Listening to the Universe

It is past midnight,
Not a sound in sight,
Nor a sight within hearing,
But hark, the universe is heaving.

Paean to En Attendant Godot - Samuel Beckett

One is Gado,
The other is Godot,
One goes the way of the dodo,
The other does the dangdot,
One goes berserk-u,
The other is absurd-u,
A poetun, a haiku,
A cross between Ogden Nash
And Edward Lear, his peer,
But no, not Nooh, the Gadot.

Aaow!

July 4, 2007 by zveloyak

That was me howling as I popped out from inside of me onto this world of blogging. I may have just appeared here but actually I’m a reincarnate of my other selves – that’s right, plural – blogging at other sites. Somehow I stumbled onto this dimension and found the name WordPress has a resonant ring to it and decided to be reborn here and see how I will grow. I will not totally abandon my other blogsites and turn them into graveyards as I have quite a lot of lively and current stuff there. If I like it here, I might find ways to import them here but I doubt there as a free blog is not as resilient and feature-rich as having a web host. Why don’t I get a web host then? Erm, I’ve been thinking of getting one for a long, long time, but I kept postponing and balking because, one, there’s so many, and I felt lost, and, two, not being a computer geek, I felt even more lost in the alphabet soup of newly minted computer terms. Taking a course to find my way through the maze to my online mansion of a website is too much of a bother considering my needs are quite simple.

So I will maintain and feed all four sites – this and the other three – contemporaneously, and see them grow and compete among themselves as a litter of pups outdo one another for the fullest teat and biggest share of the food.

Two Poetuns Inspired by Zainal Jais

I

Went searching in the forest for quails,
Spotted instead a deer with ambition equestrian,
Looking up to a teacher who is interested in her nails,
Is as frustrating as looking at a politician jockeying for position.

II

Went hunting on the plain,
Caught a deer with striped limbs,
Want to learn from a saint,
Turns out to be a pompous pimp.

This is the original pantun written by Zainal Jais which inspired the poetuns:

Berburu di padang datar,
Dapat rusa belang kaki,
Berguru kepalang ajar,
Jadi pemimpin gila kerusi.

Nine A's Wunderkind Now

This is a composite profile of a Nine A's child genius
as an adult now. It is written by a One A idiot - me.
So what subject did I get an A for? English, of course.
Yeah, I got a Nine(!) - for maths. And an Eight for BM.
See? Told ye, I'm an idiot. I put two and two together,
I still get a four. Been trying for years to whack
two and two to get one without much success.
I've met a few of these smart ones,
in fact a number of them runs in my clan.
There are twins even,
and I tell ye, they are all out of whack -
from the mild to the wild -
not that I'm any better,
in fact I'm even worse
but then I was a One-A letdown.
I started this posting by saying I'll
draw a composite picture of one
but I've changed my mind
and will write about more.
One topped the state in maths and spent years in England
but now lives in a coop together with chicken writing a book
on Islam and dreaming to win the Nobel prize for inventing
a DNA deciphering machine.
This has been going on ten and four years.
Number Two topped her school in studies and sports -
news cuttings of her receiving prizes from the Sultana -
spent years in England to graduate as an engineer,
but is now working as a cook -
"I'm not a cook, I'm a cooking teacher!" she shrieks mutinously,
taking off her glasses with one hand and rubbing her face
vigorously with the other in a mixture of sebum and baby lotion
coming up with the same pasty as when
she grinds kunyit, cilli and such on a lesung.
Number Three is the only female marine archeologist in the country
and she is out of work and out of whack.
Number Four is an ecological weekend warrior
But frequents watering holes after hours during the working week;
Oh, she also has the gift of seeing elves jumping from behind trees.
No kidding, she says so herself ...
Number Five was a top surgeon of the heart
But dug into a rind of bacon on the side.
Number Six is an East Coast kampung boy,
raised on budu and ikan panggang tawar,
the first to spring from Kijal to be
a doctor, never mind a specialist,
vertically challenged,
with funny glasses that make his doe eyes look even rounder,
a curious cheek-lips mix of Kijal and Madras,
with a maddening stare if not quite mad-assed.
Yes, he is now number one in his field, and
yes, he's a relation, son of a cousin.
Now let's go back to Number Two for it is she
this verse - call this verse? - is all about.
Although I'm older than her ailing mother
and passed my driving test before she was born,
drove all the way from Istanbul to Amritsar
before taking the test,
this did nothing to discourage her from
telling me how to drive my own car
as she sat in the passenger seat
not having held a steering wheel in four years ...
There is no chip sutured under her skin
by some secret agency but there is one on her shoulder,
turning her into a governmental and familial mutineer -
"Merajuk big-time," as she herself puts it.
There are no tv set, makeup set, mirror, framed photos, newspaper,
tissue-paper and microwave oven in her house -
they are symbols of bondage and servitude, she says.
She put her foot down hard on polygamy
but was thrilled to shrieks when told polyandry
is what she is practicing - she has an AWOL husband,
a visiting boyfriend and a new friend rolling on the floor.
Meanwhile, over at her outdoor cooking class,
Learners from all over the English-speaking
parts of the planet keep arriving by the planelette,
and, at RM70 per head, keep the wolf from her door.

Verse In Waiting

Like puppies and guppies at feeding times,
Several poem ideas are body knocking one another
To make it to this blog page, but in the jostling
I forgot all of them like you forget individual
Guppies from the same hatching batch
And puppies from the same litter
As they dissolve and reappear in a frenzy
With a reared head above and ducked head under
And come up with this blank verse letter
To compensate for the lost litter, barely
Hatching up a gulp and a pulp
From another clutch
Of verses in waiting.

Dungeon di Dungun

After a filling dinner at nine,
I took an infrequent route home,
in the darkness near where Jalan Kenanga
and Jalan Melati intersect near the padang
not far from the graveyard facing the sea,
I spotted a remembered big bungalow
used to be filled with people
who scurried in the background
while only mama or papa talked with me;
the papa has been long gone
the mama carrying dem rich men's burden
her will to live bending under
no matter her adult children spending filial cash
paying RM180 for a 500 gm tin of colostrum
RM20 for a capsule of powdered egg yolk
with a bio-enhancing name such as ProforLife
or somethin' - but tonight,
the mansion-like house where
the late Cikgu Mang used to live
is in darkness with only the street lights
giving its silhouette a Gothic cast;
Where are the people gone?
I drove past with the songs
coming off the car stereo tugging me
from mundane matters
into an endorphin-stirred state;
I rounded a bend to head to the open sea
but my progress was halted by an unusual
congestion of cars parked both sides with
more cars and people in the middle of the road;
I almost instantly understood the urgency of the night -
someone had died earlier in the day
and must be buried without delay;
I turned off the loud stereo,
wound down the window
and asked a passerby: "Sapa?"
"Bini Wang Peng!"
I didn't know either from Chin Peng
but must be someone of clout
judging from the huge turnout;
I drove on without further ado
turning into the long and straight Jalan Pantai
with the moonlit sea on my immediate left;
I switched on the stereo again -
Timberlake, Akorn, Green-eyed Peas
took turns to put my mind at peace;
I went past the junction to my place
and drove on to the end of Jalan Pantai
near the UITM Dungun campus
where a nice spot to relax is and I did
for two or three more songs before
starting back to my almost finished new house -
Dungeon di Dungun.

The Thing Pops Into My Head

The thing that pops into my head,
Often I dismiss it almost at once,
Often with the recital of a handsmedown prayer,
Sometimes I let it linger a while,
Savoring its evil,
But NAW ... it gnaws ... and gnaws ...
Am I sick that it pops into my head,
Am I weak that I let it linger
And ever briefly identifies with it?
What if it is a recurring thing?
What if it is a lifetime thing?
Am I sick to the pits, alone,
Or shares the sickness with the rest of humanity?
With the difference between I and
Those who end up in the news,
Only a thin line over which I didn't cross?
Has it got something to do with brain chemistry,
Or is it a spiritual challenge,
To fashion your forming soul,
An adversary to pit your character against,
An exercise to build your identity,
A resistance to carve your destiny?
Yes, gentle reader, you guessed
The thing that pops into my head -
Negative thoughts.

Ant & Grasshoppie

I want to tell you a story,
About the ant and the grasshoppie,
One is sensible, the other is crazy,
One is rajin, the other is lazy,
All summer long the ant is busy,
Building its nest, collecting nuts and a daisy,
While play is the only thing does the 'hoppie;
Summer come, summer go,
Autumn fall, winter follow;
The first snow flake falls,
The ant gathers its last nut and daisy,
Its store full, its nest cozy,
While the hoppie goes hungry;
Knock, knock! Ant! Open the door!
Sorry! Opportunity knocked but is no more!
The poor hoppie keels over and is no more,
That is the end of the story
Of the busy ant and the lazy hoppie.
Oh, one more thing, the ant now,
Has more food in the freezer -
The dead hoppie -
To be eaten next summer!

My house an igloo

I have a pen, my pen is blue,
I have a friend, my friend is you;

I have a house, my house is an igloo,
I have a blouse, my blouse is new;

I have a shirt, my shirt is yellow,
I have a skirt, my skirt is mellow;


... to be continued

Stark the world,
Over which creatures,
High and low,
Stand sentinel,
Play-acting
To be little gods.

At ground level
A cockerel
Stands sentinel,
Ever alert
In the struggle
For survival.

Parody D'amour, Take This Verse To My Reader

The same scene on a different day ...

Under an overcast sky ...

Instead of piped music, cig smoke provides the accompaniment ...

Planted Townies

The men sit under the burning sun,
Whence all but them have fled to the bower,
Day in, day out, right on the hour, past the tower,
Right there in Dungun town
By the Pejabat Pos clover;
Their skins darkened like fishermen,
In the heat wave, smoke lingers
From their fingers,
The filtered tips of their cigs,
Wetted by their black lips;
This is the scene I see every day
Since two months I moved
Into Dungun town.

Malay checkers they play,
Every day by the day,
On their faces not a worry,
The only pictures gory
On their cig packets surely;
Their pockets must be in pay,
For they work not a day,
And yet can sit in the sun
And all day play.

Say Father!
When are you going to take them out?
As the statistics indicate,
And the Health Minister shouts?
Or am I going first,
Worrying to death,
About my health,
Jogging the beach,
Cycling the road,
Picking through the eateries
Vainly trying to clear up
My cholesterol clogged arteries,
Calm down my beating heart,
And tamp down my rising pulse?

O Father!
Life is so perverse!
I who cross my t's and dot my i's
When it comes to eat,
Jog, sleep - and no cig,
I who traverse fields and ford rivers,
Living the style of a scouter,
Am getting the bejesus out of life,
While these planted townies
Are setting an opposite example
And seeming to get away with it!

Spider and Fly

Spider and fly,
One is a sinner,
The other is dinner,
That is the reason why
Things have never been keener.

Photographic Verse: An Epiphyte

Hang on there, epiphyte!
Or are you a saprophyte?
I don't know how long
You've been, and will be, there,
Appearing out of nowhere,
Now sticking out like a lantern of light,
Against the darkness of the night;
Staking out a claim to existence,
However temporal and insignificant,
Your only claim to fame being spotted,
Photographed and here immortalized:
Would you have mattered,
Rising up out of decaying matter,
Had it been otherwise?
Then again, I'm no different,
What I've just said of you by inference,
Is also true of me and all en passant -
We come, stand up and move on.

Photography: Children

Balanced composition: dark background, light foreground; subjects centered, looking natural and on the trot ... Nina is leading the charge of the light brigade ... circa 1998.

Anna Mastura: Charge Of The Light Foodage

Sticks and stones may break bones,
But for Anna, six,
A fork and a spoon is the fix,
To separate fish flesh from bone;
By cheek in jowl,
Soup in bowl,
She attacks the food in her plate:
Elbow to the left,
Elbow to the right,
Anna piles the rice and pries the fish,
Filling grains and fleshy fillet,
Fork to the fore, spoon an added boon,
In the swoop to the dish of health;
In goes a sliver of flesh and a mound of rice
Into the mouth and jaws of death.
A klink now, then a klunk,
As fork misses the chicken
And slides off the bone
Follows the spoon
On the heel of the fork
As metal scrapes the dock.

Photography: Elements of Composition

The use of back light coming from the window helps to give radiance while the look of openness gives an expression of innocence to the subject. The clutter in the foreground lends the picture an everyday scene.

The vertical format of the picture putting the subject in the top half and the food in the bottom half brings out a touch of contrast and irony between the bounty of the fare and the ailing look of the subject.

A simple composition in which the two subjects are separated with an intervening space made up of the darkened doorway. The cup of tea in the foreground adds a point of interest.

Nasim

This is Nasim, Ajai's little brother,

They come from the same mother,

But he comes from another father.

Nasim's father met his mother

Upon a chance and a whim.

The chance was the first meeting,

The whim was in the ensuing.

The first meeting was through Ajai's father,

The ensuing whim came from Ajai's mother.

Nasim came into the world with Ajai's father

Flicking the first tile to fall on the next tile

In a domino effect which brought forth the tike.

Shall I end the story now, or add a surprise:

It is nice to play god even if god is only a dice.

Zain Azrai Zaharan

Jai, Jai, his Papa's son,
Comes home at half past one,
In the rain or in the sun,
Straightaway asks for lunch,
Is it ready, is it done.

Jai, Jai, his Papa's son,
Look at the way he runs,
Over a clean pair of heels,
Knocking a pair of buns,
As he disappears into the hills,
That is how fast he runs.

A Land Hog and a Sea Cucumber

Who says a dog and a cat cannot be friends?
Who says a land hog cannot make it with a sea cucumber?
Who says a pedal bike on land
Cannot hitch with a paddle craft on water?
As the Malays say, a rind of tamarind from the tree,
And a pinch of salt from the sea,
End up in the cooking pot,
Or, as in the case of the folder
And the hardshell in the picture above,
In front of the rider's front porch.

Ah huh, ah huh, I like it ...