logging on
to twitter – another
me appears

‘just hanging out,
limning
about books’

‘a Bendel bonnet
a Shakespeare sonnet
Mickey Mouse’

the reader – ‘comparing
sea bass to shark, [ . . . ]
fish sticks to trout amandine’

bluebirds sing a name
‘Michiko Kakutani’
in a forest of bluebirds

a Van Gogh
‘blooming in a lush garden
lit by the Mediterranean’

‘tonight’s sunset -
a predictable array
of orange and red’

‘following each other
my [selves] stop
when it thunders’

self-enacting
phoenix born from fiery egg
born from phoenix dust

I ‘compare
a Givenchy frock
to a hand-sewn apron’

140 characters
‘airy and graceful as a Vivaldi
Pastorella’

‘“while explicating
the writer loses control
with willful hipness”’

‘snap your finger
stop the world’ -
writer writes

‘I can’t understand
the intention of
[virtual] reality’

the narrator, ‘a big, friendly
hound, waiting, head cocked,
for an emotional biscuit’

‘All day long
[writing a line]
that wasn’t [in] my head’

Kakutani!
‘Another [one],
Another something-or-other!’

two pearls, one oyster
oceans over necks of swine
one oyster, two pearls

‘please stop impersonating
me. I am me.’
@ActualNYTMK

is goddess of
+++++gaps, what kindness, greenness might taste
+++++like a million years hence. waste.
‘giants all covered with
iron’, prophecy foretold, enchant-
+++++ment-reinstating protocol
overridden, silence aglow with stars.
believe it!
+++++twilight ferry crossed
the Styx, liberty
gave great-grandmother heebie-jeebies. to write

that Manhatta
+++++is no Onogoro is no
+++++overstatement. The indigo’d
deep-dawn-light plays black and
white in reel time. our protagonist gen-
+++++erated duplicate daughters,
resisting image distortion. Pluto,
Izanami -
+++++‘hindered characters’ -
connect in the pre-
sent psyche like strands of silver filigree,

so it’s possi-
+++++ble nowadays for the female
+++++to sing salaams before the male.
yet these ‘twisted torcs and
gold new-moon-shaped’ thoughts aren’t displayed to
+++++best effect; I speak long after
the fact. Adept at deconstruction, I’m
analyst,
+++++reviewer. I shall
sit here, mass produ-
cing confections for frenemies, catalyst

for vitriol,
+++++sender of shikome for souls
+++++of inconstant rigmarole-
spewing amours. I sit
on the gilded throne of a skyscraper
+++++penthouse with marvellous granite
sunset views. Whither civilization,
or its bent
+++++antithesis? I know
I’m hollow, fill me -
I’m ‘Asiatic’, ‘Feminist’, discontent.

let’s go, no, far
too short to dance, let us arise
and go now, perhaps, not as
evocative as I would prefer
to present myself to adoring
public, anonymous net, let
us go then you and I, obliged,
observe myself in performance:
let us arise and go there you and I.

there is no magic isle in sight, but
o, are not words like music?
if so, if so, then in them man is free.

I am one of those ‘customs
collectors who calls themselves
literary critics’ and more,
admitted freely, I am detritus
of your desires, dumpster diver,
lover of other mouths on fire,
spending the fag-ends of days
labelling pilfered laurels, shoring
fragments of my own short-
circuited shell of a body electric
that forgot how to sing.
o but are not words like music?
if so, if so, if so, if so

Here are three bone porcelain
Dishes, three tiny silver spoons,
Three whispered names,
Three chances.

I remember Kristeva:
Now there’s a woman who can
Appreciate a sweet peach and a cold
Glass of milk.

I cast the stones like die or
Scrying bones. Not headed
For the compost heap, not
If I can help it.

The impertinence of peaches,
Living on after being eaten clean.
There will be strawberries
Tomorrow, perhaps.

Forthcoming in QLRS

It’s a terrible irony that the dim cage-like carriage is my site of freedom. But it is. And because I do nothing on the train, I know that it was between Newton and Bishan on a friday evening that I became acquainted with the left shoulder of a complete stranger.

Now, I didn’t turn my head of my own accord! It was this auntie, shuffling in next to me to stand nearer the priority seat, no doubt, whose shopping shoved me so my body twisted – like this – and my neck bent – like so – and I was suddenly trying my best not to read over the shoulder of this girl.

What was she like? In my unnatural position it was hard to be sure. She had shoulder-length hair, that much I was certain of, interspersed with brown streaks of old dye jobs. I counted 5 strands of silver. No glasses – contacts? – thin black hairband trying to hide itself and failing. She must have been pale, because her neck was, and her hands as well – at least her left one was as it held up her novel – her fingernails shiny and soft looking. I think she was wearing white, but shit, it’s ridiculous not being sure of that after one counts her white hairs!

But I really only noticed all these things because I failed – I did read over her shoulder – I stole a paragraph or two. Then I had to get off at Toa Payoh and was never able to find out any more about her. What she looked like for starters. What she did for a living. It’s equally a fallacy to judge a cover by its book, but that was all I had.

I googled, Amazon-ed, kindled, read the whole thing from digital cover to digital cover, memorized lengthy passages. Like the one I read on the train.

(recites, smiling)

“What will we do with him? Beauty, when you grow to be a man, eh, what will we do with you? . . . sure as anything you’ll leave us when you’re a man, and who’ll we ‘ave then, eh cruel? Sons and daughters why do we bring them into the world?” She was laughing. “Because, because” she said laughing and then lay smiling and then yawned.

(stops)

I’ve always wondered why people feel the need to do something while on the MRT, even when it is packed to overflowing and only space you have you must contort yourself to fit into. Well, I got my answer that day. Just because, just because, just because… Isn’t that a terrible irony?

What sign makes warning:
“Do not leave the path”?
Ground has some power still
What sun god makes here home
As the ice age thaws?

Children of cave men sick
With nostalgia for bite of granite
Fear the monolithic faces
Of the fathers they see
In the creases of rock

What army of brushes moves
Like mites on temple walls?
Here is monument of asphalt
What cement mixer pays
Pilgrimmage to ancestors?

Echoes of earth wrench upwards
Old teeth close in a passion
Men gaze upon mirror
Watchstone watches
Sun god is pleased

These are shallow roots in shifting sands
This is a stem, fat from keeping itself close to itself
Nothing changes no matter how many references
You make to its extraordinary evolutionary adaptations
No matter how many half-rhymes I fling from my hands

When you have lost your manuals and their numbered illustrations
And I my chapbooks of verse with their stanzas cleft
When all the lovely words in our different worlds
Are no longer enough to fuel our wanton distraction
Whatever will we have left?

Here in my cramped apartment I am thinking
Of you, and all of you, much like how I’m writing
Hypocritically about the desert from a temperate land
Give me a chance, let my words be true as they may
Remember me fondly with a glass in your hand

Nothing can be closer than our thoughts of the other
Floating like a mirage over this dry earth – the springs
Of our lives flowing hopelessly to too-perfect rhymes of another
Yes – we could be the squatness of that ugly prickly thing
Dwelling alone on the legend of rain

On your left are silken islands
Birthed from wormy pasts.
…………Do thread carefully.

Did you know that Tintoretto himself
Wove them into a sheet
Of a ‘certain quality’.

It was ’2 meters,
No more no less’.
It still isn’t enough to make an

Entire dress and as a result
All these gilded marshlands
Will have to do without.

But come, Tintoretto
…………Himself
…………Is waiting.

And maybe no tears are
Needed because
‘She’s just asking for it’.

And maybe today the frescoes
Of gold will let us see
Her by their ‘ebullient light’.

And maybe today the man
With the camera
Will take an acceptable shot.

And maybe tomorrow
A word will name
A thousand pictures.

But for now, put on your
‘Choice of mask to mask’
And enjoy our overexposure.

2. Oh Shoot, Thunder.

This is no place for the eye
…………(Am)
…………Of the storm.

Threatening, it overhangs the
Arsenale like the ‘clock that the navy
Also could not stop adequately’.

What are we to do?
The spark plug needs to be gapped.
Yes the spark plug needs after all.

And maybe in that space
’10000 chattering tourists will
Chatter their way to heaven

With the holy brush of Tintoretto himself
…………As their guide’.
Each stroke descends and lifts, prismatically.

There is much love in the
Place between ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’.
Maybe Tintoretto had a dream

And in it ‘there were two magnets
Attracted to each other
And they were unmoving’.

‘And there were also two magnets
…………Held slightly apart
And they too were unmoving’.

‘Yet the force of the latter
…………Made universes’
And the former did nothing.

And maybe the spark plug needs
But there are no cars here,
‘Not yet, anyway’.

Is it not frustrating how
The ‘spirit just comes in and
Just spits all over the law’?

If there were one final
thing left to utter, then:
‘It is of utmost importance that you bring

An umbrella with you wherever you go’.
Tintoretto’s ‘latter’ ‘magnets’
Are making the rain dance.

3. Are You Homesick?

Try our guaranteed ‘famous cure’.
In the absence of herbs you will
Need to scrutinize modern art

Until the physical realm floats
…………Away on a
Technicolour cloud.

In the ‘absence’ of the
‘Physical realm’ you will
Realize the futility of mental illness.

Maybe it will now take refuge
In a ‘certain’ man’s fantasies.
…………Do look more.

In a while ‘the man with the camera’ himself
Will awaken. The thread ‘will’
Break and the lady ‘will’ shriek.

In her voice there are the naked
Echoes of ‘Santa Maria…!’
…………’Do look more’.

‘Two magnets held
Slightly apart’
Will draw together again.

‘Much love in the place’.
‘A thousand pictures’.
…………’”Do look more’”.

‘No cars here’.
‘An acceptable shot’.
…………”"‘Do look more’”‘.

‘Come, Tintoretto himself’ -
Canvas, daguerreotype, negligee, daydream -
…………’is waiting’.

This forsaken curb is where we’ll make our home
Awhile, drowning numbness in old wine of evening
As neon lights reflect our souls through grimy foam
Of yesterday’s footprints washed out of the flooring,
Clinging to this violet shroud of night with bate-
d Breath. The earth revolves slowly while we wait.

Another figure
in this milieu
of this moment
is the poet H.D.

Here, she is in a photo
from 1915 with a locket
In a poetical pose.

Let’s see,
I’ve some other photos
of the poet here.
Let’s see.

This is as an older woman
and in a familiar place,
seated. She’s on your
left, my right,
with her companion
Brhyer right here.

And that nice
man in the middle’s
one of those who
helped create the
modern poetry archive
in Beinecke Library.

Let’s see,
there she is on her
seventieth birthday
in the nave of
Sterling Memorial
Library.

Well, and this is
over in Beinecke, too.
That’s her death mask.

So, “Sea Violet.”

Adapted from this lecture. And, as such, licensed under the same conditions.

Try whispering,
Dear Newman.
Silences can be
Terribly loud -
Lunula lunulae, oh,
(Do you not see)
In between 5th
And 6th aves
Stretches, off-
White, infinity.
A long-lost lover
Craving touch.
(Ah yes I see)
You made the
Entire world
Parentheses.

Another kind of
God lives
(Outside)
Our glassy museum.
Thin moonfinger
On old sleet,
Evanescent
Bone on bone.
Old Newman
Did MOMA
As Nature
Does sidewalk
As this creature
(Brightest linen)
Is doing
Life, lovely,
Full of loss,
Itself.

Published in Ceriph #4

Your love is a light that will not be hid in Bethlehem,
You purified silver and put your flame to Israel.

Torrential rain gathers fragrance, spreads it all the earth.
The clouds of the Palestine drift, all the same, to Israel.

Our city has fifty, no, forty, no, ten guiltless men -
Sheltering strangers our sordid shame. To Israel?

All tongues and all tribes, eternal domain of flowers wild
Commanded to bloom. Is this all a game to Israel?

This peace that we speak, inviting the Arab and Jew alike -
The sin – of our city? – is sending out blame to Israel.

Our branches are withered, our shoots are grafted holiness:
You found our blind and walked our lame to Israel.

A baby is born, a star in the sky is shining bright.
No frankincense – myrrh? No gold – our aim – to Israel.

Shalom aleichem, aleichem shalom, our ceaseless cry -
The sending of witnesses – bringing your fame to Israel.

Awakening us to ancestral lands, our dream enfleshed,
I hear the wind whisper my baptismal name; to Israel!

May I present my mother
Now, chirpy, restless,
Anxious for praise.
Immaculate makeup and
Clothes make a vessel
To pour herself in.
She buys too many groceries.
She sweeps, sweeps,
Sweeps. The grapes she
Proffers are too sweet for
My liking. Anyway I’m
Halfway out the hallway.
Only then does she call.
Her voice is shrill
Like an unpracticed
Understudy. She speaks
My name. Polished
Windows sparkle like
Diamonds in the sun.
It is night-time that
She fears.