poet.html">Please Criticise Me</a>.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114119512342473494?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1141126398358259302006-02-28T19:30:00.000+08:002007-08-10T15:56:26.864+08:00<p><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/moon.5.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/moon.5.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul>Harder </strong></span><br /><br />Ten to midnight, in the middle of the week.<br />Go to bed feeling lost. Waiting for sleep.<br />Pondering over a friend's statement that<br /><em>"what you really need is a fresh start."</em><br />Wondering if this is true. And how he’d know.<br />Hoping that when I wake up tomorrow,<br />all this vagueness in my life will have resolved<br />itself into something harder. Knowing that this<br />won't happen. Not so lucky.</ul></ul></ul></ul><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114112639835825930?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1140484861207800042006-02-21T09:15:00.000+08:002006-02-21T09:21:01.270+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/terrapin.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/terrapin.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong>Mondays</strong><br /></span><br />When I was four or five,<br />Mondays were always so faraway.<br />I stayed with my uncle.<br />We took walks every day.<br />To the playground, with its creaky<br />old swings with rusty chains.<br />Along the road where we lived,<br />peering into other people's houses,<br />wondering about their<br />kids and dogs.<br />To the scrap yard behind<br />our own house,<br />where hundreds of dead,<br />useless cars piled up in long rows.<br />With hardly a soul in sight.<br />I could choose any car I liked.<br />I could climb in and pretend<br />I was driving fast. <em>Vroom vroom.</em><br />Grab the steering wheel and turn it<br />this way and that. My uncle would stand<br />outside the car and wait.<br />Laughing at me until he grew bored.<br />But I didn't care. <em>Vroom vroom.</em><br />Years later, six lanes of traffic would<br />rush through where this scrap yard<br />once was. And all these battered,<br />broken cars would be gone.<br />But at that time even my uncle,<br />who knew a lot of things,<br />couldn’t have known that.<br /><br />If it rained then we couldn’t go<br />for walks. I’d sit in a room and read<br />old National Geographics<br />with my uncle. Well, not read.<br />I couldn’t yet. But I’d flip through<br />the pages and look at the photos<br />of lions and spiders and<br />dark people with no clothes.<br />“Those are pygmies. They live<br />in Africa and when they’re far apart<br />they talk by using drums,”<br />my uncle said.<br />That was interesting. But I liked<br />the animals better. There were<br />other books. They had children's stories<br />and nursery rhymes. I liked<br />National Geographic best.<br /><br />Sometimes we’d go to the reservoir.<br />It was only a few bus-stops away.<br />We’d bring bread. We’d tear it up<br />into pieces, and throw them<br />into the water. Terrapins and fish<br />came up from deep inside the<br />dark green water to gulp the pieces down.<br />Sometimes two fishes would fight<br />for the same piece of bread.<br />At the water’s edge there were tadpoles.<br />Small, black, squiggly things.<br />There was a wooden platform<br />raised above the water so you could walk<br />from the shore some way out to<br />where the really big fish were.<br />At least that's where my uncle said<br />they were. I never actually saw any.<br />He'd sit on a bench to rest<br />and read the newspapers and<br />sometimes even fall asleep<br />while waiting for me.<br /><br />When we got back, my aunt would<br />make me a snack. “Do you want milk<br />or Milo today?” she’d ask. Humming a happy,<br />absent-minded tune under her breath.<br />She was always humming.<br />I wanted black coffee like<br />my uncle but I couldn’t<br />until I grew up.<br />But I could have a sandwich.<br />With ham, eggs and tomato.<br />Butter on both sides.<br />Or marmalade. I liked marmalade.<br />No one else in the house liked jam<br />so my aunt's marmalade was<br />all for me. After I finished,<br />she would make me take a bath.<br />With hot water and Dettol soap.<br />And lots of baby powder<br />after I dried off.<br />"So that the germs won't come<br />to visit you tonight, and you can<br />sleep properly," she'd say.<br />I didn't want the germs to<br />ever come to visit me.<br /><br />On weekends, my real parents would<br />come to take me home.<br />I never wanted to go. I’d cry.<br />Furiously. I’d cling to my aunt,<br />or to a table, or the fence.<br />Holding on fiercely,<br />with all my strength.<br />“Please, boy, let’s go,” my mother said.<br />She sounded like she was<br />going to cry too.<br />My father looked on, angry and<br />embarrassed. He would've liked<br />to smack me hard.<br />“Be a good boy,” my aunt coaxed,<br />prising my fingers from<br />the fence wires. “You’ll be back<br />here on Monday. We can go to<br />the reservoir again.”<br />I cried more furiously.<br />When I was four or five,<br />Mondays were always<br />so faraway.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114048486120780004?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1140068038244629602006-02-16T13:31:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:31:09.223+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/despair.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/despair.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>A Nothing Kind of Job</strong></span><br /><br />I come to work<br />in a shirt and tie<br />I draft contracts<br />my clients call me<br />all day long<br />to ask me questions<br />& wrap up deals<br />their deadlines<br />sound like threats<br />my palms sweat<br />as I reply politely<br />&amp; tell myself<br />be cool, it’s a<br />nothing kind<br />of job<br /><br />I go for meetings<br />where they talk about<br />companies & money<br />not art or happiness<br />just companies &amp; money<br />they draw charts<br />I take notes<br />they talk numbers<br />I take notes<br />when they argue<br />I take notes<br />sometimes I say something<br />like <em>please stop fighting</em><br />& they listen<br />I draw cats and dogs<br />when no one’s<br />looking<br />I tell myself that<br />most people hate<br />their jobs<br /><br />Once I tried to quit<br />I gave my boss the letter<br />he said why<br />I said I don’t know<br />he said you can’t do this to me<br />I said why not<br />he said it’s the money<br />I said it’s not<br />you’re lying &amp; I’ll raise<br />it 500 bucks, he said<br />I said ok &amp; took<br />my letter back<br />he smiled<br />I felt sorry for myself<br />I knew it was a nothing<br />kind of job<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-114006803824462960?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1104477015913927152006-02-14T19:09:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:30:11.736+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/durian.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/durian.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Durian</strong> </span><br /><br />In this season,<br />if pa was in a good mood<br />he'd come home with a<br />gunny sack of thorny fruit,<br />which we, the children, would<br />gingerly roll out onto<br />old newspapers<br />and then we'd wait,<br />in wide-eyed anticipation,<br />for some adult (we couldn't do it)<br />to prise open with a<br />butcher's knife<br />the hard green shells<br />exposing sweet yellow flesh<br />on which we sucked,<br />like eager babies<br />on an offered nipple.<br />Grandma would cluck<br />disapproving, saying<br />that too much durian<br />makes you cough, but<br />excitedly, we'd pronounce,<br />with all the experience<br />of our tender years,<br />on the quality of<br />what we’d just eaten -<br />the taste, texture, smell,<br />the milky feel against<br />our pinkish-red tongues.<br />Nothing made pa happier<br />than to know that<br />he’d picked<br />a good durian for us.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-110447701591392715?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1135132195373150362006-02-14T10:07:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:28:00.502+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/ed01011.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/ed01011.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">Klimt, <em>Death and Life</em>.</span></center><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Interpretations</strong></span><br /><br />Each poem, a living thread, and each life, different,<br />Winding its way through the tapestry.<br />The body is real. The body grows. The body dies.<br />We come to the same great darkness.<br />Free verse is illusion. We have no choice –<br />Always the story will tell itself. The words record the people, </ul><ul>The words record the places. <em>Once we were here. </em></ul><ul>The answers slip away, and lie in silence, </ul><ul>Between the lines, between the shadows of</ul><ul>The things we leave unsaid. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113513219537315036?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1139237943340660812006-02-06T22:55:00.000+08:002006-02-07T09:13:23.966+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/degas.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/degas.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;">Kuala Lumpur</span></strong></span><br /><br />Outside a noisy bus station<br />on a bright hot day,<br />I met a young man<br />about my age<br />who wore jeans, a singlet<br />and a smile as bright as<br />his twinkling eyes.<br />He knew I was from<br />out of town and<br />to make sure I understood him,<br />he spoke in Malay, Hokkien,<br />Cantonese, Teochew<br />and broken English,<br />offering to get me anything,<br />anything I might possibly need -<br />a taxi, a cab, a place to stay,<br />a coach ticket or a woman<br />("All my girls, clean!" he said confidently)<br />and a room to go, immediately available,<br />here he jerked his thumb up<br />to point out the upper floor of the<br />old coffee shop next to us.<br />Downstairs, there were students,<br />clerks and blue-collar workers<br />having lunch, but<br />upstairs, by a<br />dark narrow stairway,<br />was another kind of trade altogether.<br /><br />That night I stayed at the<br />hotel puduraya,<br />looked out from<br />my eighth floor window,<br />and saw him, still there,<br />on the other side,<br />cheerfully accosting passers-by<br />with his offers.<br />I could not help but<br />imagine it:<br />fucking<br />in a little room<br />above a coffee shop<br />to the sound of honking traffic<br />warm naked flesh pressing mine<br />working hard<br />while downstairs he talks<br />to strangers, trying to get<br />my lover<br />one more body<br />for the night.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113923794334066081?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1138699792598654032006-01-31T17:27:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:23:30.331+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/munch-scream.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/munch-scream.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The State Speaks</strong></span><br /><br />Your identity is<br />a number on a pink card<br />that the law will not<br />allow you not<br />to carry.<br /><br />Now obey,<br />or be deleted. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113869979259865403?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1138119694168285682006-01-25T00:17:00.000+08:002006-01-25T00:25:12.293+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/renoir_promenade.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/renoir_promenade.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Accident<br /></strong></span><br /><span style="color:#000000;">.......</span>And I,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">............</span> gazing at stars,<br />stumbled over you,<br /><span style="color:#000000;">......................</span> tripped<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...................</span>and<br /><span style="color:#000000;">........</span> fell painfully in love,<br />couldn't get up<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...............</span> for ages.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113811969416828568?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1137744130532834462006-01-20T15:44:00.000+08:002006-01-20T16:02:10.586+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/cat1.1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/cat1.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>National Leadership</strong></span><br /><br />In this country,<br />a fine young leader<br />is no accident.<br />He wins the right<br />scholarships,<br />thinks the right<br />thoughts,<br />is selected for<br />rapid promotion<br />giving him<br />adequate altitude<br />to practise his<br />helicopter vision.<br />His confidence<br />is carefully cultivated<br />through the years,<br />to achieve the<br />arrogance of the<br />truly great.<br />Yes sir, we are always<br />who we are,<br />simple honest people,<br />but sometimes<br />we still long too hard<br />for heroes. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113774413053283446?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1137465472313609102006-01-17T10:29:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:27:27.130+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/vieux_guitariste.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/vieux_guitariste.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Midnight Arpeggios</span></strong><br /><br />In the fierce quiet<br />hours<br />when words fail<br />and the mind strains<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...............</span> against the<br /><span style="color:#000000;">........................ </span>silence,<br />the fingers can still<br />move,<br />defining the curve<br />of each<br /><span style="color:#000000;">......</span> emotion<br />against the<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..........</span> dark wood.<br /><br />Now you’re gone,<br />but I shaped a chord<br />on the old guitar<br />and wrote these<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.................</span> words,<br />remembering<br />the old melodies<br />we played<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..........</span> together,<br />all the colours<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..............</span> of moods<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.....</span> and meanings<br />you taught me<br /><span style="color:#000000;">...</span> on these<br /><span style="color:#000000;">..........</span> strings. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113746547231360910?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1137200303805641442006-01-14T08:54:00.000+08:002006-01-14T08:59:53.773+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/02.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/02.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><a href="http://www.art-of-china-today.com/loching/"><strong><span style="font-size:85%;">Lo Ching</span></strong></a><span style="font-size:85%;">.</span><br /></center><center></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Foreign Worker Cutting Trees</strong></span><br /><br />On this island, the branches of tall trees<br />in public places are not permitted<br />to grow as they please<br /><br />but must be regularly trimmed on<br />hot restless sun-drenched days<br />by foreign workers<br /><br />bearing electric saws, climbing<br />with bare hands and feet<br />up into alien treetop territory.<br /><br />Today I held my breath as I watched<br />one of these men make his way<br />twenty metres up above ground -<br /><br />if he fell he would surely break a limb<br />or back or otherwise kill himself on<br />this hot, forgettable afternoon,<br /><br />a thousand miles from home.<br />Knowing this, perhaps, he kept pausing,<br />looking for right places to put his foot;<br /><br />taking each small step with an infinite,<br />enduring patience. Finally reaching a safe perch,<br />from which he knew he could not fall.<br /><br />He put down his saw in the fork of two<br />small branches. Wiped the sweat from<br />his face with the back of his hand.<br /><br />And sat down, legs dangling, to rest a while,<br />amidst the spreading arms of the giant<br />rain tree, to catch the view.<br /><br />It struck me then, how simple, how harsh,<br />life could be. You thought only about one thing<br />at a time. Where to step next. How to cut<br /><br />a branch. How not to fall. How not to think<br />of your wife or lover, back bent, planting padi<br />seedlings in the rain-soaked fields<br /><br />of another country. All your days<br />were slipping by, up in the leafy treetops of<br />a distant island. You could think,<br /><br />as long as you liked, on these hot<br />endless afternoons. There would always<br />be enough trees for that.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113720030380564144?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1137046521656743492006-01-12T14:10:00.000+08:002006-01-12T14:15:21.793+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/tellier.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/tellier.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><em>Girl with a Mandolin</em>, Picasso</strong></span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Critique </strong></span><br /><br />Of late, I’ve grown suspicious of my poems.<br />With age, they get crude and cranky, grow defiant<br />and get from bad to worse. I can almost smell<br />the senility creeping in. Last night,<br />the keyboard sulked, a theme protested,<br />and all my metaphors went missing.<br />My fingers typed this line –<br /><em>"We’ve gone on strike, so stop the kissing."<br /></em>I’m still wondering what this means. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113704652165674349?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1136874765182015372006-01-10T14:28:00.000+08:002006-01-12T14:18:36.983+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/125/1307/400/Military%20Prison%20In%20Saigon.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/hello/125/1307/400/Military%20Prison%20In%20Saigon.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">Photo by </span><a href="http://mysticvietnam.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size:78%;">El-Branden Brazil</span></a><span style="font-size:78%;">.</span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Strangers </strong></span><br /><br />We return at night<br />from work<br />we enter lifts<br />press buttons<br />exit lifts<br />press ourselves<br />into our units<br />their shapes so similar<br />we briefly forget<br />the walls that stand<br />between.<br />Along the common<br />corridors,<br />we glimpse those<br />other lives –<br />old school shoes<br />left outside,<br />small altars of<br />red Chinese gods,<br />sad, neglected<br />houseplants,<br />a woman’s voice<br />raised in anger<br />against defiant<br />children.<br />The names are blanks,<br />the faces familiar<br />and forgotten,<br />each story<br />brief and incomplete.<br />Now a door opens,<br />then shuts,<br />and a window slides,<br />then slides back<br />again,<br />and another day<br />closes like a<br />hanging<br />conclusion.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113687476518201537?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1136625811995130272006-01-07T17:11:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:29:41.297+08:00<center><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Catholic School</center></strong></span><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/caravaggio_o.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/400/caravaggio_o.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div align="left"></div><div align="left"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>E</strong></span>very morning we lined up at the courtyard and said our morning prayers before singing the Majulah Singapura. Tall and thin, clad in white, Brother Michael stood at the microphone. His deep, calm voice leading us through the ancient words, leading us like a steady hand through the darkness of our closed eyes. Our Father. Hail Mary. Prayer of Saint Francis Xavier. The murmurings traveled like wave upon wave inside your head, going deeper and deeper till they vanished into nothing. Then the first strains of Mari Kita began and it was like you’d suddenly just woken up and stepped into a real, more solid kind of world.<br /><br />The school was very old. It had stone floors and archways and long corridors. The Japanese had used the building as a base during the Second World War. They killed some old missionaries here. Chopped their heads off. It was true. You could read about it in the history books. You imagined the Irish priests kneeling before the executioners, heads bowed as if in offering to the bayonets. The sturdy silver blade, stained with blood, repeating the downward stroke. You wondered how holy you’d have to be to tell yourself then, <em>"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do"</em>.<br /><br />There was a library. Dusty books stacked so high you had to stand on a chair to reach them. On geography, science, maths and history. And on theology. T-h-e-o-l-o-g-y. You remembered Father Tseng saying that word once, during Bible Knowledge class. An old man with stooped shoulders. Plucking precise verse out from memory. Speaking about the agonies on the cross, the betrayals of a traitor, forty days of wandering in the lost desert conversing with the devil. You looked at Father Tseng, grey-haired, frail and distant, moving around slowly with his battered, dog-eared bible in hand. You imagined him standing calmly before the Japanese – <em>yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil</em>. You suspected that somehow Father Tseng, like God, might live forever.<br /><br />At recess, Daniel Mark said that Kok Cheng was going to hell when he died. "You're going to burn, Kok Cheng," Daniel Mark said, sounding evil. And very sure. Daniel Mark would go to heaven because he was Catholic and went to church every Sunday. Kok Cheng looked scared. He never said his prayers at morning assembly. His parents were Buddhist. Also, he had a girlfriend from the convent school down the road and he said he’d fucked her. Twice. Kok Cheng said he didn’t know then that it was a sin but Daniel Mark said that God knew he was lying and that everyone ought to know that fucking was a sin. "It’s too late now, Kok Cheng," Daniel Mark said solemnly. "You’re damned."<br /><br />I felt sorry for Kok Cheng. You couldn't help it if your parents were Buddhist. You couldn't help it if you had a name like <em>Kok Cheng</em>, instead of <em>Michael</em>, <em>Abraham</em> or <em>Daniel Mark</em>. I didn’t know anything about fucking, except that it was something dirty and you had to study it in Sec Three biology. I didn’t want to fuck anybody. I wasn't Christian myself, but I said my prayers anyway. <em>Our Father in Heaven. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Amen. Amen.</em> It was easy enough. I was quite young and I didn’t know a lot of things. But I knew it was better to be safe than sorry.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113662581199513027?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1136511921212777682006-01-06T09:40:00.000+08:002006-01-28T10:01:55.896+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/125/1307/400/Carrion%20Bird.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/125/1307/400/Carrion%20Bird.jpg" border="0" /></a><center><span style="font-size:78%;">Art by El-Branden Brazil, <em><a href="http://galleryofthebizarre.blogspot.com/2005/11/carrion-delights-art-by-el-branden.html">Carrion Delights</a></em></span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>The Dead Poems</strong></span><br /><br />You printed them out and <br />read them aloud to test them. <br />But you knew already that <br />they were not strong enough.<br />Still you tried. You crafted them <br />further and did your best<br />to make them breathe.<br />You offered them to friends <br />and editors, fellow poets, <br />but they frowned and shook <br />their heads, apologetic. <br />So you came home and the <br />poems suffocated into <br />liitle paper balls. You threw <br />them into the waste basket. <br />In Microsoft Windows, <br />you pressed “Delete” and <br />like a coffin, the Recycle Bin <br />opened to claim them. <br />Their ranks swelled over time <br />and they grew numerous<br />like names forgotten in an <br />old graveyard.<br />It was you who killed them -<br />you and your bumbling <br />lack of inspiration.<br />You could sense their silent <br />reproach, their mute accusations<br />of your failings. <br />More than once, you were tempted <br />to click “Empty Recycle Bin”<br />and erase their memory <br />for good. But guilt stopped you,<br />and so you left them there, <br />in the cemetery of your <br />hard disk. A final resting place.<br />There they lay, the dissatisfied <br />dead, the complaining corpses <br />of your poetic misadventures.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113651192121277768?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1135927865931616362005-12-30T14:08:00.000+08:002007-08-10T08:40:34.877+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/dogGlasses.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/dogGlasses.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;">A</span>ctually lots of things happened to me this year, but since this is my poetry blog, I'm just going to write about the poetry stuff.<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffcc33;"><strong>Golden Point Award</strong><br /></span><br />The highlight of my year was winning the <a href="http://www.nac.gov.sg/eve/eve08.asp">Golden Point Award</a> for Poetry, an event reported in the Straits Times, the Business Times, the Lianhe Zaobao <em>and</em> <a href="http://tomorrow.sg">Tomorrow</a>.<br /><br />Subsequently, I encountered a few clever critics (a grand total of three, actually) who basically implied, insinuated or otherwise said outright that my winning poems kinda sucked and maybe I shouldn't have won. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinions and anyway you can't please everybody all the time - that's an important lesson I learned. Life goes on.<br /><br />I also discovered that some people in Singapore believe that a secret formula exists for winning the GPA, and that is to write not the way you want to write, but in the way that the judges want you to write. And some of those people believed that I knew the secret formula and had applied it. Sorry folks, I really don't know how the judges wanted me or anyone else to write. I just try to write the way <em>I</em> want to write. That's a big enough challenge for me. Isn't it, for you?<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffcc00;"><strong>Workshops & Drama &amp; Readings</strong><br /></span><br />Two of my poems, <a href="http://readerseye.blogspot.com/2005/11/delacroix-liberty-leading-people.html">Chiang's Heatstroke</a> and <a href="http://readerseye.blogspot.com/2005/08/francisco-de-goya-third-of-may.html">National Day Parade</a>, were transformed into drama pieces and performed by <a href="http://www.nowstagethis.com/events-PoeticLicence.htm">Stages</a>, a local theatre company, at the Singapore Art Museum Auditorium. <a href="http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/erlandso.htm">Kelly Madigan Erlandson</a>, a poet in Nebraska, USA, used my works in a writing workshop to teach her students how to write poetry.<br /><br />I read at a grand total of one poetry reading this year. Ummm. It was one of those Subtext readings organised by the tireless local poet <a href="http://www.softblow.com/shuhoong.html">Yong Shu Hoong</a>. I was very pleased to meet acclaimed Australian poet <a href="http://www.australianpoet.com/mark.htm">Mark O'Connor</a> at this reading. He read some startlingly beautiful poems. About nature and the wilderness and all that. He's an environmental kind of guy. I'm definitely going to try to track down his books.<br /><br /><span style="color:#ffcc00;"><strong>Publications</strong> </span><br /><br />I didn't write a lot of new stuff this year, but a lot of old, unpublished stuff managed to get itself published in various anthologies, journals and e-zines. I had two poems in <a href="http://dimsum.com.hk/">Dim Sum</a> (Hong Kong), one poem in <a href="http://www.hku.hk/english/yuanyang/yuanyang.htm">Yuan Yang</a> (Hong Kong), two poems in <a href="http://www.victionary.com/book/gp.html">Graphic Poetry</a> (UK), four poems in <a href="http://www.softblow.com">Softblow</a> (Singapore), one poem in <a href="http://www.atlantareview.com/samples.htm">The Gift of Experience</a> (USA) and one prose piece in <a href="http://www.evenstar.net/mwe/index2.html">In Our Own Words</a> Vol 6 (USA).<br /><br />I was supposed to have six poems appear in the November issue of <a href="http://nzpoetsonline.homestead.com">Blackmail Press</a> (New Zealand). But the editor changed his mind and decided to use those poems in February 2006 instead. So I guess this can't count as a 2005 poetry event for me.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#ffcc00;">Good Stuff That I Read</span></strong><br /><strong></strong><br />This was the year I discovered <a href="http://www.khamush.com/life.html">Rumi</a>. Yeah, I know, long overdue. My single biggest discovery in poetry this year. This is life-changing stuff. Don't try it until your soul says so.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#ffcc00;">Reader's Eye<br /></span></strong><br />I've really grown to like this blog a lot - and that means all you readers too. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your comments and criticisms. This blog has been a great way to share my poems with other people, and that really means something to me because a poem is not a poem unless it has a reader.<br /><br />And it has been a marvellous thing for me to discover and come to know, through Reader's Eye and the blogosphere, other fellow poets and poetry lovers, people like <a href="http://i-land-i-site.blogspot.com/">Floots</a>, <a href="http://dsnake1.blogspot.com/">Dsnake</a>, <a href="http://blueskytavern.blogspot.com/">Liz</a>, Alson, Orso, <a href="http://livingpoetry.blogspot.com">Amy G</a>, <a href="http://waitresspoems.blogspot.com/">Patry</a>, <a href="http://fishywords.blogspot.com/">Cocaine Jesus</a>, Dreamer Idiot, mrdes, mischz and others. Thank you all and I hope you have a great 2006.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113592786593161636?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1119776742020803432005-12-29T17:01:00.000+08:002005-12-29T17:44:48.106+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Narcissus(Caravaggio,_1598-99,_Rome).jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Narcissus%28Caravaggio%2C_1598-99%2C_Rome%29.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:85%;">Caravaggio, <em>Narcissus</em></span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>A Completely Safe, Good Poem</strong></span></span><br /><br />It is about nothing you love, hate or desire.<br />It avoids sex, God and politics.<br />The line breaks are unadventurous<br />And the shape of the poem is prudent.<br />The words do not take up arms,<br />Tear down walls or otherwise conspire.<br />As you put them down on paper,<br />They neither protest nor demonstrate,<br />But merely compose themselves<br />With a careful, calculated blankness.<br />They will do exactly as they are told,<br />And nothing more. One late night<br />When sleep evades and the questions burn<br />You return here to your own words<br />To seek the answers to yourself.<br />And it is too late. The words fold their arms<br />And smile in silence. They take no risks.<br />They know what they know, but they<br />Will tell you nothing.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-111977674202080343?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1135084256732178232005-12-20T20:59:00.000+08:002005-12-24T07:37:03.610+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/rainsteamspeed.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/rainsteamspeed.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:80%;">Joseph Turner, <em>Rain, Steam and Speed</em>.</span></center><br /><br /><span style="font-size:120%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Train Ride to Singapore</strong></span><br /><br />The train pulled out slowly<br />like a long sigh<br />and I saw from my window<br />how you stood alone at<br />the station platform<br />with hands in your pockets –<br />you refused to wave<br />but smiled a reluctant, sorry<br />kind of goodbye.<br /><br />Five years ago we skipped<br />the <em>bahasa melayu</em> class<br />to play <em>chor dai di</em><br />in the dirty, deserted<br />alley behind<br />Ah Hin’s coffeeshop,<br />we talked about girls<br />and about all the<br />things we’d do<br />when we were old enough<br />to get a job or into<br />university -<br /><br />things were so much<br />simpler then.<br />Now we understand that<br />the colour of skin<br />opens doors for some<br />in this country,<br />forever closes them<br />for others.<br />I’m going south<br />alone to chase a dream,<br />because I can,<br />you can’t,<br />for this I’m sorry<br />and I really don’t know<br />if I’m ever<br />coming back.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113508425673217823?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1134957116717046332005-12-19T09:44:00.000+08:002005-12-19T09:51:56.770+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/dali.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/dali.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Mirror, Mirror On The Wall</span></strong><br /><br />Five hundred years old I was,<br />and possessed of mystic powers.<br />She could have asked me to tell her<br />the secrets written in the stars,<br />or to show her the wonders hidden<br />in the depths of the darkest sea.<br /><br />Instead all day long she preened<br />and prattled before me, like a peacock<br />nibbling delicately at its feathers.<br />Playing with her mascara and bright<br />pink lipsticks. Talking to herself,<br />giggling like a schoolgirl<br />then acting solemn as she asked me –<br />“Mirror, mirror on the wall,<br />who’s the fairest of them all?”<br /><br />The truth was that the queen was<br />schizophrenic. Normal people don’t<br />talk to mirrors. She was seeing<br />a psychiatrist but sometimes she skipped<br />her pills and then she’d act weird.<br />She had this obsession with<br />her looks – her eyes, her nose,<br />her skin, her everything.<br />So I told a lie and earnestly replied,<br />“You, my queen, are fairest of them all”,<br />although of course she wasn’t.<br />You have to humour them a bit<br />sometimes, you know?<br /><br />But was she satisfied? Did she get better?<br />Oh no. Night after night, she came back to me,<br />fingers toying in her long dark curls.<br />“Tell me, tell me again,” she cried fiercely.<br />And I did. I said, “You’re the fairest, queenie,<br />no doubt about that at all.”<br />But it was clear that she wasn’t getting<br />any better. Finally, I told her,<br />“Look, you’re sick. You need help.<br />You’re sixty-three this year, how could you<br />be fairer than even a prepubescent kid<br />like Snow White?<br />Everything about you is wrinkled,<br />even your sanity. For goodness sakes,<br />get a hold on yourself and go check in<br />at the mental hospital.”<br /><br />Of course she didn’t listen. I should<br />have known better. I should have called<br />for help then, yelled for the palace guards –<br /><em>Help, the Queen is crazy!</em><br />But I was just a mirror on the wall,<br />who would’ve believed me?<br />Day after day, the queen sat before me<br />sinking deeper into her own madness,<br />swallowed by her jealousy.<br />In desperation I chattered on and on,<br />trying to distract her. I talked about<br />the weather, about sports, about dwarfs<br />and fairies, jack’s beanstalk and all the rest<br />of it. None of it worked. One day,<br />the queen started muttering to herself<br />about eating Snow White’s lungs<br />and livers. Another day she went on<br />and on about an enchanted comb<br />that could kill little girls.<br />Her mind was sinking fast.<br />Then one night she wouldn’t eat<br />and started talking to<br />the fruits on her silver platter,<br />as if plotting a conspiracy.<br />I knew she was a goner then.<br /><em>Poison</em>, she whispered, <em>poison</em>,<br />as she picked up a blood red apple,<br />held a knife and stabbed into<br /><span style="color:#000000;">............................</span> its pale yellow heart.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113495711671704633?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1134440005683175362005-12-13T10:06:00.000+08:002006-09-24T14:12:19.803+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/nytconstructionworkers.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/nytconstructionworkers.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:140%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Construction</strong><br /></span><br />They were building a subway<br />station right next to our block.<br /><br />Most of the time, you could not see<br />the workers. They worked deep down below,<br />beyond the reach of light -<br /><br />like so many termites carving<br />ceaseless secrets into the hidden parts<br />of a wooden house.<br /><br />At noon, they emerged from tunnels,<br />blinked into the sudden sun.<br />After a quick meal, they would lie<br />in the shade of void decks<br />and swiftly fold themselves into sleep.<br /><br />They became so still and quiet<br />you might have thought them dead.<br /><br />Then a small breeze came, and one of them<br />stirred slightly, though he did not wake.<br />He would not have known it,<br />if you had come close enough to watch him breathe -<br />the way his chest slightly rose<br /><span style="color:#000000;">.....................................</span> and fell,<br />then, almost like a miracle,<br />slightly rose<br /><span style="color:#000000;">............</span> and fell again. </ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113444000568317536?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1134125189033755692005-12-09T18:43:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:21:25.586+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/Tiananmen.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/Tiananmen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul>Tiananmen Square</strong></span><br /><br />A bus ride through Beijing streets, to a city square<br />called Tiananmen. Our guide, Little Zhuang,<br />saying that if we had sensitive questions<br />we should ask them now.<br />Later there might be policemen in plainclothes,<br />and he would have to refuse to speak<br />for fear of bringing trouble<br />onto himself.<br /><br />It's a bright beautiful summer day,<br />the wind gusty. At the square, a dozen people free<br />their giant dragon kites into the clear blue sky.<br />The children scream with laughter.<br />No one is to grieve. No one is to recall the 4th of June.<br />History is written with a scalpel,<br />and the flesh that festers can be cut away.<br />Years ago, there were people who dreamed<br />and ran and fell to their foolish useless deaths here,<br />but the state has spoken and the ghosts,<br />it seems, will not remain.</ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113412518903375569?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1133359364566990702005-11-30T21:33:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:17:55.063+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/abstract-matisse.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/abstract-matisse.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Without You</strong></span><br /><br />I’m riding on a speeding train,<br />elsewhere, non-existent,<br />in transit between cold station lights.<br />You’re a thought, just a thought,<br />in my head, and outside blackness is<br />screaming past the windows.<br />There are people here, passengers,<br />faces meaning nothing<br />hands eyes strange footsteps mouths<br />speaking words collapsing<br />here and now and all this while<br />all this distance between us<br />is closing in swiftly.<br />I am here with this need<br />for you, and I can’t hear<br />can’t see, for me there’s only me<br />not even me now that I am<br />without you. When this train arrives,<br />you’ll be there waiting,<br />a thought in my head come alive,<br />and true. But in this moment,<br />I’m still riding on a speeding train,<br />moving fast, and you’re a thought,<br />no more, nothing more,<br />and I’m alive, suspended,<br />hurtling through the blackness,<br />nowhere without you.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113335936456699070?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1132820297376673302005-11-24T16:11:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:25:28.386+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/incantation.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/incantation.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">Goya, <em>The Incantation</em>.</span></center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:140%;"><strong>Operation </strong></span><br /><br />tongue gone dry<br />naked behind a blue sheet<br />mind woozy<br />from whatever they<br />shot me with<br /><br />count to ten, says<br />the green surgical mask<br />why don't you<br />leave me<br />alone -<br /><br />last, irrelevant<br />thought<br />before the world<br /><br />closed<br /><br />like an eyelid.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113282029737667330?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1132324570529844922005-11-18T22:32:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:30:06.383+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/delacroix.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/delacroix.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">Delacroix, <em>Liberty Leading the People</em></span></center><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;">Chiang's Heat Stroke</span><br /></strong></span><br />Told me about the time he got<br />Heat stroke, years ago,<br />In the army, on a blistering hot day,<br />Marching with pack and rifle<br />For miles and miles<br />To nowhere<br />Round and round an eastern island.<br />He’d been feeling sick, but<br />This was the army<br />So nobody believed it.<br />Later he had to stop just had<br />To stop to drink to rest a while,<br />Just to rest a while, so he<br />Fell out of file with all these<br />Bright white spots<br />Swarming in his vision.<br />But the PC thought he was<br />Faking it, yelled at him,<br />Kicked his shins<br />And called him a fucking<br />Lazy lousy bastard<br />So he got up dazed and<br />Went on dragging his boots<br />On a trail through the<br />Soaking hot jungle.<br />Later he fell out of line again<br />And the PC really lost<br />His temper, raised a rifle butt<br />To hit him on the head.<br />The bright white spots exploded,<br />Burst brilliantly like suns<br />In his head,<br />So that everything else in<br />The world went black.<br />He couldn't walk couldn't talk<br />Couldn't think anything except that<br />This was a stupid place to die<br />And why couldn't he feel his legs.<br />They stripped off his uniform,<br />Poured water over his<br />Head and chest, slapping his face<br />Repeatedly so that he wouldn't<br />Faint, and all this time<br />He wondered why he couldn’t<br />Feel his legs.<br />Someone said, "Don't worry, you'll<br />Be alright," so many times<br />He was sure he wasn't going to be alright.<br />And later, the chaotic dreams of<br />Flame and ice, metallic gigantic<br />Dragonfly wings swirling,<br />As they rushed him by chopper<br />To the mainland hospital.<br /><br />You think of this as one of those things.<br />They happen. The years pass,<br />And some things about those years Chiang even<br />Remembers fondly. But now he tells me<br />About his former PC, and he says,<br />"I'll never forget him. The lousy bastard."<br />He raises his voice just a little, with a touch of hate,<br />Repeating the words. "I’ll never forget him.<br />Lousy bastard." So matter-of-fact. So clear.<br />After all this time, he says it so cold and hard<br />You wouldn’t know how not to believe it.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113232457052984492?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1119239789086558572005-11-16T11:50:00.000+08:002005-12-15T12:20:43.793+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/giant.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/giant.jpg" border="0" /></a> <ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Warning to a Lover</span></strong><br /><br />Every time you try to change me,<br />We run the risk I might.<br />Two questions darkly cross my mind,<br />So let them cross yours too –<br />Could you really love another me,<br />And would he, you?</span></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-111923978908655857?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1130836460010246232005-11-01T17:09:00.000+08:002005-11-28T10:41:43.623+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/goya.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/goya.0.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;">Goya, <em>The Colossus</em></span></center><br /><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Garden City</strong></span><br /><br />Let there be trees, the man said, and lo and behold,<br />there were trees – rain trees, angsanas, flames of the forest,<br />casuarinas, traveller’s palms and more – springing up against<br />the steel and concrete of the expanding city.<br />Even as the true towers of the city climbed higher<br />and higher for the heavens, the trees were planted, transplanted,<br />watered, fertilised, and groomed to grow and grow.<br />They appeared overnight, abandoned the chaos of jungle,<br />bent to the will of man, grew in straight lines, in squares<br />and rectangles, in allocated corners, in car parks, along highways,<br />outside banks and buildings, faithful to the commandments<br />of urban developers. The hard lines of architecture were softened,<br />the rain did fall, the green did gently, gently grow,<br />and in his seventieth year, the man was pleased,<br />as he rested, as he viewed his work, as he felt the weight<br />of a nation’s soil run slowly through his old green hands.</ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-113083646001024623?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1129876223324577252005-10-21T14:27:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:44:13.326+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/metal.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/metal.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Changi Airport</strong></span><br /><br />It is a huge clean box<br />with clear glass panels,<br /><br />directions for its visitors<br />and tidy compartments<br /><br />to contain the swellings<br />of a little nation’s pride.<br /><br />How much can one love<br />an efficient process?<br /><br />We are here only because<br />we are going elsewhere<br /><br />we are pleased that<br />our luggage rarely gets lost<br /><br />we like the purple orchids<br />and marine fish<br /><br />and we would stay to watch<br />the whole world here,<br /><br />if it was not always<br />merely passing though.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112987622332457725?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1129158433435603392005-10-13T06:58:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:31:50.946+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/beach.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/beach.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center>Art by Philip Gardner.</center><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>My Father Takes My Son For A Walk</strong></span><br /><br />Small waves sing and sigh and run to the shore,<br />Push and pull at their ankles, as they walk hand-in-hand<br />Along the edge of the sea.<br /><br />My father is white-haired now, his shoulders stoop.<br />With each step he is approaching the end of his life<br />Altthough in this moment he does not think of it.<br /><br />My son is a young child. Shells and boats excite him.<br />In the years ahead, the old man beside him will<br />Become for him an uncertain memory.<br /><br />I have my own journey. I am watching them,<br />As if from a very great distance, as if I were a wave<br />Travelling out into the endless sea.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112915843343560339?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1128236457881675172005-10-02T14:49:00.000+08:002005-12-08T15:56:53.140+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/cezanneapplesorangeslarge.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/cezanneapplesorangeslarge.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Apples<br /></strong></span><br />Today my son,<br />not yet two,<br />learns a new word.<br />“Apple,” I say,<br />offering him<br />a piece.<br />He listens,<br />then replies<br />slowly -<br />“<em>Arr-pul</em>”,<br />his first time,<br />the word curling<br />like a strange<br />new taste<br />in his mouth.<br /><br />Later he will<br />run to the windows<br />calling <em>arr-pul,<br />arr-pul</em><br />to the birds outside.<br />In the afternoon<br />it will rain<br />and he will raise<br />both palms<br />to the clouds<br />solemnly declaring<br /><em>arr-pul, arr-pul</em>.<br />Everything will<br />be apple<br />for the day.<br />In two baby hands<br />he will hold<br />a grand new word<br />and offer its<br />sweet freshness<br />to the sky.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112823645788167517?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1126852461718805612005-09-16T14:25:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:43:12.466+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/potato.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/potato.jpg" border="0" /></a> <center><span style="font-size:78%;"><strong><em>The Potato Eaters</em>, Van Gogh.</strong></span></center><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul>Old Folks Home</strong></span><br /><br />All day long they lie on the<br />straight rows of white beds or sit<br />in the heavy-duty wheelchairs<br />pushed out into the breezy sunshine<br />of the gardens.<br /><br />Trapped in the prisons<br />of their own failing bodies,<br />they drift in and out of the haze<br />of senility, patiently serving<br />out their sentence.<br /><br />Still the bright-eyed teenagers come,<br />on Saturday mornings, by the busloads,<br />sent by their schools<br />on compulsory excursions<br />to learn the meaning<br />of compassion<br />as outlined in the CCA syllabus.<br /><br />They bring gifts of Khong Guan biscuits,<br />they help to mow the lawns,<br />they clap their hands performing happy songs<br />and valiantly they attempt the old dialects<br />trying to communicate.<br /><br />Later they will clamber noisily<br />back up the departing school buses,<br />and next week in class<br />they will write startlingly<br />similar essays<br />on what a meaningful,<br />memorable experience they had<br />at the old folks’ home<br />last week.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112685246171880561?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1126487268154057012005-09-12T09:05:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:38:10.486+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/mountain.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/mountain.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Children's Rhyme</strong></span><br /><br />Grandmother, last night<br />I dreamed again I was a child<br />dancing round and round<br />a wooden table. Singing a song<br />you gave me in your tongue<br />years ago, about the boy with<br />his goats out in the cold<br />climbing mountains crossing rivers<br />in search of home. In the morning<br />I woke and summoned the lyrics<br />to myself. But that memory<br />escaped me, dived into<br />the depths from which all<br />dreams spring. All I found was<br />tentative, a word, a half-phrase,<br />a fragment of a line, pieces of<br />a broken whole. So often you and<br />the language of you elude<br />me now, and against this loss<br />I ache and struggle, fail<br />and fail again to find my words.<br />Still I suspect the history of me<br />is there, unerased, the schools<br />and campaigns can’t wipe it out,<br />no, only send it into hiding.<br />You are dead and gone,<br />I’m lost, forlorn, but that boy<br />I used to be – he’s alive.<br />Round and round my head<br />he runs, rhyme reciting,<br />the words of a lost language<br />still escaping always escaping as<br />I climb the cold mountains,<br />cross the rivers in search of home.</ul></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112648726815405701?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9469649.post-1125189728621163002005-08-28T08:36:00.000+08:002005-12-14T11:37:43.640+08:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/1600/waterlilies.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2071/598/320/waterlilies.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><ul><ul><ul><ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Grandmother's Garden</strong><br /></span><br />In later years, she sat here rarely. Most of the time,<br />she lay on her bed in a darkened room where<br />the air was musty and sunlight never shone.<br /><br />As well as I could, I kept it growing<br />for her. She could no longer do it for herself.<br />Yet her life was linked to this place.<br /><br />I watered her orchids of golden shower,<br />unchoked her potted plants from weeds. With a stone<br />I crushed the life from snails and fed them<br />to the earth. After storms, I helped fallen shrubs<br />to climb to light again.<br /><br />Sometimes a sunbird would come to sip nectar<br />from my grandmother's flowers, and every New Year<br />the kumquat branches would fill with orange fruit.<br />In the years that passed, not a single bonsai died.<br />A tree can live forever.<br /><br />She would go more easily, I sensed,<br />if she knew that the life here would endure,<br />long after she herself had left.<br /></ul></ul></ul></ul><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9469649-112518972862116300?l=readerseye.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>Gilbertnoreply@blogger.com4