The WidowHe died.She lived,or rather continuedto exist,standing at a distancefrom herselfto watch her daysfall away like leaves.In her mind, she beganto rewrite theunhappy plots oftheir marriagecreating fictional,improved endings tobetter justifyher grief.Slowly, she withdrew fromthe babble and noiseof the outside worldinto the secret innertemple of herselfwhere she alone was martyr –the one betrayed by the otherwho left too soon.Her prayers were neveransweredbut she remained inthat cold,familiar placewhere all was safe,and alwaysnumb. Hong Lim Parka fat man standsannounces an opinionas if it matteredin the hot sunthe trees yawn andalmost sighthe retirees wishthey had theirpark back The Execution of Nguyen Tuong VanDeath came on a quiet Friday, before sunrise,Slow as the final footsteps to the prison yardAbrupt as a broken neck.So you've crossed, Nguyen, into the clear light,A place without need for answersWhile we who sleep in darknessGrope and wrestle with our questions,Stumble through our savage dreams. Business TravelBetween one delayed flight and the nextI orbit in airport lounges,drift from one cup of coffee to another,my mind slipping from the pages of a meaningless magazine into memories of life elsewhere,your touch, the sound of your voice,like signals from a distant planet that I'd missed, and miss again. The TrainsYou sit and wait and watch.As the train approaches, you get upand you walk, to the yellow line,beyond the yellow line,and you........ fling yourself straightdown on the tracks.But you don’t.......... You only think about it.You sit and wait and watch.The doors open. People, real peoplewalk, to the train,........... to the yellow line,............................ beyond the yellow line,into the train. Then the doors closebehind them,and they’re gone,........ back to their own lives,slow at first, then faster, fasteruntil the train grows thinin the distance,.......... becomes nothing. The Schoolgirl Kills Herself After Failing an Exam She jumps from the tenth floor of a housing blockinto the brief wild terror of freedom, and transformsinto twelve paragraphs of newsprint in the Straits Times,cool and objective, black and white, the verifiable facts only.We are told that her classmates are "shocked".And that her parents refuse to comment. We know thatfor her last exam she scored 41 marks, a fatal result.A teacher describes her as a "quiet, hardworking girl".We feel obliged to pause to reflect. We wish to searchour conscience. She was only eleven, we remind ourselves.There must be others like her. There must be another way,we suspect, for children to grow up in this country.But yesterday’s news is quick to slide into the grey of memory.She will become another incidental casualty. We turn the page.We forget. Again we trip and fall head first into the future,down into the depths of a national urge to never stop excelling. On FaithI disbelieve all religionand ask God's forgivenessfor this. MeditationTo be still, but for breathAnd to watch its rise and fall.To sit in your own mindAnd know that you are sitting.Enter the soundless void and understandThat you have never beenAnywhere elseFor there has never beenanywhere else to be. On Foreign TalentAll the world’s a stage.We are actors.The script of my countryhas been rewrittenfor new and foreignstars.I could leave to actelsewhere,or else forever playthe minor parts.“You’re dispensable,”says the director.It’s his call.Although I feel cheated,I know that his showmust go on. TerminalSipping a little waterhe calmly talks of pain.He trusts in Jesus (I do not)believes in heaven(I do not), and for alast wish, would have me trust and believe too.Then he coughs, once, very hard - blood and phlegmspilling from his mouthlanding on his shirt,a dark patch like cancer.As I reach for the tissue box,he lifts his arms slightlyaway from himself,a look of mild disgustand annoyanceon his face,as if his body werea broken old TV or car,a piece of machinery soon to be thrown away. Not HomeI was eight, and alone.Waiting in the garden I talkedto trees. Seeds sprouted.Crickets sang. In the houseGrandma lay dying.Caught an insect, held itin my hand. Plucked a leg off,as I softly sang. Very cruel,very bad. Surely Papa wouldcome home, if I were bad.Make me hurt, for being bad.One more leg then, and another.Time crawled. I lost count.Finally there were no more legs,but Papa wasn’t home.I dropped the useless insecton the ground. In the houseGrandma went on dying.On and on her body twitched,till I crushed it with a stone.Papa wasn’t home. Osho on LoveYou fall in love with a womanbecause she is so new:the physiology, the colour of her hair,the way she walks, turns, says hello.Everything is new, the territory unknown:you are drawn like a moth at nightto a glass-walled flame.As you approach, she runs away:that is part of the game.If she simply says, "Yes, I am ready,"the mystery would fade that very moment -in fact you would think ofhow to run away. Man is a hunter,so when the woman is chased,running away, hiding here and there, avoiding, saying no,the man gets hot. The challengebecomes intense, the woman must beconquered. Now he grows readyto die for her, to do whatever is needed,his heart will flutter, he will fly,singe his wings on her heat,beat his small head on her glass walls.Before the night ends, he willtake her, yes he must, before she tooburns out in the first coldlight of dawn. My Father Growing Old I imagine him getting up early to makehis own coffee. Reading the papers.No plans for the day. Turning on the radioa little louder than it has to be.Alone at home. Then the phone ringing,he goes to answer it and finds meon the line. His son, a grown man now,calling from another country, increasinglydistant, more and more a stranger.The call cheers him up, nonetheless.He says, “How are you? How’s everything?”He really wants to know. He is my father,after all. He is growing old. But I don’tknow where to start. I want to tell him thatI love him and that I’m sorry I have tolive my own life now. But these are not thethings I know how to say from a distance.These are things I may never learn to say.So instead we speak of smaller daily things,and soon the brief connection between uswill unmake itself, and expire. The Adoration of the MagiDecember ShoppingHere comes Christmas. Take it, strip it down,wash it clean, then doll it up, prettify,package, add a ribbon. Now offer it up for sale,an orchard road product made new again.See the santa claus reindeer at centrepoint,touch the gold-dusted wings of angelmannequins, feel the softness, the warmthof cotton-wool snow, meltproof againstthe little coloured blinking bulbs.Do you not rejoice, would you not singalong in a fa-la-la-la-la sort of way?Meet baby jesus and holy mother,starring as takashimaya decorations,the three wise men as props.The crowds are awful, the roads too long,for roads that lead nowhere,but the lights are bright and the sales –oh, the wonderful sales! – are trulya shopper's paradise. What you buy iswhat you are, and what you are is here,on display, for sale, at a discount,very, very cheap. What joy! What happiness!What a birthday bash! Give thanks,for the power of visa, the sizeof your December bonus, for thisgreat offering of material things.Let us eat, let us feast like gluttons,swarm like flies, drown in proverbial milkand honey - it’s christmas, after all,Singapore’s greatest shopping season. TrainingRunning means that you willnever die. That’s why you come back,year after year, day after dayto your training routesthe sound of your shoes hitting the groundlike a dream of heart and rhythmone beat at a time, then another and anotherthat horizon in your mind still invisible,beautiful, always beyond reach. ondaatje’s handwritingthis fine distillationof momentson your pagesso cool andclearlike one raindropmoving slowalong the edgeof a leafthen, at the tippausingas if time itselfwas...... breathless. BreathlessWhen I hold you darklyon crumpled linenin passionwithout words –search my eyes thenyou'll know I think................... you're........... beautiful. Confession If I could stand away from myselfAnd look at me, I think I would be amazed.I fear I’ve gone a little crazy.I sit alone in cafes pondering mysteries.I hear voices where none should be.“Follow me, follow me,” they say.When the weather changes,I read the clouds for messages.Every person passing me on the streetis an omen. Most of all, I have seenhow all of us are one,Wrapped in the same mystery.When I am cut, you bleed.Now this sight is stripped from me.Now I cry. I weep. I want to write downWhat I saw. I am an error,I am lost. What is given can after allBe taken away. I want it back.What’s the meaning of meaning? Men and Women Can't Be FriendsNow when I was a kid I watched a moviecalled "When Harry met Sally" which I supposemust be some kind of classic by now.I think it was Harry who said to Sally, ormaybe it was Sally who said to Harry,that men and women can't be friendsbecause sex gets in the way.It's sad that this is true, because right nowas I sit and talk to you, I'm wonderingwhat you look like in the nude.Because you look really sexy today.My girlfriend would hit me if she knew,and your boyfriend would hit me if he knew.You would hit me too if you knew,or maybe you'd be flattered.But anyway the point is I can't stop wonderingwhat you look like in the nude.I'm not going to kiss you or hug you ortouch your breasts or anything like that.But I really can't or won't stop wonderingwhat you look like in the nude.And maybe this is why men and womencan't ever be friends. GamesSomewhere along the way,I became familiar with these gamesof words and politics.Learned to play them well.So did you.Now we know how to smilewhen we say the things we don’t mean.The half-truth is a useful tool.Every day, we’re masking objectivesand planning new manoeuvresin the dark.Although you have my respect,you do not have my trust.We play these games too well.I smile at you, and remain wary. Any DifferentWork hard, live long, sleep well,don't think too much, and rememberto die quietly when it's your turn to go.Accept the standard definitions,for resistance is useless.Have we not all yearned to be artistsor martyrs from time to time,to wear a face in a faceless crowd.Haven’t you learned yet?In the dark we are all the same,just the same, and all your grievingwill not make you any different. Camera You think you know my camera well.The Nikon F2, the reliable silver one, the one I carriedFor years with me to weddings, birthdays,holidays, the convocations of favourite nieces.To the gushing Merlion, to the National Day Parade,to the sunset views from the Benjamin Sheares bridge.To our vacation on the island of Mauritiuswhere we made much love and swam togetherin a picture-perfect blue-green sea. To all our daystogether that mattered, and to those that didn’t.Wherever we went, that old camera came alonglike a silent witness, preserving what I sawthrough its clear lens. At home, you browsed throughthe thick collections of our days and seemed surprisedby how people were always happy, smiling,looking the right way. Even inanimate objects like rocks,flowers and the white sands of beaches took ona calm, benign personality. They seemed to assertthat the world was full of love and other good thingsand would stay that way. You did not understandmy art. You did not know what my hands and eyehad done to those moments, how this camera had closedin what it wanted to see. With care and precision.With a skill I’d honed for years and practised,almost like deceit. Wednesday Morning, 3 A.MYou were five months old. New in my life.You lay in the cot listening to nursery rhymesrepeated by a battery-operated toy. You couldn’t sleep.When Ba Ba Black Sheep came on for the fourth time,you wept with what sounded like despair.Already you had a taste for the better things in life.From the closet I took the old guitar.I hadn’t touched it for years. I wiped the dust offwith a cloth. Tuned up the sad, neglected strings again.But my fingers did remember and my ears were still there.So I played. I sang Yesterday like a clear memory.And there was Simon & Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence,and Presley’s Love Me Tender. All oldies evenback when I’d first heard them myself.In the dark you sat, propped against your baby pillows.Wide-eyed and listening, you followed my voice and guitar,gulping down each note. It was like nothing you’d heard before.You were fascinated. You struggled to stay awake.At 3 a.m, the last beautiful stanza of If by Breadfinally pulled you into sleep.But I sat there by myself, playing on. Cradling the guitarclose to me. You remind me of things, son, that I’d known all along.Like the sound of a simple major chord. And the way the old songs talkof love and tell a story. I teach you words, I sing you songs,and you teach me again their possibilities. Francisco de Goya, The Third of MayNational Day ParadeI had a small part in aBig show of a great little nation.My uniformed mates and I wereTo march out, swing left,Turn twice, and get off the groundsIn twenty seconds flat.Meanwhile the music boomed,The lasers splashed,And the darkened crowds hitA new high of pre-planned,Programmed excitement.Later at home, my mother replayedThe video tape five timesBut couldn't tell her tiny toy-Soldier son from any of the rest."That one is me," I said,Pointing at the screen.I couldn’t be sure.Still we laughed and clappedOur hands like children,Knowing that it was neverSupposed to matter. ching mingto bright hill temple she has gonecarrying joss and moneybringing food and drinkfor her mother-in-law’s soul.lychees oranges and one appletwo bowls of white ricethree vegetarian dishesang ku kueh and bean paste bunsjoss sticks chopsticksa vase to hold the flowerstwo chinese cupletsto hold the chinese tea.with a weary heartshe kneels before the urnto explain for thosewho are not here.ah seng cannot comehe is too busy at the officetua gor cannot come becauseshe is in poor healthah leong will not comenow that he is baptisedji gor is not comingbut i do not know why.so today i come alone, motheri bring your favourite dishesthis money i burn for youruse in the other worldthe years pass and we forgetbut i am here, mother, and todayyou shall not be lonelyin the season of the dead. Happy Birthday To Me33 years old, and starting from scratch.The world as womb. My time has come.As young, and as old, as I'll ever be.What lies beyond? Which doors do I close,what part of me do I take with me? Rainbow FishTeck, rememberwhen we were kidswading barefootin the streambehind our home,catching rainbowfish those small brightlights makingripples wideningin the water?Now we sit hereon a rainy dayover beer andpeanuts,scooping upold memoriesin a netful of smalllive colours,see how they gaspin surpriseand leap crazily,still alive,after all this timetheir silver belliesstill vivid in the sun. Poor SpeakerI have a habit of mumbling.My tongue grows thick and I myself can hearhow from my mouthone word emerges indistinctly into the next,like porridge poured onto othershapeless porridge.This often happens when I am caughtin one of those social situationswhere I need mostto appear sophisticated, intelligent and articulate,in other words, those occasionswhen people talk too much,say too little and hardly listen at all.At such times, in a certain ironic way,the incomprehensible soundsescaping my lipsare in fact the most appropriate thingsI could possibly say. Paddy Chew’s Last ShowLife is real. Art is its mirror. Or is it theother way round? Paddy Chew has forgotten.His life is here now, on stage, Paddy starring as himself,the final act, before the curtain fallsand the lights go out forever.“This is me,” he says to the audience, “take a look.”He lifts his shirt up. A stunned silence.Ribs cast shadows on other ribs. The fleshhas fallen away, the body a territory conqueredby the relentless virus.This is what Paddy tells his audience:I liked women. I liked men too.At least that is what he remembers.These days his body yearns for nothing, not sex,not food or water, nothing but its own breath,exhausted, in and out, in and out,an almost unnatural thing.Lies are for the living. Truth is for the brave.Masks fall away when death comes close.“I am so close,” Paddy says, “to dying.”All he wants is to show the audiencewhat he has seen. That all of us are dying,and none of us should die alone.Paddy dies, but not alone. In a way, he lives on too.Love is his message. Love endures. I did not know him,but I know what love is. I wrote this poemso that others like him will live,and die, but not alone. About My FatherBack from the hospital,two weeks after the surgeon cuthis heart apart and sewed itback together again.He resumes his normal life.Fixing breakfast in the morningfor the family - bread and jam,and coffee - then settling downto read the paper.Only occasionally speaking,to express surprise at some event reported in the press. It is as if nothing has happened.When he has truly departedI shall remember himas he was, here.A man of few words, inscrutable.Drinking black, hot coffee.His eye steady on a worldhe'd already begun toleave behind.