Janet picks up her fortune cookie,
Then puts it down, turns to her friend:
“Don’t bank too much on youth. Your rookie
Season is drawing to an end.
John, things we would – when young – not think of,
Start to make sense when, on the brink of
Thirtydom, we pause to scan
What salves and salads cannot ban,
The earliest furrows on our faces,
The loneliness within our souls,
Our febrile clawing for mean goals,
Our programmed cockfights and rat races,
Our dreary dignity, false pride,
And hearts stored in formaldehyde.

– Vikram Seth, The Golden Gate

No worries – no anxiety. Just reading a very good book and felt those were awesome lines.

NOTE: I was contemplating publishing this in the school newsletter, but I decided this was the better platform.

The poem stems from something I’ve been thinking about for a while, because I’ve wanted to find a way to thank my students and wish them well.

I started writing the poem last week in the midst of marking and all that jazz, but I’ve decided that the poem is done and it’s time to put it up.

Last but not least, “piglet” and other porcine-related words are figurative and not literal, and is in no way meant to demean or denigrate – I thought I had better make this clear, just in case, and I apologise if I inadvertently offend anyone.

–

Piglet Race
By Laremy Lee

For all my piglet children.

I see you all bounding toward me
with the innocence of bacon,
the look in your eyes squealing:
in another life, I could’ve been char siew.

Your heads held up in earnest,
your snouts pointed to the sky,
you radiate pink with promise and youth
as you race toward the future, on a path

you’ve often been prodded along.
Remember, though, before I let you go:
life must be as easy as a piglet race
but not as simple as one.

Fly like the wind. Leap
as high as you can, over
hurdles set out like nets.
Look cute while doing so.

But wait for fellow piglets if
they pause. Help them if they falter.
We are as much competitors
as we are comrades-in-trotters.

Fortunately (or unfortunately),
like Fleance, you will soon flee
leaving me behind as Time flies
to pick my pocket once again,

as it did me when I was a piglet like you;
as it will you when you are a boar like me.
Another set of piglets will round the bend,
bounding toward me with all their might,

even going so far as to – who knows? –
one day, also bound toward you,
till your heart beams and your smile says,
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

Was just reminded of the poem below when I received an e-mail blast from The Arts House regarding a reading of Czeslaw Milosz’s poetry.

–

Christopher Robin
By Czeslaw Milosz

I must think suddenly of matters too difficult for a bear of little brain. I have never asked myself what lies beyond the place where we live, I and Rabbit, Piglet and Eeyore, with our friend Christopher Robin. That is, we continued to live here, and nothing changed, and I just ate my little something. Only Christopher Robin left for a moment.

Owl says that immediately beyond our garden Time begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in it, you go down and down, very quickly, and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in, but he came back and then I asked him about the well. “Old bear,” he answered. “I was in it and I was falling and I was changing as I fell. My legs became long, I was a big person, I grew old, hunched, and I walked with a cane, and then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear, and our shared fun. Now I won’t go anywhere, even if I’m called in for an afternoon snack.”

So I mentioned that day that one of my poems has been published in the latest issue of Ceriph.

Here it is:

Lucky Strikes
By Laremy Lee 

For all the boys from 10A04.

Fumbles one out from the box, strikes
it at a dulled edge: conversation
does not ensue. He tries again – twice,
thrice, before its head snaps off, departing
into the distance of a long, lonely night.
Leaves him standing there, limp
cigarette dangling loosely from his lips,
moisture slowly soaking filter tip.

Lighting up shouldn’t be a dismal match
grovelling wildly at the feet of blunted flints,
looking to catch the song of a spark
in a vain draw on an inflamed hope -
that determination will grow into fire.

Go get your copy of Ceriph if you haven’t already done so.

Five people took part in it. Wow – overwhelmed at the overwhelming support. Haha!

Anyway, the answer to the question I asked:

Hill Street, just outside the Central Fire Station.

Where is this place I speak of?

I’ve included a helpful Google Map for your reference (click on this link if you can’t see the embedded image):

View Larger Map

Why did I hold the contest?

I thought it’d be fun to be random, as well as to force all you hamsters to be a bit more aware of Singapore and its landscape.

I also recently visited the Civil Defence Heritage Gallery for a Learning Journey.

One of the things I learnt from the Journey was that Singapore fire-fighters have a unique way of sliding down their firefighter-poles (there is no way of writing this without it sounding like innuendo).

Check it out in this YouTube video (click on this link if you can’t see the embedded video):

Anyway, back to the contest. The winners are: Dexter Lee and Lucas Ho!

As I mentioned, I’d choose the winners arbitrarily, so this time round, I decided to choose the winners based on who responded and who came to visit me while I was recuperating at home.

Their prizes: they each get a copy of Ceriph Issue #3!

I also mentioned I’d give an arbitrarily chosen prize. This time, I thought I’d give them each a copy of the latest issue of Ceriph cos one of my poems has been published in this issue, heh heh.

If you’re free tomorrow (Sat, 18 Jun 2011) and you’re in the Orchard area, do pop by Kinokuniya around 4pm cos Ceriph Issue #3 will be launched then.

There’ll be readings and stuff; I’ll be there but I won’t be reading because I’m still quite unintelligible at times.

Nevertheless, do say hi if you’re there.

In any case, keep your eye out for the next contest – we’ll be guessing my new weight after being on a liquid diet for the last fortnight.

Just kidding (about the contest, not the diet or the weight loss).

Today, I am drinking Complan for the very first time in my life.

Complan is gross. Okay, I’m biased. I’ve never been a very big fan of these… products.

In any case, I just thought I’d mark this occasion with a poem because of how Complan has been immortalised (to me, at least) in Arthur Yap’s “2 mothers in a hdb playground”:

2 mothers in a hdb playground

ah beng is so smart,
already he can watch tv & know the whole story.
your kim cheong is also quite smart,
what boy is he in the exam?

this playground is not too bad, but i’m always
so worried, car here, car there.
at exam time, it’s worse.
because you know why?
kim cheong eats so little.

give him some complan. my ah beng was like that,
now he’s different. if you give him anything
he’s sure to finish it all up.

sure, sure. cheong’s father buys him
vitamins but he keeps it inside his mouth
& later gives it to the cat.
i scold like mad but what for?
if i don’t see it, how can i scold?

on Saturday, tv showed a new type,
special for children. why don’t you call
his father buy some? maybe they are better.

money’s no problem. it’s not that
we want to save. if we buy it
& he doesn’t eat it, throwing money
into the jamban is the same.
ah beng’s father spends so much,
takes out the mosaic floor & wants
to make terazzo or what.

we also got new furniture, bought from diethelm.
the sofa is so soft. i dare not sit. they all
sit like don’t want to get up. so expensive.
nearly two thousand dollars, sure must be good.

that you can’t say. my toa-soh
bought an expensive sewing machine,
after 6 months, it is already spoilt.
she took it back but … beng,
come here, come, don’t play the fool.
your tuition teacher is coming.
wah! kim cheong, now you’re quite big.

come, cheong, quick go home & bathe.
ah pah wants to take you chya-hong in new motor-car.

– Arthur Yap

I can’t remember if the original had any stanzas but I thought I’d delineate the text into stanzas so you can see the conversation between the mothers (a la Peter Tan’s webpage).

In case you are not very intelligent and don’t know why this poem is meaningful, please allow me to highlight a few significant aspects of the poem to you:

• Captures the use of English in Singapore, especially how Chinese Singaporeans speak English (wrongly or otherwise) in modern Singapore’s early years (look at the title: it’s “a hdb” instead of “an hdb”. So you’ve got to be adamantine when you read out the title i.e. “a haitch-dee-bee” instead of “an aitch-dee-bee”).
• Demonstrates changing class aspirations in Singapore, from a Chinese perspective, at least.
• Depicts the urbanisation of the Singapore landscape vis-a-vis economic progress.

DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED COMPLAN???

Well, I still maintain that Complan is gross but beggars whose mouths have been wired shut cannot be choosers.

BTW, whoever is coming over to my place to visit me – you’re gonna be served Complan.

I’ve just finished reading Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw.

I got it at a book swap on Sunday and it’s accompanied me since my operation on Tuesday.

There was a motif in the text which I thought was quite cool: the recurrent use of “La Coccinelle (The Ladybird)” by Victor Hugo to discuss the theme of love.

The poem, in French, as far as I know, as follows:

La Coccinelle

Elle me dit: “Quelque chose
“Me tourmente.” Et j’aperçus
Son cou de neige, et, dessus,
Un petit insecte rose.

J’aurais dû, – mais, sage ou fou,
A seize ans, on est farouche, -
Voir le baiser sur sa bouche
Plus que l’insecte à son cou.

On eût dit un coquillage;
Dos rose et taché de noir.
Les fauvettes pour nous voir
Se penchaient dans le feuillage.

Sa bouche fraîche était là;
Je me courbai sur la belle,
Et je pris la coccinelle;
Mais le baiser s’envola.

“Fils, apprends comme on me nomme,”
Dit l’insecte du ciel bleu,
“Les bêtes sont au bon Dieu;
“Mais la bêtise est à l’homme.”

– Victor Hugo

An English translation, culled together from other translations plus my own limited knowledge of French:

The Ladybird

She told me: “Something is
Bothering me.” And I saw
Her snow-white neck, and, on it,
A small rose-coloured insect.

I should have, – but, wise or foolish,
One is awkward at sixteen, -
Seen the kiss on her lips
More than the bug on her neck.

One would have called it a seashell;
Red-backed and spotted black.
To see us, the warblers
Leaned forward in the foilage.

There was her cool mouth;
I bent over the lovely girl,
And I caught the ladybird;
But away flew the kiss.

“Son, learn my name,”
Said the bug from the sky blue,
“The beasts belong to our good Lord;
“But beastly stupidity belongs to man.”

– Victor Hugo

Here’s a comic of the poem too, if you’re so inclined.

–

An exam. Hands move,
coloured pens mark scripts and time
while youth flies away.

–

One among others.
Coloured pens mark scripts and time
while youth flies away.

It’s called Ceriph; you can check out their Facebook group here.

Their mission:

We exist to provide a space for Singaporeans to develop and showcase ideas and work in the form of prose, social commentaries, art, musings, photography, and much more. We want to share these without inhibition, to celebrate these thoughts and their existence. As a non-profitable venture, we are depending solely on the interest of readers and contributions from Singaporeans who are equally passionate about the locally developing arts and writing scene.

If this appeals to you too, I’d strongly encourage to submit some of the stuff you’ve been keeping under wraps.