Wednesday, December 18, 2019

encryption


that every heart is an encrypted
whatsapp message, the
contents of which one
must seek the sender's approval to decipher –
is a notion that recurs
on lonesome nights.

what the sun does to the morning
glories, preening open their closed
petals, releasing secrets known only
to bees – are wafts I strain for on
my way to work each morning.

– and opening the petals of her being,
lips' lush, closed flower; inhaling
her secret fragrances, her ego's
concoctions – is the task I pin on

my 'to-do' list; a troubleshooting
of love's troubled machinery before
its happy problem is decrypted
by mona lisa herself.


Thursday, December 6, 2018

My Review of Pantomine, the Maiden Poetry Collection of Crispin Rodriguez

From the years I've known Crispin - he's an affable, humorous, extremely learned man. I'm often awed and humbled by his panoramic perspectives and knowledge on different subject matters in life. Pantomime, his maiden collection, is no less a timeless tribute spanning many topics endeared to him. From social to identity issues, anecdotes from his days as a teacher in the classroom and the timeless tributes of love, Crispin has proven himself time and again on his ability to tackle various issues with a fresh perspective.

"An INFJ Learns About Art" sparks a quiet beginning of a pained response to the myriad reasons why we write. Writing, it seems, is not so much of unearthing a reason for it as simply immersing in the act - of healing. His imagery of grafting and staples evoke a sharp pain in me simply because I'd written from those places. Moving on, the collection takes us through a litany of landscapes - personal ones and distant ones; "Father to Son" anguishes about the old rigid mindsets passed across generations, that corporate success and serving the nation are two mantras deeply ingrained in the psyche of many. The ending about poetry being answered as a graded question gripped me.

"This Poem Is Meant to Be Stepped On" is a generous rendition of the state of flow that poetry gives, how it revolves round to gift life to many things and finally back to the giver of verses. In my humble opinion, this poem does transcend itself across the borders of "Good" into the remote outskirts of "Great". "Racial Quota" whispers of the hidden pain of the ethnic dichotomy still present in modern Singapore; Crispin here paints his own anguished, and brilliant response to the racial issue in "Do I deserve my race/as a brand to my face, marked/like a slave waiting for inspection? The ending lines "Call me Ishmael, or Hisham,/or Ah Huat, there will always be questions" resonate simply because it is true that humans will always turn a curious eye to those who are not of their own skins - regardless of his skin color.

Other poems leap out: "When a Student First Discovers Sparknotes", a palpable recount of how a student tries to glean better answers and "be a Prometheus to mankind", only to be "caught red-handed" and becomes "an indelible mark on his record".

"She Tries to Be Peranakan" depicts memories of Crispin's Peranakan heritage, with the "She" here, as I infer, a nuanced reference to a special someone gone by. Edwin Thumboo is briefly referenced in passing; the not-so-open procedures of busking in Orchard are unveiled in "Busking in Orchard", and "Pasar Malam" is a nostalgic journey through - a Pasar Malam. I never took my eyes off the book here.

Perhaps Crispin, being the older-fashioned romantic yet child-at-heart I have found him to be, quietly moves us with the small bundle of love poems found toward the end of his book. "Fidelity" surprises me in the turn of phrase which I shall not give away, "He Always Knew How to Startle" speaks of two lovers' trysts in bed, and finally, "The Weight" is a quietly-moving recount of how the weight of one lover feels against the next.

In "The Weight", Crispin opens up intimately with the question "What is the weight of the world/the feeling of one breast against the next" making me read on right to the end in a single hushed breath. His answer of "gravity" delivered me a punch to the gut, rooted right there in my seat - such is the depth of memories, of how lovers feel in absence. As Pablo Neruda confides, "Love is short, forgetting is long". "The Weight" fully exemplifies the palpable length of this longing, this wait. It is also one of the most endeared poems to me in Pantomime.

Where there are good (and occasionally, great) poems in any collection, I will desist to bore with those that fall short above sea level (my sea level). Rather than drowning them in the ocean of my memory, I will thus confess my woeful understanding of matters as compared to Crispin's vaster perspectives, and re-read those poems when I have more of mood and a penchance for comprehension.


My bad for the long review, for much remains desired to be said. This is a book worthy of your purchase and enjoyment over a quiet supper, or bedtime.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Wings

The ballet girls flap their wings
of hands. I wonder why I
can't fly. Their pink leotards
blossom like flowers, carefree hearts.
Upturned lips drink the rainbow air.

Slender arms dip low to a crescendo.
The pivot comes naturally:
Suddenly they're pink tops
spinning spinning spinning
away from a calling

mother. Impy feet slow from the
blaze. The girls are unfazed:
the loss of freedom, a temporal

halt. Onward, the underpass rolls
and my troubles are the two girls

catching butterflies in unison.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Remembering Papa


A poem for X, who confided in me
the loss of her father.

I.
The stars forgot to shine that night,
yet you confided in them the loss
of your father. A heart attack, then
a voice thrown in the wind. His spirit’s
return on the seventh marked by tears in slumber.

The years carried on his voice, whispering
in leafy tongues of mangroves; the few
corridor plants he left but never got round
to tending, like his children. One fruit ripened –
that sombre pomegranate of his round
face, seeded itself in the soil of your memory.

II.
Somehow,
I understand, because I too,
have lost a grandfather. He
was the reason I picked up
little cars, added them to shelf and soul.

His gifts of Volkswagen Beetles
are rust and dust on my mantelpiece.

Those arms he used to carry me to dreamland
were stout as the young trees he once planted
outside his two-room flat in Ang Mo Kio.

The hairs on my legs are the extension
of his own furry ones (an ex once confessed
she loved caressing the animal of my legs).

My dad’s rain-beaten face, transfused
on my own, bears the same hills and valleys
as granddad’s face in the photograph
set before the altar.

The wind tugs at my heart sometimes,
serving on rain-palettes the wafts
of soil and garden these two
gentlemen before me have loved.

Somehow,
I understand, because I too,
have lost a grandfather. He
was the reason I picked up
little cars, added them to shelf and soul.




Friday, June 8, 2018

Scraped Shin

This is nothing. The jabbing of a
shin against the bench side, metal
crunching skin. Grenade of flesh
exploded; or was it a bubble, twilight's
headphone-dreams burst in gasps of sharp epiphany?

Long ago, the pain was needle threading
my torn scalp, doctor's skillful larcerations
closing
with
stings
the
head
split
open
in a
nasty
fall
at
childhood.

Memory served an itch, then went back
to being buried. Scraped shins no more
hurting than the scalpel of words in a breakup.
(I remember a pact of arms to be entwined
till dust, or else severed like hamstring)

The evenings
elope, that braised shin
hums a little in
numbed tongues, then
leaves a fresh
draft of skin, raw
as a baby's.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

The Halfway Verse

they safeguard strongly their greenery
waving outside the hdb blocks.
Like orange-faced strangers, passing
they hide in their foliage, clocks:


Saturday, May 26, 2018

First Date

First Date

Fruit juice tastes sweeter when shared.
Slurped, passed between caressing hands
and slurped again. Better still, cross-armed
like entwined bows, lover's coat of arms.

I thank the Almighty we'd managed to land
a stall over aimless walking, frivolous talking
(in retrospect those things that took wing
between hurried lips were flawed). I remember

you pushing me a bill despite me covering
yours. We exchanged small talk like individual
cups of drinks, each tasting his life's own ironies.
The anecdotes shimmered like cupids, then vanished.
At times, your phone's light haloed you like a gaunt

angel. The juice's forced sweetness lingered; I craved
for more: a knowing glimmer that sometimes shines
between soulmates despite having crapped a bad
joke; subtle grins that whisper how the flower's
blossomed, before the straw slurps bottom.