ampulets

Roses, they wilt so quickly! What are days?!   Today I wish to introduce the poetry of Marianne Moore. Marianne who?

Every Saturday night the BBC world service devotes a full hour or more to soccer commentary. I don’t understand a word of it and recognise none of the names. But I always leave it on and attempt to follow each episode like its own self-contained drama. It is like an alternative fiction to the usual depressing news of incompetent or downright evil governments, and squabbling nations. 

Of course the view from this flat’s balcony was the main attraction when I first saw it. Previously inhabited by a couple, three young children and their domestic help, the flat was packed with lots of built in cupboards and beds and the general mess of family life. It wouldn’t be how I would do it up. And with three young children, it wasn’t in the neatest or cleanest state. But I thought, as I spoke to the previous owner and walked through the house, that it was loved. It was a happy flat.

Friends have often asked if there was an artist or work I would really like to see on Esplanade’s stage. It is the second most popular question, losing only to “which is the best seat in the house”, to which I will smile coyly “Every seat in Esplanade is a good seat” haha. In similar “why you asking me to name my favourite child” way, my answer to the first question would always be, “you know I don’t make the programming choices!” But I know my answer would be Leonard Cohen, that Canadian poet, singer-songwriter, charmer.

Online shopping is like going to the supermarket and your eyes alone can cause that packet of chips to fall into the cart ... MAGIC! If our eyes are windows to our soul, then our soul must be riddled with desires, whether we recognise them or not.

Last evening, a friend shared some relationship woes Not hers. But many have gone to her with such woes. Another friend had asked if it is indeed true that Covid would bring about more divorces and that question: “why must I tahan this person?!”

So I have been watching Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather trilogy. It’s grand - the hubris, the betrayals, the loyalties, the cruelties, and of course, the greed. The world vacillates between “its only business” and “its family.” And many times our choices are like that too - the selfish disguised as the pragmatic, a degenerate love that becomes fear, power and folly. 

Every Saturday, a lady comes to help me with my housework. A PR after being in Singapore for the last 10 years or so, she helps out at a small handful of homes now and then. She first came to Singapore to be with her son, who is now already 18. Last Saturday as she was finishing up her work, she stood by this print and declared in mandarin: “Of all the paintings in your home this is my favourite. These are the hands of the labouring class/proletariat. My hands are like that.” The phrase she used was 勞動公民.

I was lazing on the rug watching “The Godfather” yesterday afternoon when I looked up and saw the balcony floor bathed in this beautiful light.

Are you feeling extremely lazy today? Maybe it is the weather. Maybe it is the “excitement” of the last couple of weeks watching COVID numbers climb; anticipating changes; prepping work, people and life for what may come; listening to a world of bombings as well as post-lockdown cinema queues...: being on edge. And on a grey quiet Saturday, the mind and body seeks and calls for rest - yet addicted perhaps to excitement, desires that bite of vinegar, that taste of honey, that salty kick of being alive. 

A song can be a poem set to music. Hence the word "lyrics" (words of a song) is akin to the word "lyric" (used to describe some poems). And so today's "poem" is actually Beatles' song, "Norwegian Wood (This Bird has Flown):

A copy of her collected poems I had since a teenager and the open page from The Gorgeous Nothings . This gorgeous book shows the slips of envelopes Emily Dickinson wrote on. She opened the envelopes and re-used them, composing the poems around these oddly shaped papers. It is fascinating. This poet is “perfect” for Covid amidst all the kopitiam chatter of another lockdown. She lived most of her life in Massachusetts, America without stepping out of her house!

This image I stoke from J's IG.  ecause I knew he took beautiful photos of flowers. But as I looked through them I found instead this photo of fireworks - flowers in the sky. So typical of him that he captures fireworks not for their usual colour and wow-factor, but as a shower of light. The word for fireworks in Japanese and chinese for fireworks is Fire Flowers. Today’s poem is by Polish-American writer in exile Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004). He is my favorite poet, as can be seen by the number of his books on my shelf! Try reading this poem aloud

Are you afraid of poetry? I think most people are, even literature students! I enjoy reading poetry. It is like cracking a puzzle. Or like listening to someone tell you a secret. All poetry is somewhat intimate in that sense. They are small, but sometimes their world is large. They can be funny or sad or stirring or intellectual.