From Telok Pisang

From Telok Pisang

Three verse poem. Malayan landscapes spur a reflection on human condition.

1945-12-06

One page typewritten document

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SYeomanHT104405v10017

POEM
From Telok Pisang.

The heart at length
Will tire of beachcombing
Within this exile
Of a foreign season
Who sees the bonewhite
Sandscrew burrow
Burning as maggot
In curl of toe
The sun that
Tricks the eyelid
Spells his pacing
While tiderace battens
On unhinging joint.

Within an arc of palm
Haphazard granite
The minor octave
Drips corrosive
Falling in descant
Tower and time and pitch
Deaden to silence
Like the seashell
Or echo
Anaesthesia.

But the gypsy
The watchful Orion
Is loosed behind
Forgotten fires
His secret paths
The advent of
A strange ascension
Seeking the enigma
In the restless mind
A picture painted
In untidy strokes
Of I
Who wrap my body
In a sensuous shroud
And contemplate disaster
In the scarred pallor
Of a somnambulist moon.

Telok Pisang – Sungei Glugor
6 Dec 45