The Untold Story

There are many untold stories out there,
buried in the boundless wastes called life,
by the sweeping winds of complacency,
an inability to reflect back on experience,
a failure to see the worth of acts and words;

It is as if a life is meant to be lived only
on the experiential plane unreflected back
by words put to paper, thus passing by
as if it is meant to be lived surreptitously, stealthily,
just like another rain drop same like any other;

Luckily there are also many told stories
through which we can share the lives of others -
to learn from them, be inspired by them,
and to enrich our own;

Here is one story rescued from the blackhole of the untombed untold -
First the reasons why it remained untold for so long - 75 years:

The principal cast of characters preferred it to be a secret,
They were poor and illiterate and had more
pressing priorities to tend to their days;
Ideas such as the pursuit of the afterlife
which unfortunately does not make the three
Rs - reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic - a perquisite,
Were more important than such worldly concerns
which were nothing more than an ego trip, a waste of time,
Excusable perhaps if it pertained
to the lives of society's upper crust,
But unheard of and completely unintelligible
when it came to their own ordinary lives.

The descendants of the principal players,
Marrying out and interlocking with other family sets,
Scattered far and wide in a grid of ever expanding diasporas;

This is a story of a woman who will never know her true roots -
She was born into a family of a particular ethnic group
who was in dire straits; she was given away for adoption
Presumably in her very first year of life to a family
from a different ethnic group.

(tbc)

but the oddity remains for and sundry to see
and dark whispers and even undisguised, raw jeers, ridicule
were the order of the day
she walked the extra mile to be the people who ridiculed her
She neglected her duties
she developed a victim mentality
was no angel
given away to be married off
many similar cases in kemaman
most notorious being the natrah story
Poverty pushed her biological parents
from southern China
Ending up in the Kemaman Bandi
iron ore mine
via Singapore.
She was presumably born in 1932.

Wong Yoke Kwan, an unfinished story

life of ridicule n mental anguish
uncalled for remarks n cold stares
WYK knew odd one out
put up a barave front
her heart cried out in pain
from callous tretment
of tronoh, in ipoh 70
people making fun n could offer no explanation
kept feelings pentup and did not ask parents
91 - got the answer when she attended
a gsthering and people commented
she looked remarkable to a friend in Jelapang
may 12, monday, mother's day
drove bike to jelapang
first stop
chinese lady sweeping
showed pic of anama who look
exactly like her mother
dna
of her pain n suffering

When Uranus Is My Scout Planet

Not that I know for a fact,
But presumably most people
Feel the need to hide behind
The skirts of authority figures,
The hooves of the herd,
Anonimity and conformity,
Mediocrity and piety,
To escape the unsettling -
To say the least - feeling
Of being slapped with a label:
Usually a descriptive tag
That highlights any departure
From the norm, be it physical,
Behavioural, attitudinal
Or concerning one's beliefs.

A label yanks
You out of the ranks,
Putting you in the line of fire
Of society's drill-sargeant-types,
Self-appointed echomen, and
YangDiKerah chorusboys,
For having stepped out of line,
Eating with chopsticks
At a table of fingers,
Speaking out of turn
At a caucus of coca clones.

They pelt you with dollops
Of disapproval, jeers, scowls,
Ruses of ridicule,
In a ritual refusal to look
At their own reflections.

Men will whimper, wilt,
And simply shrivel up,
When cast the hex
Of name calls ...

Or melt into the bagan -
Hitching their persona
Onto the bandwagon
To escape the stigma and stigmata
Of having inherited
A different set of desiderata.

But a few rebels, outcasts,
Survive the baying and shank nipping
And have enough chutzpah
To strike out on their own -
Or snap back.

In my time, I've been called a botak,
A bandit and an eccentric, a number
More than most would consider
A fair share, methinks.
Botak on account of Tun Abdul Razak
Having had more hair than my father,
Bandit on account of the common belief
In the 60's that all slant eyes were communist suspects,
And, yes, I do have slant eyes on account
Of having a Yunnan strain in my veins,
Eccentric on account of my preference to stand
On my head when everyone else is slouching on one foot,
Watching me do the heart turning Yoga asana.

Had I given in to the initial welling
Of emotion upon being thus slapped,
I would have have been cast in irons,
A fallen angel recalled to the ranks;
Mercifully, I had enough reserve in the tank
To recoil from the instinctive impulse,
Instead I stewed in my own juices for a while,
Long enough to scour the terrain of my mind
And resources for a way out and this was
what I found from astrology (There I go again,
Setting myself up for another mudpie in my face):

"Your scout planet is Uranus:
You view the world from an unusual perspective,
You have a link to hidden forces,
Giving you a deeper understanding
Of the mysteries of life.
Unusual things happen to you,
Often very abruptly and unexpectedly,
You have unique ways of getting things done,
Which causes people to think of you
As being eccentric."

Absolute Reality, Relative Reality

to conceal from one another
the unique and lonely world
in which each lives
terribly articulate, foolishly truthful
conventional men agree he is mad
what an extraordinary fella
thrown back on itself,
determined more
by the seer than the seen
instinct for the absolute
thirst for truth
a strictly personal affair
of vision not of argument
escape the stigma of ostracism
by outwardly attaching itself to a tradition
personal religion attach itself to a majority school
abounds in hints of wonder and mystery
of what lies beyond tables and chairs
are not what they seem
from naturalism to idealism to mysticism
naturalism - views the world as nothing
more than concrete things governed by natural laws
idealism - views the world as aggregates of thoughts

My Body Lies

From the top of my head,
To the tip of my toes,
I lie in my bed,
Neither am I dead,
Nor even in comatose.

But fully cognizant,
Of my body's prone position,
Parts and connections.

At the top of my pate
Is a hirsute suite
Just as a palm tree
Is topped off with
A canopy of leaves,
Without which we'd be baldy,
Shorn of our crowning glory.

My head sits atop a neck
As a watch keeps a lookout
From the watchtower,
As light shines from a lighthouse,
Giving reassurance to a returning kayaker.

This is my face,
The focal point of who I am,
By which I am known,
Greeted and graced.

My face is like a hallowed
Church pew, with all its parts
In their proper places -
The eyes, the nose, the mouth
None out of synch, not one askew.

Inside the mouth is a tongue chute
Leading to an antechamber -
An epiglottis, the gullet,
And, recessed out of view,
The larynx.

The neck joins the head to
The chest housing the vital organs -
the heart and lungs,
And below decks,
The tiffin-turning tummy.

The stomach extends
The body's range further south,
To the body's fulcrum - the hips -
Flanking the tender bits,
Before it fans out into the nether kicks.

As a centrepoint in my
Abdomen's washboard expanse,
There is a dry oasis locally known as Bellibuttoo,
It was once well-watered, a conduit of nutrition,
But now converted into a tourist attraction,
A jewel in the Saharan undulation.

Back up, echoing the fork to the
Lower limbs, the shoulders sprout out
The arms, giving balance and harmony,
Getting work done, and for doing workouts.

The arms with its elbows, wrists and hands,
Are for lifting, throwing and manipulating,
While the legs are for walking, kicking,
And complementary balancing.

At the bottom of the back
Is a pair of padding at my disposal;
Between the mounds
Is a hole for waste disposal.

Hidden away inside the body
Is a host of organs hung like
An intricate lattice of lanterns,
Bathed in fluids, charged by calories,
Doing vital work like coolies
In the innards of an East India
Company merchant navy.

Did I forget to mention
The brain enclosed in the skull
Inside the head?

That's funny, the brain
Is for remembering.

Salam the Suluk

TBC

Salam, a Suluk, is darting about
In the byways of the cavernous
Shopping precinct called Putatan Point,
Down here in Putatan town,
On the west coast of Sabah
Where the patent to the words wayward wind
Is being applied by the state government
In a long-drawn effort to fight the machinations,
Sleight-of-speech and machiavellian manoeuverings
By interested parties euphemistically called local politicians
Who wish to advance their interests
By using the illegal immigrants issue
As leverage, as target practice, to take pot shots at,
As a diversion from addressing more urgent needs
Such as education, poverty eradication,
environmental degradation and public sanitation
Which the illegals did nothing to ease the congestion
Adding a few more twists to the complications,
Churning up more froth to the mishmash of the state ethnic pot
In which every Sabahan sits comfortably
Milking the largesse of the blessed land
Fecundating under the long shadow
Of Mount Kinabalu, its high priestess
And godmother rolled into one,
Giving yet another mirror image
To the eclectic, syncretic, polyglot.

Take Salam, down at Putatan Point,
As a case in point:

A Wasteland Of The Mind

Below the high and mighty clouds
Of education reports and master plans,
That have been swirling above
Our heads since Merdeka,
Here I am down on all fours
On the living room floor
In an honest-to-goodness
Staredown with a year six mind
Who cannot write "with," "the,"
Or even "a" during an
English dictation class.

This after millions of ringgit
Have been expended,
Tons of textbooks -
Wooed in January, jilted in December -
Have been churned out,
Scores of teacher-training colleges -
A beehive to no-option jobseekers -
Have been expanded,
And six years of SRK classes -
Which parents who could afford the move
Turn their backs on in preference
To the system across the causeway -
Have been dumped,
All to no apparent valor or avail.

So where is the hitch?
Is it the fault of the lecturers
Of the trainee-teachers who write
Notes for them to copy?

Or is it the doing of the
Trained teacher who sits
At her desk after writing
Notes on the blackboard
For the pupils to copy?

Or maybe it is the pupils -
Who copy the notes from the blackboard
Or the exercise books of other pupils
In order to complete their school
And home work -
Themselves who are at fault?

Or maybe it is the parents who
Went through the same treadmill
Thirty score years ago and are
Now the proud parents of pupils
Whose school exercise books are
Full of copied notes?

Or maybe there is an unseen hand,
Who concertedly and persistently
Frustrate the efforts to get the pupils
To read, 'rite and regurgitate -
Because they are convinced
Mainstream education, for
The same reasons or reversed,
Is a self-serving ploy to secularize
The masses or beat them up
Into submissive footsoldiers
Of the prevailing ethos?

What if this unseen hand
Is right in our midst, nay,
Right in our own hearts?
A succubus, a worm,
A Trojan horse, the enemy
Sharing our mosquito net?
What then?

Does anyone care or dare
To point out that note-taking
And rote-learning, however convenient
A cover-up, a conspiracy,
Is no substitute for real learning,
Nay, it may even be a slayer
Of curiosity and enthusiasm,
The true call of learning?
Do you dare do the unthinkable -
Wrench out your diseased heart -
And replace it with a brand new
Bionic one?

Will the story of Hang Nadim
Be reprised here,
Or does the story of the Emperor's
New Dress ring too close for comfort?
Or is this vain verse of mine
Be the tree that fell in the forest
Which no one uptown could hear?

KL Traffic Junkie

TBC

If you think driving in KL traffic
Is stressful, meet Roby Rose,
She is the latest mutant thrown up
On the wave of KL's rapid rise

I know Kl best from the late 60's
to late 80's, after that I gave up.
Too stressful.

Then in July 2006, I had
Reasons to revisit it for
A month and befriended
This lady who live in Bukit
Antarabangsa, owns another property
In Damansara and works in Bukit Bintang.


In Bukit Bintang

Saddam's Story: From Hell And Back

The sight of Saddam's statue
Falling over was a grim herald
Of his own, and the form that it took -
Falling through the nooseman's trapdoor -
Might not have been on everyone's sighthole
But probably sighted in the minds
Of the thousands of his victims, at least
Those who survive, never mind a leg or two missing,
While in those who had passed on, the sight of Saddam
Falling through the trapdoor
Could still be watched on tv sets
From the divine departure lounge,
With the added bonus, presumably,
Of being able to watch the seamless sequence
Of the sight of Saddam - his soul, that is -
Passing on to the next sequel to his fate -
Entering the portal of hades,
In a souk drama that could easily be
Titled, Saddam's Story: From Hell And Back.

From ProtoMalay to Bumiputraism

wnfc

To raise chicken in a coop
Is for the single purpose
Of putting it in the soup;
To raise children in a box
Is for the single purpose
Of putting then into a convenience socks;
To remove the chicken from its free range
Is to deprive it of experiencing chicken hierarchy;
To forbid children from having a free run
Is to deprive them of learning social skills;
To tame chicken from its original jungle domain
Is to take it away from being nature's model;
To prevent children from being active in sports and games
Is to take away the development of form as nature designed;

Bloggers, Don't Unite!

tbc



When two bloggers got sued for defaming
a rash of bloggers parachuted
from the rafters of false anonimity
calling for unity and starting a fund
in defence of the doggone bloggers.

I say, whatever game you choose to play,
Be it a game of hockey or poker,
there are always basic rules to respect and obey
If one does not want to incur problems.

Having transgressed a rule and aggrieved
Someone who then decides to go by the law book,
You are set. Just count your lucky stars he didn't
Resort to taking the law into his own hands.

As a blogger, I don't like to hear that
Another blogger is asking for help from other bloggers
For a transgression in the name of freedom of expression
for all bloggers.

As a blogger I look askance at another blogger who ask
bloggers to unite in defence of all bloggers.
I begin to question whether he has an axe to grind,
wants to gain mileage, glory, be a hero,
advancing a hidden agenda, riding piggyback,
And other whathaveyous.




one would think blogging is the last bastion
where one may let one's hair down
for independent and free expression,
subject of course to the laws of the land
and the usual norms of decency.

For bloggers to feel the need to unite
and form a union of whatever sort,
that would be the ultimate betrayal.

Issued A Blank Soul

In the end, we all will be delivered
Unfettered and pure as a baby's bottom
To the hand that smites open the seas
Nurses the universe, and
Rocks creation's cradle,
But in this bend of the river of life,
There are gnomes out there
Whose nose is firmly fixed to the grindstone -
Not of an honest day's work -
How could they -
But of being defiant of simple decency -
Compassion even - and insists on and persists in
Ridiculing, bickering, backstabbing,
Bringing down, stepping on, betraying
And cheating fellow humans,
Especially when they know
They won't be hit back
By a mobster or a lawsuit.

Smirching is the order of their day,
Smirking is the end they seek to display;
Of the mind, charlatan; in the heart, nonchalant;
These are the vanity vultures
Perched on bloated carcases,
Of fly-blown cultures,
Committing the ultimate betrayal -
Handing over their mind's wherewithal
To be the handmaiden
In a witches' coven.

Raven-eyed for the slightest sign
Of non-conformity or vulnerability,
They turn on the mongol-eyed puppy
In a litter of doe-eyed brownies -
Driven by the same frenzy
As aquarium fish attack
The same spot of open sore,
To kill off the wounded guppy -
Elemental animals to the core,
Humans only at the door,
Their hearts besmirched,
Their faces besmirked,
In this bend in their river of life.

One wonders if they are not bearers of blank souls -
In the mirror their reflections deflect,
How could they then self-reflect?
Hey, am I not holding up a mirror of self-discovery?
For the things I said of gnomes
May be reverberating off the rafters
In my own home -
If I am not wary.

Jiggling In Interstitial Space

In between the twin fabrics of existence -
The protoplasmic and the cosmic -
Thrown and tossed any which way
By its constant motions
Like clothes on a line
Flapping in the wind.

I jiggle in its interstitial space,
Like a fly caught in a spider's cobweb,
Or a surfer lost on the Web,
A fugitive on the run from life,
Flailing down a time funnel,
Stepping on rolling waves,
Balancing to make my way
To the light at the end
Of the dimmed tunnel,
The toll exit to a waiting
Road which will take me
To my final destination -
The Perfect Form.

Need to say,
The journey takes only
A moment of eternity -
And the eternity in the moment.

And God Created Women

And God created wimmin -
With apologies to Roger Vadim:
And that's when the troubles began
With eulogies to born-every-minute men -
Yes, men, as in male of the species -
For a reason stark and simple,
Pure and precise -
To put him through hell,
And send him to - well - hell.

Hell!

A woman is a vortex of colliding currents,
Driving a man, hilly-billy,
Willy-nilly in as many directions,
While the center of the vortex -
Woman - symbolized as serpent,
Reserves the right to remain silent,
Casting a look defiant,
Her face unsmudged,
Her heart - there isn't any - untouched,
Her posturing calculated,
To lure the man of the house,
Male of the species, master of none,
To do her bidding,
Disguised as her doing his bidding.

Dressed up on the periphery,
To tear the heart of the unwary;
To a woman, a man is a quarry,
Nature's agent to cull the
Sickly, miserly and needy.
Many a man will go through this sifter,
Succumbing to the age-old siren serenader;
Those who survive become strong,
Those who fall will hurtle headlong
Onto the pyre of self-immolating fire.

The Eighth Wonder

The eighth wonder of the world
Has gotta to be the seat of a toilet bowl;
Rodin's Thinker, I tell ya,
Is rightly dressed for the stool session,
But wrongly stooled;
He should have been seated
Yes, you guessed it, on the ample rind
Of the toilet bowl seat;
Then again, I may have my history
Wrong - maybe they hadn't invented
The good news to a man's gluteus yet
During Rodin's time set.

Ah, the tortures man had to sit through
While waiting for the inside sewers
To clear off its load, before
Someone invented the ultimate solution:
A toilet bowl with soul -
A seat on the bowl
To deposit your haunches on
While your internals work out its deposits.

It is perfect as a bicycle is perfect -
You can refine it in any number of ways,
From an automatic sensor to temperature
control to an interactive robotic bowl
Costing a cool million - not yen but sterling -
But the basic design of seat and bowl stays,
Just as a bicycle can be modified in more ways
Than one, the frame-seat rig is always
As was done.

And to think man had to bear
A thousand years of severe posture,
An affront to his posterior;
Why, until only recently,
I'd rather the squat toilet -
Aka Chinese torture - prefer;
Or did it behind the ferns,
Enjoying being close to nature,
When the situation warrants.

And the first man to make a toilet bowl seat?
You tell me!
Just like its inventor was never credited,
Many a gem of an idea, a seminal thought,
A breakthrough to an impasse,
Could have been cracked while its Source
Was seated on the ring of a toilet bowl,
Without even getting a mention, until
This verse - haha - even if
Only generic, not specific.

Who knows if the world would have been
Any different today had Chief Crazy Horse,
Shi Huang Ti, Napoleon, Lenin,
Benefitted from it in their day;
Who knows the extent an easy passage,
Down in the internal sewerage,
Eased by a toilet bowl seat,
Could have influenced it -
Bush's tilt towards the Middle East.

And what if the Sultan of Brunei were
To reinvest the proceeds from the sale
Of his solid gold bowl to revive
The dysfunctional sugar groves
Of Mozambique? Would the Africana
Milling in the streets of Lisboa
Return home in droves?

What if, while encamped on a seat,
Yours truly came up with the germ
Of an idea of writing this poem?
Would you begrudge it?
And to think I discovered
Its use only the other day.

A Spark of Jealousy

Teachers and friends have always
Counseled us not to be jealous -
But how could not we!
As much as jealousy is an unwelcome visitor
Who gatecrashes on us as we
Go about our daily lives
Trying our best not to fall into
The comparison trap,
We are still hard done by
The constant bombardment of things
We want but can't afford or have but
Others have better, bigger, prettier,
More up to the minute, or simply more.

Zap! We are shot by a snot of acidic
Jealousy, burning a hole in our stomach,
Sending a rush of blood into our hearts,
Sucking a breath of air from our lungs,
Drying our tongues.

What am I to do, Counselor?

If you haven't already installed one,
Hook up a hotline to the Damage Control
Department in the Ministry of your Mind,
Call in the Fire Brigade of Your Agama Class
To douse the flame of jealousy
And turn its ashes
Into a seedbed of self-renewal,
A spark of motivation
To fire up the lackadasaical mind,
To reawaken the slumbering heart,
Dusting away the work left undone -
Perhaps the poem/s you wrote ages
Ago but left unfinished?
Your blog looks like an unshaven site
Of shame, rather than of fame?

Well, let the whip of jealousy
Crack you into a gallop
And send you on your way
And, who knows, you just might
Engender the next generation
Of wide-eyed wannabes, who
Moved by the green-eyed monster of jealousy
At what you'll have accomplished,
Start to come into their own,
Perhaps writing poems - with polish.

Skepticism: A Room With A View

In the mansion of life,
Skepticism is just one of
Many rooms, all having their place
and use. Here's a brief rundown
Of skepticism's role in the household:
(You may want to draw up your own)

Skepticism is a hard-nosed room
Who sees the ironies and realities of life
And is unimpressed with the hype
Of larger than life schema
Which, when undressed, are little more than
Hand-me-down self-serving scams.

Skepticism acts as a counterweight
To facile credulity and blind faith
In authority figures, rituals and symbols
Sanctified by tradition and
Street cure-all salesmanship.
Unconcerned and unimpressed
By the hype, hyperbole and heady stuff,
The glitter, the glut and the glitz
In the comings and goings of paraded life,
It draws up a checklist of potential hazards
In the jangle of trees hidden in the distant blue hills;
It keeps a steady hand on the helm,
While the blinkered eye view the world in
One dimensional color,
Seeing either all evil or no evil,
Brushing belief wishes white
And all contrary views, black.

The Unsponsored Malaysian

tbc

If you happen to be lounging on a deck chair
at a tourist facility on Falkland Island or
any scientific station further south, nearer
to the South Pole, and suddenly a bedraggled-looking visitor
hoved into view, bedecked with the Jalur Gemilang
and paraphernalia appropriate to the undertaking -
be it by sea, on land, or dropped from the sky -
it did happen, you know, all three -
rest assured, the Malaysian is fully sponsored.

Safe bet you are too, if a Malaysian,
Otherwise what business you have there?

In all probability, any Malaysian
you run into in the streets
of New York, Berlin or Mecca,
is well-stuffed with a sizeable sponsorship -
a trade mission member, a forum attendee,
an athlete, a footballer, a student,
a Petronas Adventure Team
member, a Matrade or Porim official,
a Lucky Draw winner, an umrah pilgrim -
they are out there all over the globe
cushioned by well-padded payouts,
some, no doubt, more deserving than others
who, in all probability, are just on a junket, while
a few are just plain lucky.

So, can you ever hope to run into
an unsponsored Malaysian on a jaunt abroad?
Or is this species so rare it is yet to be discovered
and brought to public attention?
Surprisingly there are quite a few of them around -
unlike their fat brethren who tend to cruise
in the comfort lane of life,
this leaner variety of Malaysians abroad
can be found in any nook or cranny life can throw at them -
at immigration checkpoints getting their visas renewed,
living in the shadow of a Buddhist temple
after having failed to return home after
the japanese have gone, washing dishes to begin with
and now a member of a rock band or owner of
a Malaysian restaurant,

Verse, The Poor Cousin of Poetry

tbc

Verse is an illegal immigrant's street child
Giving the hard eye to poetry's Kikko-clad Japanese lad
Striding out from the local International School;
Verse is the poor country cousin to Poetry's urbane depth
and reach;
Verse is the manual drive to poetry's Auto Manual Transmission;
Verse is the flat dry plain to poetry's temperate mountains and valleys;
Verse is Mitsubishi's outphased Colt Gallant reproduced and rebadged as Proton's Waja,
While poetry is a OEM, Fully Imported, Limited Edition Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII 360;

My versical writing verges on poetry,
Sits on its fringe, in the shadow of its centre stage,
Talented kids perhaps imitating the superstar doing his
routine;

tbc

Home Is Where The Feet Rest

In my life's unwinding,
I've done a fair bit of travelling;
Goaded by travel guides to go forth,
Urged to stride out by word of mouth,
I've gone east, west, north and south,
But I also stay back, a homebody,
Looking after kids in my custody,
Only venturing out into the vicinity,
On a basis daily,
To take the day's done deeds
To the Putatan town rubbish heap,
Ah, bliss domestic;
Having gone east,
I found it to the eye a feast;
Having done west -
I find home still the best,
But home is wherever my feet rest,
And for now it is in the coastal west
Of Sabah state, with a view
Of Gunung Kinabalu
Looking distantly blue,
But close to the heart nevertheless.

Farisa: Studying Stones

Against a backdrop of global trouble,

Often narrowing to a pitting between

East and West, Islam and non-Islam,

It is heartening to see an image

Of Innocence and Friendship,

Between two peoples of contrasting

Looks and Beliefs;

A picture of sangfroid and sanctity,

Of hallowed halls, framed flora and civil society.

Against a backdrop of western onslaught,

From mobile phones to jeans to football

To videos to English, Sir Launcelot - the lot,

It is gratifying to note the differentiating

Muslim girl's headcover sprouting,

All over campuses in western lands,

And not just the deserts of Iraq or Iran.

While a Palestinian youth

Is likely to see a piece of rock as a symbol

Of David's slingshot,

To bring down the Zionist plot,

However futile, ironic, distraught;

Or a rain of meteorites

Dropped by feathered flights,

Relying on repetitive gestures,

Empty rhetoric and hollow symbols,

As a last resort, while

The Palestinian state lie

In shambles; Farisa

Represents an alternative icon,

A lucky Malaysian Muslim girl,

Enabled to see Earth's swirl -

As the Stars and Stripes unfurl -

In sticks and stones,

Maple leaves and deciduous cones.

Farisa Zaffa Razak

Farisa Zaffa Razak is my niece -

She is the one in the black-n-white

Pullover spotting a headcover -

Grew up in Kuantan, Pahang,

Now studying geology,

In Ottawa, Canada;

One of the assignments

In her first semester -

An analysis of The Tempest,

by William Shakespeare;

Hey, what about the effects

Of the weather on surface cover,

Or the drilling for fossil fuel,

On the permafrost,

In the Far North?

And God Is Alone

Even if you are a survivor
Of a separated Siamese twin,
You are essentially alone,
A single person with your own identity;
Even as a member
Of a crowd or fraternity,
Falling in step with them
With words issuing in unity;
In the clutches of pleasure,
Or the grip of pain,
In trial after tribulation,
Flushed with anticipation,
Or cold with fear,
In the groove of life,
Or the nick of death,
You are essentially alone;
The longing of the lonely,
Is only the cry of the illusory;
Aloneness is the essence
Of true Reality;
You are as alone in the universe,
As God is alone,
Reflecting his Quality.

I Dedicate This Blog ...

This blog I dedicate
To the day I vacate
This earthly mandate
And takes on a new date
With the next sequel in my fate.

On Semi Home Exile

Since my retirement,
I've put myself on semi home exile,
The metaphor is a bit loose,
But is still valid;
I banish myself from main stream,
To escape the heat, the traffic jam,
The striving and strutting -
Chasing and being chased;
I put myself out of circulation
From the social circuit and
The climb up the social ladder;
I still go out,
Out of necessity,
But more and more,
I stay home, comfortabilist;
I don't go out to look
for a paying job, but stay indoors
Bending hearts, nurturing minds,
Not for the money
Which is paltry,
But to till a mind-field,
Theirs and mine;
I don't travel as much
As I would like to,
I don't go to a karaoke lounge,
Bowling alley, golf link,
Pub, club or study KK's nightlife;
I hate cinemas, claustrophobic;
I confess I enjoy shopping some,
But there is a neurotic element to it,
So I try to reduce the trips
To the marts and complexes -
Vortice of material and people deluge -
And make my home my shell,
Sanctuary and refuge.

The Pilot Metaphor

The pilot metaphor
For managing one's life -
You know how it is,
An airplane pilot faces a bank
Of instruments telling him
Of current conditions -
The weather outside,
The engine and electrics inside,
Whether another aeroplane
Is anywhere near out there;
The fascia of electronics
Provides the interface
Between the pilot, the aircraft
And the world outside
While he sits in his cockpit,
Encased in a surreal sphere,
In a pool of controlled climate,
No matter the deadly
Temperature outside,
Cocooned in comfort and stability,
Against the rushing speed outside,
Buoyed up in the sky against
The pull of gravity;
A pilot could be forgiven
For dreaming of pleasures
And concerns forbidden;
He can put his mind on auto pilot,
As much as he can put the plane
On the same routine control;
But, as every salty pilot knows,
This surreal security is not guaranteed forever -
Occasionally, an air pocket
And other weather turbulences
Can rock his stately aircraft
And put his state of mind on orange alert -
And, as a pilot is trained
To anticipate and handle,
But dreads all the same,
The possibillity of a red alert,
Is always at the back of his mind;
An impending collision or crash, engine failure,
Poor landing visibility, forced landing,
Being hijacked, miscommunication,
All may burst the bubble of security
With disastrous and fatal results.

As piloting a plane,
So it is with managing life.
Just as you don't blame
And hit out at the array
Of instruments for any
adverse info,
What more at the weather outside,
Every time an air pocket or turbulence
Knock you out your comfort kilter,
So you don't react at the person
Or circumstance which is giving you the jitter.
You don't kill the messenger
However bad the news;
But rather you make choices and decisions
To not make things worse
And keep things on an even keel,
Just as a pilot would make adjustments
To keep his aircraft on a safe course.

ASA - Amanah Saham Akhirat

Each time you handle an adversity
With dignity,
Not blaming anyone,
Least seeking revenge,
Not going off your handle;
Each time you distance yourself,
From a negative feeling or impulse,
Which wells up unbidden from the depths,
Each time you control it from boiling over,
You are crediting your ASA;
The reverse is equally true -
React negatively, and
You're debiting your account;

A positive ASA
Is the very stuff you need
To reclaim the Perfect Form;
An ASA in the red
Means the Perfect Form
Is still in shreds.

Dakar Rally 2007

For about five years now, I've never failed to watch the annual Paris-Dakar Rally on ESPN at Astro. Each time it kindled my dream to take part in the race but I know it will always remain a dream as the entry cost is more than RM150,000. That is the price of a decent double-storey terrace house in KL.

The race is always held in the first week of January, at about the start of the new school year in Malaysia, a busy time for parents with schoolgoing kids.

My main interest is in the bikes category and it is no coincidence that the most dominant bike KTM is my favourite adventure bike as well. The 60 per cent import tax on big bikes put a dampener on my dream to buy one, but last week, it has been reduced to 30 per cent. Hmm, we shall see.

Again, it is no coincidence that my next car purchase, a Mitsubishi Triton pickup truck, is closely related to the winning Mitsubishi cars in the race. In fact, this year, two Tritons are being entered, albeit with the bigger 3.2 lit engine as opposed to the 2.5 I'll be booking tomorrow.

I feel strongly I'm going to "do" Africa one day, but it will most probably be on a push bike rather than a motorbike. Much less hassles, not to mention costs.