Fitting Words
I am the very model of a modern Singaporean
I am the very model of a modern Singaporean;
I can choose between a Merc, a Lexus or a DeLorean.
Members are my parents of the Singapore aristocracy
And so I have a slight acquaintance with civics and hypocrisy.
I am a JC graduate that is Raffles Institutional;
I got a fine degree that is lucrative yet vocational,
So they groomed me with a Presidential scholarship;
And proved me with a token Brigadier Generalship
And that is how with the PAP leadership I came to tea
And JBJ, CSJ: thanks for declining there to be…
In matters of observance of rules authoritarian,
I am the very model of a modern Singaporean.
And so I got appointed to a public sector Chairmanship
And go to Barker Road for some shoulder-rubbing fellowship
And now I get a salary that is Super-astronomical
From a GLC with a function more than economical.
All the OB markers are in me ingrained (even those that don’t apply to me)
And I report on anyone whose doubts he does confide in me:
I inform on Singaporeans who are oppositionally effectual
And I read their blogs with interest that is purely intellectual…
I go to JB clubs for pleasures that are frowned upon
In Singapore, where for which the scrap heap I’d end up on…
In matters of freedom and rule authoritarian,
I am the very model of a modern Singaporean.
I know who is in an out and who is just detainable
And which GRC membership will soon become available;
I know the Asian model of government that is consensusorial
And how to lead the nation with benevolence dictatorial
And how the West is so obsessed with its messy demo-craziness
When with a fawn I get by with meritocratic laziness.
I understand equations that are social and political
And how to win elections that are entirely hypocritical.
In short, as long as I am seen as dignified and honourable,
The citizens and residents will be digitally count-on-able.
But in matters of cash and cards and foreign condominium
I am the very model of a modern Singaporean.
With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan
|
The Esplanade (reprise)
or How to Properly Enounce the Names of Singapore Econs... er, Icons
I would like some lemonade
Down beside the Esplanade.
Finding it should not be hard
When I'm at the Esplanade.
Perhaps I'll see a gay parade
Or children playing at charades
- I say, 'The immortal Bard'
Is my favourite charade.
But what's this discovery I've made?
Today I've found 'The Esplanade'
Does not rhyme with 'The Old Guard'
- Or does it, does The Esplanade?
Ah, but forget the Es', for now I've, O,
Been to Vivo
City, which rhymes, I'm
Led to believe,
With 'alive' and not 'leave'. Oh
Dear.
- Unless I'm deceived
And it rhymes with precocity,
Does Vivocity
And then there's Singapore's Parliament House
Where Government men and (few) women douse
The flames of Democracy
In un-adulterated Hypocrisy
No crisis of pronunciation here
No way, no FEER.
Just remember to lament
There is no I in this parliament.
Now, for a curly 'un,
Take the venerable Merlion
Its sits atop Sentosa Island
Not to mention the Marina Merlion
One, a powerful laser pointer
For the Powers that Be;
The other pours water
On the meritocra sea
But say it how you will
Keep your nose to the mill
Stone throwers will
Be housed in glass till
They, with broken will
Let their voices be still
And are pronounced ill.
This land was your land,
This land was my land,
From the Singapore harbour
To the Bukit Timah highland,
From the East Coast Park land
To the HDB Heartland,
Now this land is owned by Lee and Lee
This land disowned by you and me
'Cos this land is owned by Lee and Lee...
top
|
PAy Per View (Reprise 05/2006)
Oxbridge trained and Wall Street smartened,
L. K. Wise and I. S. Ardent,
Singapore's Old Guard ages faster.
Now we have a different master
Who just as ably clings to power,
Seeking to prolong his hour
On the stage, as he well knows:
Same Old Guard in different hose.
And opposition politics
He knows precisely how to fix
And in words of immortal note
Ponders how to buy our vote.
Still, the Old Man will not retire
Until Death at last puts out his fire.
We the people dare hardly wait:
Before he dies, emigrate.
top
|
Shadow Cats
An elderly couple walks up the street on their way home. Each
A carrier bag in hand,
Their streetlight-cast shadows cast against the kerb
Look like two cats strolling in tandem; curbed
Until their invisible leashes strung out from the street lamps
At last peel them away into the dusk-gathering gloom,
A mere sinuous smear left on the tarred street...
...Before they reach the next inter-lamp la grange-like point
And the shadow cats, again,
Creep up from behind.
top
|
A cheetah escaped today
A cheetah escaped today:
Pull out all the stops;
Call the organs of state to play;
Ensure all follow the SOPs;
Keep the public at bay.
A cheetah escaped today.
A cheetah escaped today:
Convene the BOI;
Prepare the spin for the press
(Never call it a lie);
Don't panic unless
A cheetah escaped today.
A cheetah escaped today:
This is not a drill
But don't be ready to pray;
It's all grist to the mill:
The animal's not Cat. A.
A cheetah escaped today.
A cheetah escaped today:
There goes their quest
To make it a contact sport.
'Thank god', all of the rest
Of us quietly retort.
A cheetah escaped today.
A cheetah escaped today:
The Management's on top of
The situation it seems.
Chiefs we have a lot of
And memos by the reams.
A cheetah escaped today.
A cheetah escaped today:
Excitement for our head.
Our body and our legs
Managed in good stead
Despite the thinning it begs.
A cheetah escaped today.
top
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Untitled (so far)
Uninspired by a rose
my breath is sent
To the Moon
where dawn is spent
Steepled in history
and solid windows
Are encased in cement
arising from the fire
Where the dispirited flower
unites in death
In thorny attire
with its twin
In the tower
aflame for the truth
That is wearing thin
with every breath
Epigram
Terror rides the subways and the planes.
It rattles sabres and hackles manes
In capitals
And stately halls;
It gets more Press,
I confess,
Than
The Hunger of Man.
Students of History
Find it no mystery:
Famine will stay
But Terror will play.
top
|
Elephants Aphasia
I have a hunch
There won't be lunch
The coconut bunch
The elephants will crunch
The people will munch
Small eats and punch
The guests will stand
The ceremony grand
The architect and
Designer panned
The elephant band
Will play as planned
To the logging camp
Where elephants tramp
And elephants stamp
Bring baby champ
Elysée is damp
So we all decamp
Certain of hell
The elephant bell
Rings the knell
Down in the dell
The designer fell
And broke the spell
Top
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Acrostic: A heart in 3 beats
any
boy
can
desire
every
flirting
girl
however
i
just
keep
loving
manonmani
(
naan
onai kadilikkareen...)
plainly
quite
really
so
totally
(
uh huh)
virtuous
wife
ex
yon
zoo
Top
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For the rest of my life
For the rest of my life, my unnatural natural life.
I am under a sentence.
Well, that much is obvious: life is a sentence of death, after all.
But can I bear this lot that is suddenly mine?
Perhaps I can (is there a choice?)
To be afflicted with something you cannot wish away;
Something to do with my 'self';
Something I would not wish on anyone.
I do not 'suffer' from epilepsy any more than I suffer from sleep.
Or breathing.
'It's all right Ma, I'm only seizing.'
If I believed in miracles I would feel blessed with the knowledge of being alive.
But self-knowledge begs the question: what is 'self'? What is 'alive'?
Whatever the answer, we take these as certainties;
'Eternal verities', if you will
But when you find the self you are is not the self you were,
All bets are off; all certainties squat.
'What am I?' is no longer such a stupid question.
Acceptance comes.
But slowly.
Still I forget, and then I remember,
Like walking into a dream, a nightmare of daytime unreality.
Where did it go, that forgetfulness, that naive somn-et-lumiere?
Ignorance is bliss, but unknowingness is epilepsy.
I want to forget; to swallow the un-bitter pills without thought
But I cannot forget; as though each pill is saying, 'oh no you don't'.
I cannot deny that which disables denial; nor deny disability.
Denial has a price: amnese this and risk missing the pill.
Remember this or remember nothing.
Except fear.
Memory is a part of life that comes and goes,
Like the wind or tide. We lose a name of a familiar face
Or recall the outcast kid we shunned in school thirty years before.
Crossword puzzles keep mental reflexes sharp, they say.
Perhaps the poet's way is as efficacious.
If we are cast away on a desert island, would we revert to animal?
"Take a letter, Miss Jones" and throw it in a bottle into the sea.
Will the wind and tide then return it to me?
Memories in a bottle tossed on a synaptic sea
Is life.
Top
|
An iambic tetrameter
Life is what you make it, they say.
If nature's so benign to life,
Then why did life so cruelly play
And stab me with its sharpest knife?
Remarks divide our conversations;
Events conspire to mark our lives.
Full stops are merely punctuation
But fits divide my days like knives.
Electric sparks within my mind
Denied me peace of mind. Instead
Each day my head was so unkind
To let me live when I would be dead.
Bounded by a noose's knot
That tightens while the victim flails,
I'm bound like loosened lips are not;
My ship was sunk before their tales.
How did the pirate breach my mind?
From womb or dissipated youth?
Get out! And leave my head and mind,
My perfect mind, my only truth.
But is it, was it true before?
Abandon thoughts of being all;
I wonder why I'm now made poor,
Though pride does come before a fall.
The last I thought would I to bear
Is this, and early death appeared
More likely than the curse I wear,
Not to die is to be feared.
in requiem October 2001
top
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Leaving the Fold
Home is where our heart is, so we are told,
Where home is a place to which we return; come home to the fold.
A place of sanctuary free from all fears,
And yet a place of sacrifice and heart-felt tears;
Still yet a place where we seek to avoid challenge
And deny a reality regret will not tinge,
Where complacency becomes rooted and opportunity lost.
Yet challenging times are always ignored at a cost:
To go forth and multiply your profit
Is better than wearing a cap while to a master you doff it
To be your own boss is to be desired;
But to be this you must be retired.
Out-sourced but not out-moded;
Out-spoken but not bar-coded.
top
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Fitting Words
An agony in eight fits
If the shoe fits
Fit the bill
Fit the pattern
The Misfits
Fitter and turner
Keep fit
Fit for life
Fitting room
Tight fit
Fighting fit
Comfit
Fit as a fiddle
Fitted out
See fit
Fit of laughter
Fit in
Fit like a glove
All the news that's fit
I fit it if I fit it if I...
Discomfiture
Refit
Retrofit
Profit and loss
Ill-fitting
Unfit for duty
Fit to kill
Chuck a fit
Fitted up
Fits and starts
Fitfully
Survival of the fittest
A fit of pique
At the peak of fitness
Sacrabiliter
Cadiva
caducus morbus
comitialis
Morbus
qui sputatur
Saisie
Ergreifung
Grippaggio
Asimiento
top
|
I read a poem
I read a poem the other day,
A verse by Donne
Concerning the 'unruly Sunne'.
It made me wonder about the nature of verse and word play
And meter and rhyme and such,
And whether such rules matter that much.
Donne compares with Shakespeare, they say
But my versifying is so many limericks, and worse
Compared to the density of meaning in their exquisite verse.
Me compare a summer's day?
You must be kidding: I cannot compare
A lump of wood much less a maiden fair.
I like Dylan (Bob); it is true to say
He sings like speech and it happens to rhyme.
I too can rhyme and write in metrical time
And passably make my meaning play,
Achieving closure by the end of the line
But for this ability no one will pine.
All these things my words can say
But not all at the same time.
Perhaps I need a change of clime
And like Donne, tread upon English clay
Then I might pass as a minor poet
Whereas here, who would know it?
top
|
Wanda Lust
She says to wait ten minutes.
Ten minutes to soliloquise on a fish tank.
What's up, fish? Miss the pond?
You're captive, you know.
But you don't know it. Of course.
A plastic plant and a few pebbles.
Symbolic tokens of nature to us.
It is the whole universe to you fish.
A five-folded Flatland encompasses it,
An ectopic universe without form
But filled with a liquid void.
What do you see beyond those walls?
It is surely incomprehensible.
Except for the food.
And the shape hovering above,
Which presages the manna.
Does seeing prove a world exists beyond?
When I snatch you with my net,
Do the fish that remain
Commend you to the hand
That gives and takes away?
I think not.
top
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Verities, eternal, list of
Think of a line
The first that comes to mind.
OK: music, that's the thing
(The next line ends with 'sing')
Words mean less than looks:
A picture's worth - how many books?
A woman without a man--
I mean, man, how can?
And food. Ah! Music, Food and Love...
(The next line ends with the stars above)
Philosophy is trickier. Still,
Have we or have we not free will?
Thoughtless, I find I am still here.
But never mind; pass another beer.
This began with a random thought,
(From where did it come, I hear you retort)
Synapses saying not a lot,
An electric expression of God Knows What.
So, what's the trigger?
You'd say, 'go figure'.
It's likely we'll never 'figure' an answer out.
The next line ends with - you guessed it, no doubt.
And did someone mention money?
Filthy lucre, bacon and (groan) honey
- Call it what you will,
Nothing beats the dollar bill.
Last of all comes ordure,
Primogenitor of all the impure
Things we consider unfit
(No, I won't say it)
For normal discourse. So
There we have it, from high to low,
From best to worst
But which comes first?
What is the highest power?
Our animality makes us cower
In the face of death, while
Imagination can make us smile,
Or give a haughty laugh
Because we are blessed with a different path
To the brutish beasts
--The ones we dine on at our feasts;
Believing that we live on
As avatars, or in heaven
(Some place I've heard about
But which I gravely doubt
Exists); giving rise
To the least tenable of verities,
(To my Cartesian mind)
I.e. Organised Religion and
Its belief in a life here after
(The next rhyme, appropriately, is laughter)
But let's not talk about destruction
Of belief system construction;
It's a losing game:
What alternative can you name?
The only mystery is time.
Time; and the ability to rhyme
Because, you see, your mind is not here
And that's a very queer
Notion to get your head around.
At least my feet are firmly on the ground,
To which a head usually attaches
To command the feet with nervous dispatches.
To paraphrase Descartes' axiom:
My feet stink; therefore I am.
This conversation's petering out.
Just as well since the meter's out.
So much for veritable sublimities;
Existence is driven to extremities
Of self justification
Because it bears no relation
Nor similarities
To external realities.
How do I know all this?
Sorry, you are asking the wrong person this.
It's just my first pass at grasping a notion
That resulted from some Brownian motion
Of the mind:
It is not in the pip but in the rind.
top
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On not having a clue
I think I could do great things, if life would allow, but
Life is my impediment.
It's an uncomfortable truth I cannot accommodate because
I cannot spell 'me'.
Untutored in the ways of the world,
I am life's incompetent.
I haven't a clue what I should do;
I haven't a guardian to tell me.
I venture forth with the greatest reluctance; I am
Mired in my own sediment.
Being wary of what the world may hold,
I fear what they might sell me.
If ever they build a statue to incompetence, then
Put me on the pediment;
The words: 'can't do, won't do'
As a motto set in stone below me.
I would like to know the meaning of it all but
Understanding ain't imminent.
The truth may be out there but
There's no one here to tell me.
Perhaps it's not the greatest of mysteries; indeed,
It may be self-evident.
The answer may be before my eyes;
Too bad it's not in me.
In search of the truth, X-file like, I'll seek but
Not find enlightenment.
Call me when the truth is revealed and I'll call you
When I find the real me.
top
|
Four iambs and a trimeter
There's ten around the table tonight
Taking up the topic.
There's one whose nose begins at brow
Without a bridge to stop it.
Another's nose is rather small;
She makes it up below
And so it goes around the room
Noses one and all.
Their noses take the scent of wine,
Which nose is too exotic
But by the meal the scents beguile
And appears the girl erotic.
The conversation goes from wine
To talking of the lamb.
With food and wine the conversation
Tastes of roast iamb.
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|
We Walked On
a
b
cde
f
g
hijk
l
m
nopq
r
st
uvwx
yz
we
walked
on,
you
and i, and
zed
and
talked of
why
it
feels
that way
when
we
get
to where
we want to go.
the trees
are
tall and
the wind is strong,
so strong so that it seems it
could even bring the trees
down and leave us bare, hidden by
only
the
sky,
with leaves on the wind.
i wonder
then, will you uproot too?
only, unlike a fallen tree, up and go
and just walk away? there’s nowhere to go i
cannot see; no where to hide i cannot be.
but if you leave, all i will have left are your leaves.
a lone willow will i be
and stay by
the river to
weep for thee,
a~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~fig
tree. you
march on air
roots and
let me be.
but if we are both
like trees, then stay and stand
here with me and the earth and air we will
bind while we bask in the sun and shade the
ground. we will stand united, a pair of trees
standing together against the breeze
and the rain cannot bring
the two
of us
to the
ground beneath our wild and windswept canopies.
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|
Poetic Usage
Am I spent?
Have I lost my poetic muse?
Must I reach for the rhyming dictionary
To craft a meaning that rhymes with 'lose'?
And after that, what comes next?
Another phrase contrived for me to use?
I should tread with care, now, and
Have a care the phrase I choose
And not prolong this game, now,
Lest at last I am forced to use youse.
Have a care, now, I say again
And do not stop the poetic fuse
Or sooner than I care, now,
I'll that ruse abuse.
top
|
Bus Ride
Bus is big. Bus is wide.
Bus has legs no seats can hide.
Bus is stopping, says the sign.
Riders hopping; keep in line.
Bus goes forward, hippety-hop.
Bus goes toward the very next stop.
Passengers board with plastic to pay.
Bus lurches on its sectioned way.
Passengers bored with nothing to do.
TV Mobile hasn't a clue.
Perhaps they think, or empty head,
Forty wink or paper read.
There's so much to do
When there's nothing to do:
SMS,
Listen to
Y.E.S.,
Bang your head,
Might be dead.
Bus is stopping to let me down.
Bus is tops; the talk of the town.
Just can't wait for the end of the day.
Won't be late, with my card to pay.
Bus is a must; the way to go
For all who think that cars are slow.
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|
Paper View
Oxbridge trained and Wall Street smartened,
L. K. Wise and I. S. Ardent,
Singapore's Old Guard ages faster;
Soon we gain a different master
Just as like to cling to power,
Seeking to prolong his hour
On the stage, as he well knows:
Same Old Guard in different hose.
The Old Man will not retire
Until Death at last puts out his fire.
We the people dare hardly wait:
Before he dies, emigrate.
top
|
Doing it
Feeling low yet never so high,
I can stand on a cloud yet not touch the sky,
I climb a mountain but the mountains are drowned:
Before reaching the top they cannot be found.
I am mired in mud yet awaiting the day
When, like the jumping jeweller of Lavender Bay,
I see what lies behind this world.
Though now rooted to a spot
And feeling insignificant, an infinitesimal dot,
One day, I'll fling myself off this hill of despair
And seek my answers in the empty air.
But look at my stand now, whereof I am not bold
Enough to refuse what I'm bid and so do as I am told;
As yet I am unhurled.
Too frightened to seek
A higher destiny; too meek
To improve my lot,
It can be said decisively, decisive I'm not.
So, at last, I must ask: do I have it in me
To over come the uncertainty I harbour within me?
And show my flag unfurled.
If it seems I am too self-obsessed
It is certain that you sooner guessed
It and discounted my pledge.
But let this be my hedge:
Should I fail in my quest,
I still have Nature to do the rest.
And you will be the herald.
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|
A Nonsense
v. 1.0 | 1.1 .v |
The lakes are coming
In numbers shaped of red.
The aroid pintful's humming
The flutest ones are said
To take apart of speech.
Fusing knots of sand, they're
In treason to the beach.
Would it not be fair,
It asks for wood to plane
And makes a wooden knot be there
Two planets X, to see a gain,
Enjoin areas' heroes again. Ne'er
Thinks: this would end... or
Might refer niche-carved cherubs,
There on a ledge, and ere 'e saw,
Ring-like flying clubs.
To curassow, he'll abhor
The point is wattle a
Cur, a sow, and he'll labour
On again, off again, dear.
The carp inters or opes (see
For your self) 'is wine,
As sour as any I drop. See,
You'll find that autopsine. | The lakes are coming
In numbers shaped of red.
The aroid pintful's humming
The flutest ones are said
To take a part of speech.
Few sing notes of sand there
In trees unto the beech.
Wood it knot be fair,
It tasks forward too-plain
And makes a wooden knot be there
To plan its ecstasy, again
In joinery as he rose again. Near
Thinks this wooden door
Might refurnish carved chair, rubs
There on a legendary soaring
Like flying clubs.
To cure a sow, he'll labour.
The point is what'll ere
Cure a sow and heal a boar,
Onager - 'n' of ague - and ere
The carpenter's autopsy.
For your selfish swine,
A sower as any eye drops, see.
You'll find that aught opes eyn. |
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|
Waiting room
Here we are again,
Come to see the man,
The new-age practioner of a mediæval art
Holding out new roses for a neuroscience.
The phtt-phutt-phizz (this is not rocket science) of al-samoud music,
No afternoon delight, this:
Shooting stars, cascades of sub-atomic decay,
Making super-novae hollandaise sauce
Gleaming with Australian dyes.
Not so headstrong as a boy, he were
But look at him go now!
Bursting on the unscene
Like blobs-of-protoplasm-baked-in-a-matrix-of-long-chain-carbohydrates
(Raisin bread).
He's part staff of life, part stuff.
Animism, as isso often-said,
Needs a spark of liff,
A spirited off-license,
A life sentence, a place
Where they sell you lard for your ill-ensheathed nerves.
Perhaps it's prions, or pre-ons, or postons, or peons
Or post-it notes what lost their gum.
He's insensed about a life unsensed.
But we were talking about the man
And the space between our ears.
Like a Van der Graaf generator.
Can this sooth soothe the music of the spheres and these fears?
For brief years yet what do they really know?
One might practice phrenology on a bowling ball with a bat,
Save it's his turn now with the alchemist.
Six months since and he wants to talk about work.
- It was pretty bad, wasn't it? In the news, I mean.
- Oh, so-so.
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|
Nocturne
Where is the morning gone,
Who is the one undone,
Why is the sun so high,
What is the reason why,
How is the night to come,
When is the day forlorn
And
the compact with the light is torn.
These are the fellows of doubt.
When the fruit grow on the tree,
The beetled flowers deploy
Their sticky scent upon the air;
The nascent fruit unaware
Of their odour that will cloy
When in turn the beetles see
Them bejewel the trunk indelicately.
Ovaries swell with pulp and sap.
Of what account is the day
When the fruit have fled to the ground;
Fled the light that swelled their flesh;
Repaid the debt with a pulpy mess.
Will the night abide the fruit that is found
When the light has passed away?
Or deny the fruit of the day.
Such is the fate of the tree.
Night creatures abhor the light
And shun the ones that wake by day.
Night creatures are not spied
By day as in their lairs they hide.
In the darkness they join the fray
Ready to flee or fight
When treachery they sight.
Leafmold press upon footfall.
top
|
Elephantiasis
Can elephants fly?
It's well nigh
Impossible, I
Suppose, but why,
Since a butterfly
Has a proboscis, can't I
See an elephant fly?
...
Anniversary
Rwanda rhymes with Panda
But that is not a good rhyme;
Pandas come from China
And Rwanda hasn't the time
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|
Rain
On a rainy Sunday.
Lying on my bed, the books of poets arrayed all around,
The writers of books and letters; the know-it-alls long dead and alive,
With something to say, some things to say.
Mythical, trav-lit, meditations on a tree: beehives of verse pendant.
Speak to me; speak of some truth to console my self-doubt.
My guitar propped beside speaks to me.
It mocks me. Its hour-glass figure-of-eight tells me how long ago it was.
I strung it along - along with a library of self-improvement.
The remove of time, I long since learnt to stop learning;
To dabble and dawdle and dwindle my outlook and interests.
A million un-read books, testament to futile investment in the mind and soul
I left behind in youth.
I lost my chance to redeem truth and beauty.
It rains steadily.
The ceiling fan oscillates with robot mechanicity,
Bathing me in damp air when I could be outside,
Cleansed in the wash from the grey-washed sky,
Awash in the present; desiring a fresh start.
I'm aghast at the little time I have left.
It drains away like the rain on the street outside. I lie.
This travesty of a life spent in pursuit of a dream,
This fools gold of a goal in life, this self-delusion, this lie.
What is it for? Nothing? There has to be something
Or nothing makes sense anymore.
I lie here and defy the odds and defy the gods.
Who makes and unmakes me, I sly-suggest
A motif to make me secure in my self belief.
No relief from the rain yet.
Perhaps it's an augury of untold wealth.
Of truth untold. Pluvius, pennies from heaven,
Pounds, shillings and pence for your thoughts.
Speak to me (desperate now) speak, dead poets.
For what does your wisdom count, now that you are dead?
Give me an excuse, a reasonable doubt, a season of hope, a supplied text that
I might redeem my past, find a future.
I seek solace in rain.
If it is not to be found in the here and now, I'll pencil in a date,
A now but not here: a week from today; a date
For the weak to awake and make this dream real, this reality a dream.
Castigate myself all I will: when I leave my bed, all will be mine.
I think it best to end on this moot point:
The rain has stopped and I've reached the bottom of the page.
10 November 2002
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My desk and what sonnet
Life is what you make it, they say.
My desk is a mess without a doubt.
There's not a chance of clearing the decks
This side of Christmas.
It thumbs its notes at me; it flouts
My determination to settle my debt
To the waste paper basket, as if this was
Its reason to be.
The
karang guni, the collector I am,
Battles the urge to sweep away
The mound of paper - nay, the tree
Cut down to supply a sham
Appearance of a productive day.
I must escape this lethargic maze,
This mire of latitude
And enforce a rule of law, to whit:
Let not pass another day
Of dilatory lassitude.
I'll not have it a single bit;
I'll clean this desk and leave it clear
When I'm left and gone from here.
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On Learning The True Value Of Creativity
emjay = gem in igpay atinlay
emjaygee, with a lazy e and a ceedeetee
urgent management, resurgent banishment
write my résumé
before I'm sent away, repent away
there's no counting on recanting
no cant worth recounting
concerning earning
it's not worth turning in a profit
take my cap and doff it
nothing to use, all to lose
all is lost: at what cost
is more than most are supposed
to choose or choose to say
makes no difference anyway
no defence of difference
no sense in inference
it's just $$ and cents
and creative interference
in sincere intent
i draw no conclusions
from accomplices' collusions
drawing accomplishment
is not something meant
to be worth all the money spent
much less heaven sent
repent (i said)
architecture is dead
(gasp) hold-your-breath-&-count-backwards-from-one-hundred
curvy-wurvy makes one nervy
unnervingly nervous
unswervingly servile
what is the purpose
of answering a rival,
a spy-all with a smile
and a green mile of bile
go down, go down in style
and leave this pile of shit
and everything under it
and on top of it and topple it
just go away; leave today
it doesn't matter anyway
that's what i say
amscray
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Coffea arabica or The Human Bean
The plimsoll rings of brown on white
The progress of my mouthfuls mark.
O, bean of bitter, 'Opian delight,
Divulge the secret of your dark
Descendant. Black ink in my
China mug, you elevate
The heart and clear the mind;
It must be biochemical fate
To arise where Man began her climb
To ultimate dominion of her state--
Or was it this which by sublime,
Narcotic effect upon an ape
Made this dull and puny being
To use its brain to grasp a stone
To pound on rock this wondrous bean?
I knew it! Man could not alone
Have found the motive to inspire
A proto-human's Promethean act--
To learn to master the sacred fire
--Except to roast her coffee black.
Man could not have learnt to thrive
So many millennia, albeit fleeting,
And learnt to work from nine to five
Without her coffee at a meeting.
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