Quiet man drained
It is two a.m. and I wake to the cold
and the silence and the anonymous darkness.
The mind
I am not the thinker
moves from in between states to full awareness
and it grips at my pits so. What is this feeling?
What is this pain and emptiness? It churns the entrails
and takes waves to hit hard against the cave of the head
and the creature living inside has to take all the pain.
Full awareness. Panic.
The street lights invade between the curtain sheets
and stretch their long orange fingers on the wall.
They find nothing. The sliver
in the sky is cold.
Full awareness. Panic.
Man in Panic…
Not Man Asleep… Not Man Dreaming… But Man in Panic…
Oh, for some pebbles in the mouth…some hard thing
in the hands to grip; some straw even, something to clutch at
or perhaps, dare one say? some hope… It is two a.m.
and I wake to the cold.
She is sleeping in bed and the two children in theirs.
I survey the enclosed rooms, the locked-in home,
sit in the dark hall,
harass a stray ant in the kitchen and sit in the hall…
There is little hint of an outside world but
of an invisible pushing away…
What time is it now?
Is it the sun that rises yonder?
Of my philosophy I make no use to quiet the mind;
I lie down again.
No, not man in panic.
Mot man asleep. Not man Dreaming. Not Man in Panic.
Not Man Dreaming.
Man Quiet. Man Drained.
The true owners
Who owns this vast surprising space?
Who is the owner of this land?
Is it me? Or is it you?
Or is it them?
Who owns this continent?
Who owns whom here
and who drives whom?
Who determined what happened before?
Who determines what happens next?
Who owns whom? Who owns what?
Who owns the Ross Sea and the Bellingshausen Sea?
and the seas and oceans between the lands and atolls?
Whose are the fishes and the air and the creatures in the
air, the oceans and on the trees and on the ground and
under the ground? Who owns the spirits of the desert
and the trees and the lakes and the mountains
and the burning bushes?
Who owns the children and the poor and the defenseless
and the workers and the helpers?
Who owns the Taj Mahal and the Buddha and Christ
and the Kaaba and the Sphinx
and the island statues looking out to the sea?
Who owns decency and justice and honor?
(Who has decency and justice and honor?)
And who the works and the poems and the ideas?
Who owns this world? Who owns all this space?
Is it me? Is it you?
Or is it them?
Really?
Or are the ants or the rats
(or perhaps other yet uncategorized patient creatures)
the true owners and inheritors
and we but the False Pretenders
as Smiling Time sees us out?
I depress you, don’t I?
I depress you, don’t I?
You are so bubbly, cheerful, smooth with your words,
you make conversation always as easily
as a well-oiled engine hums;
open-mouthed; sparkle-eyed;
exuberant with a pinch of irritation
in your confidence with sing-song words and links.
In person and on the phone,
you roll your head, use your hands expressively; you laugh,
you say things that are right and clever, and you are certain.
You know all the concepts and
the appropriate terms and words:
each word that triggers smiles and each that is the right word and which you dim with ; it’s easy; and
you have lay-bys
and fly-buys and I can get cash as I pay;
and
casual
is the antonym of
permanent
while I fumble with
temporary
and my tone.
You know your way; you are comfortable.
But I… I depress you, don’t I?
Hesitant, tentative, slow and uncertain….
Apologizing for things I say, for as soon as
I’ve said them I wonder
because you don’t respond
if I’ve said the wrong thing;
unsure of form and conventions,
asking for clarifications
about what seem to you to be
the most obvious things…and withdrawing
like a would-be lover who dares not commit himself…
Oh ye happy cherubim
of a white and brightly-lit Heaven,
I do depress you don’t I?
Communication
There is no feeling, there is no bond
there is no touch, there is no smoothness
there is no sincerity, no frankness
there is no connection in these continual communications.
Just efficient words and professional politeness.
(And what did you expect? A hug and a cuddle?
No one owes you a living.)
All that void is filled in with dead forms
and photocopies certified by JPs
(one seeks out these authorities at the chemist’s
and at real estate agencies)
and essays meeting or not meeting identified criteria.
This is unreal the game we play.
The rules are changed this year.
This other world I meet often
through various mediums
but not in real time, real space:
the urn-box space for in-coming letters,
its lid at the back hiding spiders;
the post office and punctilious and efficient postmen
and phone calls and receptionists and secretaries
and productive people who say
I may be able to help;
and the well-spaced neatly-arranged classifieds
the black and white origins of all our
unconsummated affairs
there is a secret code
something hidden beyond what is offered
that I cannot break
Two worlds
See me in my confines;
see me in my space
(i)
See this little beige-walled
and white-ceilinged
world of this unit
in Holland Street, Toowong. See me here in bed,
confined like a patient drugged and sedated.
This little unit with its
dirty orange carpet and the unseen mites teeming
and green-curtained sliding doors
to a balcony closed in with metal vertical blinds.
See me here sitting in my rented grey sofa, before
the walls lined with brown cabinet doors and
behind a narrow room that is the toilet
with cistern, brush, pipe and green-fern papered walls,
that close the space on either sides
of the constipated man seated atop his bowl.
Outside this is a world. A wide world.
(ii)
There is a busy road out there
connecting to busier roads
and the postman cometh on weekdays and
the ice-cream man rideth on Saturdays.
The garbage man on Friday mornings, so forget not
to push your garbage bin
on to the pavement on Thursday evenings.
(What the postman bringeth the garbage man taketh;
the receiver therefore collecteth and transfereth).
There are traffic lights, a petrol station,
countless units on hills and slopes
and in legacy environment
and then a coffee club, and the news vendor
and the rail and the cashiers with a happy look
and a quick and efficient
How are you today?
dispensing pleasantries as quickly as they rid
the queue of one more customer.
And then officers and co-ordinators
far and wide from whose invisible and
sanctified confines
emerge papers and notifications
offering a feast of nomenclature
and whose silences coerce you to join in the game
of correspondence with bureaucracy.
(iii)
There are two worlds,
the world of the unit and the wide outside world,
and between the two a tenuous connection.
An anti-transactional link
that maintains a language and distribution system
that ensures the two worlds don’t meet.
A discourse that excludes the other.
The perfection of anonymity
Even in the place where some knew my name
I walked unknown though, occasionally, some would mutter,
some would mouth a whisper:
That’s him
and point in the direction.
Here, however, is the perfection of anonymity
for I
not only go without an identity,
I go too without a name.
Here, however, as
I slip through department stores and streets
and get off trains and walk into stations
like a shadow
as one more in the crowd
is the perfection of my anonymity for I not only
go without an identity, I go too without a name.
They the forces, the furies we rage against
They are the forces, the furies we rage against
and whom we make glad if we go quietly into oblivion
they, the forces, have enclosed us in little bodies
and left us exiled on a vast continent.
Soiled and muddied and with wax in our ears, dirt of sin
between the toes and in the cracks of the skin in our heels
soft dirt in the foreskin;
and our function, dear souls, dear soul,
is to rage and to rage unabated.
It shall put strain on our bodies
yet we shall rage
and it will pull the skin in
and muscles and tissues and testicles
and yet we shall rage;
it will tire the mind and sink the eyes and cheeks
and pinch the veins and crack our bones
and yet, dear souls, dear soul,
we shall rage, we shall rage and rage.
For we are not done with them.
The plants and trees
These plants and trees I know;
these creatures I love
(i)
Outside the insect screen of the laced
kitchen
there stands the green billow of leaves
peppered with crimson of flowers.
Anytime you wash your hands at the sink
and if you happen to lift your head a little
there at the junction of Holland and Cove streets
stands the comforting rich flame of the forest.
Now it is April
and its flowers are gone;
and huge dry pods hang
like black tongues of witches;
but still, to add some cheer,
its rich green
swells like the cheeks of an impish child
blowing at heaven
(ii)
Each shut in and enclosed within,
we walked in the heat
that clawed at our arms
and nibbled at our faces like hungry rats.
At the pavement at the junction
where Holland Street disputes with Sherwood
there stood this serene and accomplished tree
and we halted below it
as if an order had been issued,
each remarking spontaneously on the
comforts of Sherwood’s flame of the forest
iii)
A tangle of sunflowers shouts at us
as we walk down the street;
unobserved these many days
not remarked on these many weeks,
it has grown angry and full
and swells and pouts like Van Gogh in a rage
iv)
The overgrown overfriendly bottlebrush tree
unabashedly and tirelessly pummels the mesh screen
at the kitchen window
Hello! Hello!
he seems to say,
brushing, pounding at the screen with his gentle fists.
Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!
I’m used to this brush fellow
for he used to surprise me
at the oddest corners in my previous place.
A guide book I carried to trace his ancestry with
said:
The bottlebrush is a native of Australia.
Here I am now and it’s good to have known
a native even before I arrived.
Oh, I’ve had more than a brush with this fellow.
A new week
a new week begins
and the end should be Easter;
instead, it may end bitter
after five days of hope
anticipation and deception
and disappointment
with futile palming of the cold interior
of the mail box and waiting hopelessly
for the phone call that will cause a start
but end in an unrelated whimper
They talk about him
Far away, beyond the continent
and the archipelago,
in a tiny island
someone asks, perhaps,
Does anyone know what’s happened to him?
Perhaps this is asked at a coffee-shop;
at a hawker’s centre or in a meeting room;
perhaps over the phone or during a chance meeting:
Does anyone know what’s happened to him?
Perhaps someone whispers this question
at a temple gathering
or during a moment of silence
at some point during a lecture
The soft replies come:
He’s gone.
Gone.
They say he’s gone overseas.
Oh,
comes the slow response.
I see.
Yes, it’s been some time now
since I last saw him…but…
There is a nod; perhaps, several nods;
there is no emotion; no pursuit of the subject,
no query for details
for people come and go,
as they say; and, moreover, he was exactly like that.
Emotionless; and not asking for details.
Unknown. Unknowing.
What’s happened to him?
Gone; he’s gone.
It’s mouthed in a
low voice;
like talking about the dead.
Far away here, I,
the him, sit writing this.
The him they might sometimes talk about.
Before it is all gone without a trace.
The fight
The migrant’s son fights with his sis,
shouts at his mum and defies his dad.
The migrant’s son rolls on the carpet
and somersaults over the sofa…
I know why you do this,
son, I know why you do this;
but be patient awhile, be patient,
for it takes time
to have each one’s space and life…
Acceptance
Perhaps what I am is false to you
and you have no faith in what seems;
or perhaps you see what I seem to be
and wonder if this is what could be;
and what should be; or even perhaps
what seems and what is do not meet to be;
or perhaps on either side simply
what seems is not what is, and what is
does not seem to be.
So you deny me.
Replies
There are more letters from the petty
entrenched bureaucrats
and their underlings the salariat;
tireless, merciless, and meaningless.
There is no correspondence to your last letter
but a standard spewing of hackneyed turns and jargon,
standard phrases, codes and words meant not to communicate;
a quick reply laden
with stock phrases
pinched from a data base of 10001 standard replies for 10001 categories
With big words they think will make you little;
intense phrases they think will make you feel useless;
debonair prattle that betrays their intentions
practised clauses reeking of their caution;
and reader-proofed windows because there’s been no progress
There are more rhetoric-crafted replies
from the protective bureaucrats
with their feet and heads in filing cabinets
and their buttocks in their hands.
They have received all documents;
they’re immensely thrilled all forms are accurately completed.
They are pleased you meet the criteria;
you are now in their system -
they’ve put you in a category, on a scale;
you got a code number and a reference point -
you’ve got everything except a fucking job.
Go fuck yourself,
they whisper into the cabinets.
Inclusion
Why don’t you talk to me and tell me off,
straight to my face? Tell me I’m not good enough
for you. Tell me my credentials don’t configure
with your system; you don’t know what to do with me.
But you can’t tell me that, can you?
(You can’t tell me anything
but read me sections and clauses of the manual.)
Who is to say the word?
For like all ugly systems
yours too is inclusive
and so the possibilities are left open
and so inclusion becomes exclusion
and the possibility becomes the impossibility.
You just hold out hope
and though you do not deceive,
you effect deception.
And who is to say the word?
There is certification and registration
and there is rank and order
of inclusion and possibility.
There is the system.
And there is exclusion.
Selling yourself
It’s called selling yourself,
she says
to me, offering unsolicited advice. She’s been here ten years
and I’m but a new migrant and worse, she thinks,
a quiet and unassuming one at that.
It’s called selling yourself,
she says.
You got to be aggressive and assertive;
You got to be pushy.
Sell yourself.
I look at her
as she turns to her neighbour:
I see
she deals with cliches
and bankrupt phrases
and she herself stands
like an overused fourth exclamation mark.
Go to the alley, you bitch,
and sell yourself.
Pardon my ignorance
O how ignorantly
how innocently
I have fallen,
tripped over a wire
and set off a mine.
O how could you not have said
careful there…tread gently…
Place your foot here…
Is this how,
you cold uncaring entrenched bureaucrats,
is this how
you treat a stranger?
The creature
After the taunting
the creature is beaten deep into the cave where
it is dark and the stalactites do not shine;
there are the sounds of water
hitting the rocks below and there are the echoes
and the hard breathing of the creature itself
filled layer upon layer
upon itself.
Its scaled eyelids are closed;
the creature is withdrawn into itself.
It breathes gently now and its chest rises and falls on
the countless folds of its body and mind.
It is withdrawn within itself. There is hurt;
there is resentment; there is heaviness
that fills all its days and nights.
The polite
The polite are efficient;
the polite are cruel
with their cold and distant manner
smooth non-committal words
and safe generalizations
and ambiguous as the words of Delphos,
and Janus-faced,
they keep their clients ignorant
with a restrained smile and fine words
in measured tones
they hold the listener at arm’s length desperation.
A fine strategy this politeness
to deprive, to isolate, to put away and marginalize.
Depression
I called my friend
and
after many calls between which we maintained
long silences,
after many polite turn-downs and diversions
he said,
Come over.
It was a sad dog and wizened master
with half a smile each
who welcomed me.
The dog was seated on a couch in the verandah;
the master sat within and called out for me to come in.
Sit,
he said, pointing to a chair against the wall.
And I sat obediently.
He listened to my consonants, or seemed to
listen and then mouthed words unrelated to one another and mine.
We both fell silent.
Then he told me news
about his home
that was true thirty years ago
and still, for him, holds true.
What can I do?
he sighed.
He looked at the trees on the other side
of the road and I looked at the bushes.
I’m not sure what the lethargic dog
looked at.
I do not need this,
I thought.
Then I said it was time for me to go.
Keep in touch,
I said.
He said he would get in touch with me.
I had put the ball in his court;
and he seemed glad of that
for he could now keep it there.
Or puncture it.
We were both glad.
I left.
He never called. We are both glad.
We understand each other.
Him again
Have you heard from him?
someone asks, as they sit round the table.
They shake their heads and one of them
says softly,
No…
You were quite close to him,
some other throws in an accusation.
Too busy to write; probably the same with him.
Cheerful fellow, wasn’t he?
the other continues.
He would be here at the canteen and he would always
offer me some before he took his drink. Always had a smile
and a kind word or two.
I wonder what’s become of him…
He must be fine,
somebody attempts to say.
Probably found a new life;
he’s forgotten us, busy in his new place…
Change
My wardrobe hasn’t grown,
nothing added to, nothing acquired since
but the trousers are frayed at the hem
and the sides of the pockets
and the shirt collars are faded
and are worn, more creased than ironed.
They have been through streets and iron doors
and they have touched
bare floors and grounds and bivouacs.
The shoes are overused and dusty
with scratches on the sides
and the mangled shoelace
and loose eyes cower behind the salacious hems.
One grows careless of one’s appearance
and allows the navel to look out
unhindered by a missing button;
there’s no need to maintain one’s decorum
except to approximate decency.
Perhaps, after all,
there’s a consolation in this unemployment.
There’s no need for power dressing,
no need for effects,
and deceptions and dressing for a purpose,
no need to make an appearance
to aim at effect.
One walks through corridors liberated,
careless and unmindful of the powerful.
Migrant children
Children will weather it out
in the sun or rain;
they will still smile
in the harsh sun or heavy rain.
Kids will find some play
to delight them;
kids will find some play
to make you smile;
they will laugh and love
helped by their free imaginings.
Cawing crows are constant company
Caw, Caw, Caw, Caw,
they go.
Waking us up to a new dawn:
Caw, Caw, Caw, Caw
- they go
from early morning to late noon.
Sitting on wires over the kerbs
like a gathering of surly beggars,
crowing crows are constant company.
What their caws presage though are a mystery.
The perils of summer
The newspapers and our
ubiquitous and ever-ready
self-appointed well-meaning
advisors warn us.
Summer is the time when spiders are most active;
snakes are about their smooth crawls
and bees on their monotonous drone
but the worst, I think, are the magpies
for magpies can attack, do be careful.
One may be roosting on a tree and if you walk below
it thinks you are a threat
and so provoked (though you do not intend it)
it swoops down on you and attacks.
It happened to me once,
my friend advises and warns me,
as I was walking down St Lucia; something
just descended on me and was off -
it all happened within the time one can say
Jack Robinson
leaving with me with a split bleeding lip.
Wearing a hat or headgear of some sort
seems to keep them away.
Much safer, I suppose, not to walk
below a tree in summer.
Stay indoors in summer.
Autumn’s here
The heat’s down from 34 C to below 30 C
and my daughter declares:
It’s autumn.
A day of dark clouds and cool air
spoils us and my son declares:
It’s autumn.
Are you sure?
I ask and they mock me.
Their friends told them it’s autumn
and we unemployed migrant adults
should listen to the children
for their friends have lived here
all the ten or thirteen years of their lives
and who are we unemployable migrant adults to question
the wisdom of the local children?
And, by the way, winter’s round the corner.
OK, children of Australia,
we say,
it’s autumn if you say so.
More advice from bodhisattvas
There’s more advice again from kindly souls
who are out to ensure we go about properly in seeking a job:
You’ve got to be pushy in this country;
otherwise they’ll think you’re slack.
You got to go to their doors, go and see
people and the authorities personally;
correspondence is not enough.
And so on goes this homily on being pushy,
this invitation to aggression and being assertive
a Saturday evening lecture, the 107th
Sunday morning sermon
(in keeping with the dictum:
The quiet shall be picked on; the gentle shall be pushed)
the privileged employed mount on the unemployed
the city-damned insolence-drenched pour on innocents.
Home sweet home
Here too home is not a simple thing.
You must be mindful of location:
if your home is at a cul-de-sac,
and diverse things as where the sun rises,
if there is foliage and how far it is to the highway
and what about accessibility to a host of facilities;
and is the estate near a cement factory?
Then there are things like negative gearing and
rising interest rates; body corporate fees and council rates;
inspectors and valuers you can count on
and you must be mindful too of resale value.
O no, the modern home all over the world
is not a simple thing to live in;
you could die in it.
Inertia
Inertia is a beast that
seizes you by the stomach
and keeps you slouched in your couch;
it twists your stomach and your limbs go wobbly
and then its hold strangles the brain
you stand on your toes
helpless like a child
with its muscles in an adult’s grasp
and you sink into a stupor
when time passes slowly,
but time is gone
and the time is gone
as surely as milk goes sour
How are you?
Kelly at Coles draws the items on the belt
towards her and says,
How you doing?
The local man before her nods and the
transaction is done.
Why does he not reply?
Does he see it as a charade?
Does he see some truth the newcomer cannot see?
It’s my turn.
Kelly at Coles draws the things on the belt
towards her and says,
How you doing?
The new man – that’s me, smiles and says,
Good. Thanks.
(But Kelly is already scanning
and punching her keys.)
The newcomer feels strange. Perhaps he should
have nodded, look a little more natural and aloof…
Perhaps the next time the newcomer will…
The universal condition
There is always an art practiced
in all countries, all cultures,
when one speaks well
by not speaking the truth
yet it consists not of lies;
the transactions are done easily
with smiles
and things are understood and misunderstood
by the one who hears and
the one who speaks.
The visible are unseen
and the unseen are seen.
Everywhere it matters not if you
are a stranger or one of the locals,
but those who never mastered this
are left out of the herd.
Files and records
The unemployed, though without a job
and all the work associated with files and records
in computers or in rows and rows of dusty shelves in an office,
the unemployed too have
files and records to peruse and maintain. I, for example,
have various files: all the correspondence
I have with the State Department and its various
Regional Offices and its terminal points;
the correspondence with private organizations
and associations and unions…
See these?
These are notifications of changes and amendments
to the system; letters from the networks and
requests for a certified copy of a particular paper
that they do not have in their files or seem to
have misplaced.
(Oh, it could very well have been
misplaced by the previous person in charge…
And could you fill in this form?
Your previous return could
have been lost in the mail…)
The unemployed too have deadlines
with their minds employed in making sense
of a world of opportunities
and in the mind and in physical space
making order of the replies
and responses the inviting and tolerant world
gladly makes and promptly
to all enquiries. There are letters from private
and government establishments all represented by letterheads
with bold cries of departmental mottos of
progress, efficiency and equal opportunity and fairness.
(Are you a member of an underprivileged group? -
and yet, implied in others and presumably without prejudice -
Are you a member of our religious group?)
And after order, there is, in my case,
literary textual analysis: What do they mean by
The position drew candidates of a high caliber;
We urge you to apply to our future advertisements?
A walk down Slaughter Falls
It was the day we had planned for -
a picnic on Mt Coot-tha and a walk down
Slaughter Falls to view the reported aboriginal paintings
and the presumed water fall.
Four p.m. we had agreed to. A quarter to,
the sky threatened and we consoled ourselves
the rain would come and go. And we would
still ascend the mount and view the falls.
The rain only got heavier and we became
absorbed in its ferocity
and its bunting and the patterns of falling water.
A can of cigarette butts
flew down from the balcony above us
and the rain lashed at our metal vertical blinds.
Then fell the hail. Little ice pieces
falling down the driveway and gathering at the edges.
Hurry! Over here! This is hail!
I cried out
and we all gathered to watch the hail
pelting the ground below… It was
the first time my family had seen hail.
The rain ceased and the light
brightened the trees and the sky
and in the darker right a rainbow hung
above Toowong Village;
my son and I walked out to the slope
and viewed the rainbow…
And then
a Korean woman followed discreetly with her son…
Soon Slaughter Falls and Mt Coot-tha were forgotten
as the rain, the hail
and the rainbow
had been sights enough for the day.
The migrant as the weatherman
The weatherman on TV is an isolated figure;
he walks alone and deals monologues.
Though he smiles and is pleasant and is informative
he is delivering a lecture and talks one way.
The pair of hosts in the chat show everyday
engage in dialogue; they laugh, talk and chat
and they are in conversation, in an interaction
that is realistic and reminiscent of reality and the mainstream.
The weatherman is alone; he’s in an artificial engagement
in spite of all gimmicks and smiles,
exhibitions and casual asides and pointers.
The migrant is like the unconnected weatherman…
Collecting letters
We collect rejection slips
we full-time unpaid letter-writers
applying for one job after another
state-wide in parts that are desert or fertile
in the country and city
and collect in our files
with the care of bent monks in an ancient order
illuminating rejection letters
each an experience of satori
placing each carefully into pockets
in document files
spurring us into writing more applications
to keep the industry booming
The fucking employed live off the backs
of the unemployed
and isn’t it strange that each one
wishes us well in our future endeavors
and pays all candidates the dubious compliment
of high standards?
It seems
rejection slips are easy to come by
and jobs impossible…
We must crawl into our skins
we poor applicants
(Oh, you can call and
find out why your advances
were rejected)
and read each rejection letter thrice over.
The fucking employed live off the backs
of the unemployed.
The Clown
The orange clown in the city
his arms akimbo, laughs.
Who’s the fool? Who’s the jerk?
Who’s the bumpkin? Who’s the dead nail?
The purple clown in the city
his legs wide, jeers.
Who’s the pumpkin? Who’s the harlequin?
Who’s the Bozo?
Who’s the buffoon?
The red clown in the city
his mouth ear to ear, mocks.
Who’s the loser? Who’s the misfit?
Who’s not in? Who’s inferior?
The cut-out clown in the city
his bandanna fluttering, cries.
Who’s the reject? Who’s thick wood?
Who’s the nitwit? Who’s outside always?
Crow in the mind
At quarter past five
the crow caws and flies past
in the morning sky; I do not see it
as I lie in the couch and it seems
then it flies past
in the landscape of my blank mind
Table-talk Portrait
This lady talked for three hours,
she talked to, not with; she listened
awhile when the others managed to put in a word,
and nodded and went on speeding on her talk
going in circles like a toy train
on the same track in a room
Possibilities
i)
I suppose one’s
accomplishments
license this pleasure;
but surely one must think
of other people’s
accomplishments
and pleasure
ii)
a human being
is but a vessel
and the empty one
allows plenty of vibrations
iii)
one must have a conviction,
to talk like that,
that one is interesting
(in spite of the evidence
the pretence of the polite and the meek
right before one’s face)
and one can be interesting
continuously
iv)
it comes from an arrogance
that one’s battles are immortal
and in one’s battle -
in spite of the protestations
and qualifications -
one must always have been right and wise
Afterthought
But how do you explain
a torrent of words
that sweeps other people along
and drowns them and their words?
Man in the image of the job
What would the Ancients say of us
if they could see us now?
Circumstances make a man….
in these times,
one is what one does; the self
is moulded in the routine of a paying job;
the person is the construct of the job…
For take the man or woman out of a job
and give him or her no occupation, no means of survival,
keep one out of the environment and culture
one got used to and almost thought second nature
and you will observe how like an addict
deprived of drugs the unemployed become…
irritable, meaning-deprived, nervous and
nothing in the discourse.
For put one out of a means of survival
in these times when we pick and pluck everything we need
not in farms but in supermarkets
put one out of a way of earning one’s bread
and see how quickly down the hill one goes
like a rolling stone that gathers no moss… See
how even their most passionate interests fizzle out
when the comfort base and the firmament are
taken and concealed in some suburban garage
a pity that a man must become dependent
in order to eat and provide for the family
and a sense of one’s worth, one’s value
a sense of meaning
must all depend on a job and a pay
O how this modern workaday material and payaday
world has eaten into us
and we are but what our means are
Of a distant place
I was lying down in the sofa
thinking over things
when the mind settled in
on a distant place;
it thought of how we used to get across
at a particular junction
and it produced pictures
from many angles
of the road, the lights and the people -
and in a flash I was there
in this far away place.
Then I was suddenly in a dark tube
and it took me a while
to slip out of this tricky mind
and I was right here.
Right here
in a specific time
and specific circumstance.
A friend like Iago
There was a man
who kept his distance
but edged closer
to make use
of my hospitality.
There was a man
who kept everything
that was his
but took what
he could of mine.
There was a man
who kept his lips
sealed
and peeped long enough
into my open heart.
He peeped long enough
to make me
shut its doors to all.
It is not good
in the material cities -
in Roderigo’s Venice
and today’s Calcutta
all over time
all over the world -
to be honest and guileless;
learn to be double
and to keep tight
your lips and purses
or retire to a quiet deserted cave.
Here and there
(i)
The migrant has many wounds to tend
and in his heart much healing to be done;
there is a long distance he has to travel inside
and triple that to come out.
He offers his apologies to the new country,
and to the old, and he must withdraw
some time now within to understand
from whence and why those incoherent vibrations own him.
(ii)
It is no fault of the place, here or there
or of the people anywhere
for tensions
and contradictions always
abound in a heart and mind
that have lived a long inner life and there
is much need for resolution and compromise.
There are multiple voices that lay claim to one spirit
and there is much need for peace for the soul
to wage its battle within undisturbed.
Things can all fail and the day
be filled with disappointments
and unfulfilled desires and
not a single step towards one’s wants;
so it shall seem that all things collapse
and this day is lost and all days gone.
So it shall seem -
but hold on, hang on,
and there shall be respite yet
for the weary traveler, the tired migrant.
Oh put your hands on your tummy
and hang on to your guts
feel your
inner self and be strong
be self-sufficient
for that shall see you refreshed and strong
for another battle yet
of many battles that must be fought
before certainty cometh.
A barren life
(i)
The shops
The fruit’s finished, all eaten, dear,
so let’s get to the supermarket for more;
O let’s go then hand in hand,
you and me, to buy some fruit at Coles.
We’ve run out of chilies and tomatoes,
all cooked and eaten, dear,
so run along to the store for some;
O go on then as quickly as you can,
sweet child of mine, to buy these at Chan’s.
No more bread and cake in the pantry, dear,
so let’s get to the bakery for more;
O let’s go then my lovely family of four
you and me, to buy some bread and cake at Jill’s.
And when we’re at it, little Sara,
would you like those pancakes
that come in the red plastic wrappers?
(ii)
To the Garden
Run along, dear little one,
to the courtyard and
pick a chili or two
from the green plant in the corner;
take a pinch of curry leaves
and come back to mummy
immediately.
Darling Bob, dearest Tom
beside our lemon tree
is thyme and parsley;
gather a handful each
and be back in a jiffy.
The unemployed
At the entrance to
Toowong Village
four young men
stand in a cluster
and talk to
people who
look approachable
Excuse me, sir,
says one to me,
with a pack of envelopes
in his hand.
We are unemployed
and rather than go on the dole
we are trying to earn some money
selling these cards.
Would you care
to buy a pack, please?
I’m well-dressed today
and he must have thought
I was one of the class
of the employed;
I can’t bear to tell him
the bad news
in case he thinks
I mock the unemployed
and so I mutter an apology
I move away
pained by my inability
to help
and I see in his face
the pain of another rejection.
Without work
(i)
The false comfort of the weekend goes
and Sunday bed-time awakes
pain and confusion. Monday is as close
as a snake at your heel in the garden;
Monday, the day the privileged called black,
and Monday bites those without work
who will not go anywhere; or if they go,
will go nowhere. Five days stare at
those with work and without and both
will be exhausted and look
for the false comforts of the weekend.
(ii)
If you call your friends, they shall ask
if you had any luck and what you tried
these your five non-working days
to get a job; you shall have to recount
your misadventures and rejections, and
people will be generous with advice and
wise sayings and creative solutions,
and so you cease to call
and they understand and leave you alone.
After some time you rather enjoy being left alone
and wonder why anyone should bother
contacting anyone at all. Without work
one could be oneself for others will be at work
and one will be left alone to chatterless privacy.
Hope again
(i)
There is hope yet
in the darkest of nights
for the stars still will shine
if you but care to look
(ii)
Dharma does not forsake
anyone who lives by it;
Dharma does not leave
its loved ones
to stand in the streets
(iii)
Surely this trial
is to show me goodness;
surely this trial
is but the journey
to a good end
Emptiness
We creep into our beds
cold, lonely and sinking.
There is an emptiness that pervades all
as one lies in bed, a wingless pod covered by cloth
and a mind taken by some inhabitant
that has sucked all thoughts dry
and looks for congealed blood in the marrow
Gloomy
Gloomy as I walked
a sad face floated past me in the street
and I recalled in
The Westside News
of April 16:
When a man is gloomy, everything seems to
go wrong; when he is cheerful, everything
seems right! Proverbs 15:15
I am not gloomy; everything is right.
Today I bought a book of Goya’s works
Today I bought a book of Goya’s works
and we debated at home if an unemployed man
should have $30 for Goya. Goya is priceless,
there was no dispute, but what’s the price
on an unemployed man’s head? What’s an
unemployed man worth? Can he spend
thirty when there are other pressing needs at hand?
Was it
The Nude Maya
on the jacket the
man not working wanted? (Such a thing in a
yuppie’s head is art; such a thing in an
unemployed man’s hands is lust.)
I thought Goya should have the last word
and I opened to a page at random:
Bloodstained Saturn ate his children.
Gentle Clare
I don’t give a damn, Clare,
if
in the world of bloody idiots
none cares or knows
or if
I am
a memory lost
amongst those
who put their hands on my shoulders
and said they were my friends or brothers.
I don’t give a fuck, gentle Clare, for these things;
my woe like yours is
I am yet what I am none cares or knows
to give me a paying job
so that I can get a home where I can rest,
with the grass below, above, the vaulted sky.
Finesse
Those of you who would have your children learn
good manners, politeness and subtlety,
I tell you
for what my twenty years of experience
as a teacher
and 14-year expertise as a parent of two are worth
send your children to these writers
of rejection letters.
Nay, laugh not at me,
for this ancient race of master craftsmen
are the originators and true progenitors
of subtlety and finesse
and our children can learn
restraint, control and refinement
through the words of these wise scribes.
For these truly are endowed with
savoir faire.
The migrant and the illiterate
the migrant who doesn’t have a job
and the adult who can’t read
have one thing in common:
they need to hide;
they need to hide themselves
from those who shouldn’t know.
Both secretive and quiet,
not wanting to be discovered.
Gentle sleep
In the middle
of an uneventful week
with miles of disappointment
and circled in endless space of red brown terrain
and even in the middle of unending uncertainty
may you sleep well tonight
may you sleep quiet and tight
undisturbed by your mind
undisturbed by alarms in the psyche
undisturbed by haggard sirens within.
Sleep well and not awake till late in the morning
and not be wakened for a pee or for a drink
to keep the dry burning throat wet
or be wakened by thoughts that have their own
volition
that clamor like crabs in a rattan basket.
May you sleep well and sleep tight,
and rise rested and ready
unsuspecting of a better day.
Let loose
and sleep well;
do not dwell long too much on things that could be
on what you could have done
and must be done;
let go
and sometimes trust in things
to sort themselves out
for the way does
what the will cannot
Do what you can,
let go and sleep well;
do not dwell again and again on
how else you can fight
how else you can control events and
not let them master you
to make meaning out of things nebulous
and out of your control
and why circumstances and events don’t
shape and move like they can or should
Sometimes let things sort
themselves out;
for chance works better
than control and order
Let go, sleep well,
take yourself deep into your burrow
so deep nothing can find you
so you can take the rest that will give you
the strength to meet again the waiting
that may leap up again and again
like the ubiquitous kangaroo
Many gifts
There are many gifts
bestowed on a man
many blessings
he is endowed with;
let him use these
rather than be weighed down
in the obsession with one misfortune
For always it is a man’s nature
that will see him through the longest nights
Let him look to the beauty
all around him
(though she may seem shriveled
in the face of troubles)
and this will teach
him to ride his roughest trials
The unemployed and the Wise Ones
The wise ones tell the unemployed:
There is hope. Keep trying.
There is yet hope – the unemployed lives on
such a thin line, for though there have been
continual rejections, there are yet three applications
to which replies have not come – and when they do,
there will yet be hope for the three rejections
will be superseded by three or four more applications pending.
There is hope yet – the unemployed lives on,
censured by the wise for being negative if he
thinks of the rejections
and otherwise being censured too for being a hopeless
optimist.
There is yet hope for the unemployed who keep trying,
their heads buried, and in deference to the wise ones
who will offer advice and comment in spite of everything.
The un-embittered unemployed,
the hopeful unemployed
is fair game to the wise ones.
She was in the profession
She stopped her work at her lawn when she saw me
and leaned over the fence and we talked for over two hours
with my elbow on her posts and my feet resting
against the palings.
She had worked forty years in the same profession
and had seen generations through the doors. She
had enjoyed her work and people still call her to
tell her about themselves; they express their gratitude
and how much of a difference she had made.
She walked down the fence, waved her arms
and returned to the corner where I stood.
But what was work for?
she asked.
Forty years doing what was good for others
but nothing that was good for myself.
What was work for? she sighed.
What were forty years for? It destroyed me.
Rage of the unemployed
The un-embittered unemployed
come into themselves, cut off
and involved in inner worlds, isolated and taking on
loneliness, talking in loneliness, inviting others to
take a view of the unsuccessful
and unconnected and to keep away, not worth the time of anyone
about to get on and up in the world, not presentable
at social functions where people rub shoulders and
take notes and evaluate who’s in and who’s out.
The unemployed without a rage burn themselves out;
snuff out their own flame and leave for a long time
a curl of grey smoke
over a shortened candle
become grotesque
with unwieldly lines of wax on its sides.
Rage therefore, ye unemployed;
let not rage die in your hearts
for the unemployed without rage and fire
are blown out like oil lamps
beside the open window.
Rage therefore against the world
that will not let you work
but will humiliate you with words
Rage therefore against the world
that will take away your dignity
and shuffle you from one office to another
rage and rage unabashed
rage and rage uninhibited
rage and rage unbridled
rage and rage unrestrained -
for rage becometh the unemployed;
for rage giveth
what the world would take away.
Mr Unknown
See this Mr Unknown
he walks hard
is comfortable in himself
but in our eyes only a phantom
See him emerge from his unit
go down the stairs (the ceilings cleaned of cobwebs)
and he puts his hand in the mail box.
See this Mr Unknown
you look at with your elbows on your window sills
walking down the pavement toward the station.
See this strange Mr Unknown
suddenly appear before you in the atrium
and a faint smile appears on his lips
and a fainter one in yours as you recognize each other
looking into each other’s opaque worlds through glass.
See Mr Unknown get into a train
and disappear into a world of his own
and see him late at night
returning in the dim light
as you peer over your windows
because you heard the crack of a twig.
Mr Unknown
retires into his dark unit.
Passing the buck
Whose fault is it that he’s still walking
without a job? You can point to him
and he can point to you, one can point to another
and so go on with
a charade of Departments of Employment
and come will-nilly naught.
What holds things together?
What holds things together?
He thought
his passions and his interests held things together.
He thought he was resourceful and strong
and that did the trick for him.
He thought
his resilience and his training held things for him.
What holds things together?
Something he never reckoned
had such importance;
losing reality over time in comfort
something he had taken for granted.
Because if you’re in a city
and survive dependent in an economy,
there’s only one thing
that holds things together. A job.
He didn’t know this till
he had given it up in one place
hoping to get it in another.
Because if you’re in a city
you either create a job as entrepreneurs do,
or get a job as a survivor.
Change
If this goes on I wonder
what shall become of me
I shall become Mr Melancholic, possibly.
Head down, shoe laces loose, part collar in
and part out and belly button missing,
trousers frayed at the bottom and pocket sides
and my thin lips turned down. Mr Melancholic,
after all. A melancholy, an unnamed grief shall eat me
that sit where I will or stand where I will
it shall have its victim bent double
and I shall feel it attack from deep in the pits of my stomach
and incapacitate me. I shall be motionless and helpless
at this possession and melancholy shall lead to depression,
not that I shall know its progress at every stage.
But it shall not be a melancholy
it shall not be a regression
without a rage, an anger. And it shall not
be a fall without vengeance
I shall become The Malcontent;
bearded and rapier in hand
confused between scepticism and cynicism
hovering between good and evil
and easily persuaded to darkness.
And the psychologists and the counselors
and the sociologists
will analyze me and dissect me and study me.
I shall become the subject of discussion.
Are you not done yet with these people?
Are you not done yet with these people?
Have your people not hunted them and killed
them like beasts and not shamed them enough?
Have you not taken and plundered too much already
that you must mock them and badger them and pursue them
even in their fallen state? Did not
those of the continent who set foot in the New World
cut natives limb by limb? Did not Jesuits and monks
witness that even those in the flock
impregnated pagan slaves for profit? What crime could be worse than enslaving another human being
with corrupt holy men justifying slavery?
Are you not allied to these
and yet you will point a finger at the defeated?
Will you judge them? Will you mock them still?
Are you not done yet with these people?
Have your people not hunted them and killed
them like beasts and not shamed them enough?
God forgive us all,
and Christ forgive you;
O no, you are not done with them;
you have not done with them yet
till you set right the wrongs.
Surely you are not done with them,
nor Christ with you.
Everything can cease
Everything can cease… when confidence peters,
falls and breaks on granite boulders and scatters,
everything can cease. Things first slow down,
sputter and choke like a dirty burnt-out machine
and then cease. Everything can cease. One’s speech, one’s
mannerisms and manners. Oh, peace can cease.
The world can cease. Religion and Faith can be depleted
and cease. Art and Music can cease. Poetry can cease.
All things end and begin in Causation.
The centre gives way and there is
no need for meaning.
Dance can cease. Activity can cease. Curiosity
can cease. Effort can cease. Beauty and Life cease.
Meaning can cease. Action can cease. Life can cease.
Naivety and Trust – all things must cease.
All things good and bad that arise must come to an end
all in good time.
Is there hope in this letter?
It seems to hold out a ray
and the vague words
deny nothing while holding out time.
There is mention of a flood of applications.
Your application is now being considered.
The paper and the words become Holy Writ.
The message is round and round,
the words considered
every way like a living text….
The recipient sees hope; the recipient sees
routine procedure…
They want me; they want me not;
they want me; they want me not…
Is there hope or not?
You’ve got the wrong man
You’ve got the wrong man,
can’t you see?
Don’t stop me,
you unemployed at the mall,
wanting to sell me cards and envelopes
and appealing for coins
as you lean against the railing
your legs spread out and placards declaring your intents
Don’t call out to me
and offer me the deference
you might give
an employed man
for you make me uncomfortable
and I don’t want to disappoint you
You’ve got the wrong man,
can’t you see?
And do you not see
I have denied you not thrice
but more?
So don’t look at me.
Don’t look at me
for I’ve nothing to give you
(though I’ve given when I could)
as you and I are the same
except perhaps it’ll be some time yet
before I too declare myself
with cards, envelopes and placards.
What will the morning bring?
What will the morning bring? Will it bring
any hope at all? Or will it still have
me lingering round the phone
like an unemployed worker standing at the dock
eager, waiting to be called,
and sighing after many a false alarm?
What will the next morning bring?
Will it be at ten
a letter of offer
or just me with my open palm
in the cold letter box
pulling out a brown envelope
that proves
no news is good news
Memories that linger
These are not nightmares, painful thoughts
not complexes or deprivations or phobias
but just memories that linger
in the recesses and folds
and they weasel in and out
and hop across the red plains of the mind
filling a void, recreating what happened
in another world till something parallel and more passionate
happens here in this.
They have their own existences and will breathe and live
and play out their lives in their own time
and at their own leisure.
They do things in here;
they wage war
and they entertain themselves
and make me
dream of a few friends still in other quarters
how we sat down together in the warmth of the sun
for coffee or tea; and they sit there mouthing
words and making me in that life utter words I never did;
they conjure a particular road junction or a
building that loomed over it pondering over
the meaning of tarmac and concrete.
There is a tree that stands in conversation
with a fruit and children sit in the shade.
The memories linger and play out their own lives.
Dignity
You’re not going to take mine away
you’re not going to get me down
with your polite replies and silences
with your civilized condescension
legally-closed and properly-handled processing
and accommodating tolerance
Going it alone
These days I’m going it alone
I’m seated in the train that roars past
concrete and earth and dirt and buildings
and that enters darkness and into light and darkness again.
It is good to go; it does not matter where.
I’m seated on the metal bench in the mall
and there is the image
seated inside looking out
through my eyes. There is the world
and the people all around me.
I see me going and coming;
it is good to come – it does not matter to what.
My hands are in my pockets
and the hat over my head
and I’m walking on the road that
plunges down from the station
and stretches out long and far inviting
those with time to go on for as much as they can.
It is good to go wherever you can;
and it is good to come however you want.
Untidy and unshaven most days,
neat and presentable on good days.
I am at the coffee stall
and the man on the opposite side
stares back at me.
It seems to me many such men
walk the streets.
There are moments
when it’s like being a marsupial in a daze;
a creature preyed on
by a poison-spewing predator.
The feeling is there between the chest and abdomen
a weight that pulls the mass in
and sinks beating its wings.
Fear seizes
and the victim freezes.
More of the unemployed
In China Town
stands a man alone
with half a smile in his lips
and with a bunch of pens
in each hand.
He has a laminated placard
over his chest
held by a string round his neck.
Please help me
survive.
I am unemployed
but I’m not giving up.
Pens for $2.Ä
The passers-by look away
or ignore the clenched fist of pens
and I, no less guilty,
skirt round the pillar to avoid the man
holding his own in Fortitude Valley.
I’m sorry,
I whisper to myself;
when I find a job I’ll be kind.
I don’t look back
as I flee,
leaving him to stand alone
like an aside in a play
and just as important.
Dignity of labor
During the day
I punch keyboards and meet deadlines;
I work in enclosures and hold my face away
as I answer calls
(I am practiced in cadence,
sounding confident and caring
and yet distant)
and send off neat replies
I need not be responsible for; in the evenings
I stop at Coles and pick what I need:
bananas, oranges, tomatoes, vegetables, greens,
bacon, lamb chops and beef steaks and my six-pack and
cokes and pizzas in boxes and sauces in tubes.
I work and I eat and the basis of my life
is the dignity of labor.
We care; we serve;
We protect the Department
So what do you make of me?
What do you make of me
that you issue me these letters and forms
and make me wait endlessly and give
good circumspect chatter if I ask what I
should do next?
What secret conclusions
form the basis of your dealings?
What do you intend to make of me?
Perhaps you visualize my future as a
mute tight-lipped nodding Indian
in his convenience store,
neatly put out in the
quietest lane
of a distant suburb. Pleasant and agreeable
you will have me, smiling and ready to serve,
immobile at the counter, briskly walking
to the shelves to serve you
when you deign to come on an odd
shopping spree
to get exotic spices and newly-heard of condiments
that you will probably store for long in
your kitchen and throw away anyway.
You will not have me out of your
collection of stereotypes, will you?
No, I shall not allow you to
insinuate me into worthlessness
with your cold and bureaucratic silences
and ready-made answers
for I know my worth
as you yours.
The Fool
How would you like to meet
the Fool you only dealt
with in paper and print?
How would you like to see Feste in the skin,
blood and bones? How would you like to watch
in person the clown whom you disbelieved
and collected papers from
to laugh at
in your shared cubicles and private rooms?
Care to hear the oaths and curses
you’ve taught the Department Jester
whom you turned into Caliban?
I understand now
How naive I’ve been, trusting and misunderstanding
your cold masculine words of bureaucracy.
I filled in your forms and proffered
full information
and followed leads and hints
like an ass led by the nose.
I thought telling you I have a family will
put me in a good light and thought you would
appreciate dealing with a family man who would
be a role model in a school; but no,
you saw how expensive I could be if you had
to get me accommodation; how inconvenient and cumbersome
it would be assuring me of a place for one child
in a primary and one in a high school. I thought you
would appreciate twenty years of experience
coming from an Asian city, a Tiger city, coming
with faith and dedication but I didn’t know
you were locked in your parochialism and narrow world
How naive I’ve been faithfully delivering every
document
on request sans promise and reason
Where’s the dignity in all this?
There is no dignity in how you have treated me
for your language has always been discreet and evasive
mute in honesty
and eloquent in bureaucracy
You need to rely on this
for obviously
you do not know truth and simplicity
It is all clear to me now
It is clear to me now
no wonder your people told me that
(they still tell me that)
I had to be aggressive and insistent
I had to pursue matters; no use in
being co-operative and compliant
they told me that with a retiring disposition
such as mine
we will run all over you.
On unpaved roads
I’m still walking unpaved roads
where the shadows hide all who walk
still in a quiet rage and all thoughts subdued
unknown, unacknowledged, unaccepted
without space and enclosed
inhabiting a Kafkaesque inhibiting world
with a unique identification number
and chasing paper -
posed like Rodin’s statue
but in truth an emptied scarecrow
