Power is purpose corruptive;
corrosive forces curdling
white into sour milk.
Power is purpose corruptive;
Toy soldiers lumbering below
ruins of empires, broken.
Power is purpose corruptive;
Control too tightly eventually ruptures -
Fright, that flighty fiend has come home.
It was the pink elephant Just standing in the middle of the living room Waiting to get noticed Hoping to one day be the topic of conversation
Some days I swear it had polka dots Other days It just blended into the background of the kitchen walls
We all knew it was there But didn’t know how to approach it So we tiptoed around Hoping not to disturb its slumber
The thought of truth being spoken Ignited flames to my throat Choking me At the sight of honesty’s release
Images of dark blue Ripe purple and a burden of black Reminders Covering my chest and back
A reminder of my differences And keeper of my secrets
It’s the slurs Thick with hate Thrown across class rooms Bouncing off walls like rubber balls high off caffeine
Scars so deep Dignity is nowhere to be found Barbie’s host their non-fat fraps with extra whip Whispering
of sissies and dykes who roam hopelessly With their elephants in tow Their whispers so loud
They course through the shallow halls Kicked up and passed around By the football team And slammed into the shadows
The pink elephant It follows me everywhere
It’s kept on a leash Like the secrets resting on the tip of our tongues
Waiting, waiting to one day
slip free
In the queue, sweat drippingTumies rumbling and
The sun’s rage scotching bald heads
Hoping faces just glance
To the wavering horizon
Spitting out grief
This act, like inborn
Draws us to this place
And the question:
Where we are?
Waiting
Trees are transpirating
Maybe one coughs
Yet we rub our brows and wait
Not forgetting the persona non grata
Heads we nod, and sovereignty we cherish
What lustre these words have
The fuhrer spits venoms
Hands, hoes, spades are torn, clapping
Knowing tomorrow is the queue
In telepathy we agree
That order and power
Endowed with god’s grace
Is to be left wriggling
Till we all shrink
These are further examples of both form, style and content. To date, Wong Phui Nam remains a favourite poet of mine. His style, in my opinion, especially his description of the landscape carries such love that can only be compared to one of the earliest Indian poets to write in English - Rabindranath Tagore.
HOW THE HILLS ARE DISTANT
Even the film-makers will have to admit,
the Malay annals upon the people’s consciousness
would wash like the tide
piling jetsam upon the jetty steps,
you said, as the car hit
ninety, beetling into the obsessive shell
of a parched landscape. And K.L. hours behind.
Dodging the disappearances and appearances
of the road, the cradled ego growing blind
against the body’s chafing would hide
from the terrible squashing of the sun,
threshing in daydream played out in the street…
of the Capitan China, the one
who, befogged in private vision,
laid down his law and had his women,
drove through the town in his carriage and eight –
for our forefathers left much behind
bringing mostly, when they came, the body
to contend with, did not notice the landscape,
the nodding vacuity of a malformed head.
At year’s end, the sense of annunciation touched only
the windows of the solitary.
And at the garden party, the bishop,
between meeting the community’s leaders,
picked at his beard, thinking perhaps of his study,
colonnades… the cathedral town…
The Capitan’s horses go clip-clop,
passing like the breeze down the midnight streets.
Our conversation petering out… silences…
Daydreams settle into laterite and gibberish of vegetation,
which made nonsense of Saint Francis’ mission.
De Sequiera’s troops over the ridge
forgot the meaning of their Christ and King.
Under the flare of the sun’s declension
the hills ignited. We passed the region
of the dead, the circular descent of those
who died and had committed nothing.
Our room’s on the second floor.
I am rather tired after today;
I feel the darkness of Babylon at the door.
The river grows harsh at the bend,
speech broken onto boulders, tears at root-ends
of strong reeds. A lizard moves
and crawls in the mimosa
which spread and trail leafless
across the rough stones of my heart.
This is not the season
when the wind blows wet
and in the night rumours of water fowl
but of the lonely sun
when anger withers on the stoney bank,
its branches bare
against the sky that holds your absence.