since the majority of me

by Philip Larkin

Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do

We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways,
But silence too is eloquent:

A silence of minorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.
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Larkin's poems are frosty, delicate things. They are inspired by the chilly incipience of understanding, the cold clarity that comes with age. They are kept from freezing by the heat of remembrance.

There is a distinct memory that arises every so often, untrammeled by time. I did not discover its significance until I turned it round and round in my mind and realised I could not have asked for anything more in that moment; I would have given up anything for it but it was given to me freely, as all surprises, gifts and truly good things are.

Just had a good laugh when the Formula One television commentator referred to the amount of "autumn leaves" littering the track.

Clearly the winds of westernisation have effected seasonal change in Singapore as well.

The deepest remembrances of all are the quiet ones, the moments of stillness that linger after the laughter and the tears, placid and silent and immovable as rocks on a riverbed. The unspoken understandings through looks exchanged between the spaces of a crowd, the feeling of eyes and the grasp of a gaze through the veil of passers-by, seconds of the past stretched into eternity by memory.

In the proximity of a breath, the eager uncertainty of fingertips, the matching of footsteps between puddles, the unexpected coalescing of a moment in the rain with a single umbrella and a distance to walk, a place to find; all these fall into place as memories uneroded by time, the shared realisation of possibilities and their gentle relegation to the sigh of the drifting rain, as opportunities out of time and place, less suited to reality than to memory, the material of dreams and sudden dazes in the day.

Memories--the footprints you left all over my past, that I find myself continually retracing today, and that stretch out as far as I can see in the direction of the future.

hello

are you cold?
i can't see you
but do you see what i see
hear what i hear
feel what i feel
in the mirror?

i live in a garden
and i water the vines
that wind around me.
water drips from my
fingertips
and still they twine
and climb and wind
and freeze me
into a strange hedge
a stranger whom
i do not know
but i think i am.

i am an observer
watching the interrogation
from next door
through a one-way mirror.
the prisoner stands by the wall
he does not know he is watched.
yet it is a mirror
he stares into.
and then when he bends
i bend too.

so. in my mirror
feel what i feel
hear what i hear
but do you see what i see
i can't see you
are you cold?

The Selfish Giant

Everybody knows about Oscar Wilde the aesthete, the dandy, the smirking connoisseur of pleasure and art, the charming literary genius hostile to all social conventions and yet dangerously charismatic. This side of him is on sparkling display in his most famous plays: The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windemere's Fan, An Ideal Husband. It is clearly how Wilde wanted the world to see him, and these plays contain Wildean witticisms at their best.

But his short stories intrigue me; they not only make for fascinating reading, but also seem to illustrate a curious religiousity alien to his plays, almost antithetical to his image. Here's one of his tales that I like in particular:

The Selfish Giant
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Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How happy we are here!" they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

"What are you doing here?" he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away. "My own garden is my own garden," said the Giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

He was a very selfish Giant. The poor children had now nowhere to play. They tried to play on the road, but the road was very dusty and full of hard stones, and they did not like it. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over, and talk about the beautiful garden inside. "How happy we were there," they said to each other.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were little blossoms and little birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant it was still winter. The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. Once a beautiful flower put its head out from the grass, but when it saw the notice-board it was so sorry for the children that it slipped back into the ground again, and went off to sleep. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round." The Snow covered up the grass with her great white cloak, and the Frost painted all the trees silver. Then they invited the North Wind to stay with them, and he came. He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we must ask the Hail on a visit." So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go. He was dressed in grey, and his breath was like ice.

"I cannot understand why the Spring is so late in coming," said the Selfish Giant, as he sat at the window and looked out at his cold white garden; "I hope there will be a change in the weather." But the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave none. "He is too selfish," she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees.

One morning the Giant was lying awake in bed when he heard some lovely music. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he thought it must be the King's musicians passing by. It was really only a little linnet singing outside his window, but it was so long since he had heard a bird sing in his garden that it seemed to him to be the most beautiful music in the world. Then the Hail stopped dancing over his head, and the North Wind ceased roaring, and a delicious perfume came to him through the open casement. "I believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant; and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

He saw a most wonderful sight. Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, and they were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. And the trees were so glad to have the children back again that they had covered themselves with blossoms, and were waving their arms gently above the children's heads. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight, and the flowers were looking up through the green grass and laughing. It was a lovely scene, only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly. The poor tree was still quite covered with frost and snow, and the North Wind was blowing and roaring above it. "Climb up! little boy," said the Tree, and it bent its branches down as low as it could; but the boy was too tiny.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said; "now I know why the Spring would not come here. I will put that poor little boy on the top of the tree, and then I will knock down the wall, and my garden shall be the children's playground for ever and ever." He was really very sorry for what he had done.

So he crept downstairs and opened the front door quite softly, and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. And the Giant stole up behind him and took him gently in his hand, and put him up into the tree. And the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy stretched out his two arms and flung them round the Giant's neck, and kissed him. And the other children, when they saw that the Giant was not wicked any longer, came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe and knocked down the wall. And when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye. "But where is your little companion?" he said: "the boy I put into the tree." The Giant loved him the best because he had kissed him. "We don't know," answered the children; "he has gone away." "You must tell him to be sure and come here to-morrow," said the Giant. But the children said that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before; and the Giant felt very sad.

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But the little boy whom the Giant loved was never seen again. The Giant was very kind to all the children, yet he longed for his first little friend, and often spoke of him. "How I would like to see him!" he used to say. Years went over, and the Giant grew very old and feeble. He could not play about any more, so he sat in a huge armchair, and watched the children at their games, and admired his garden. "I have many beautiful flowers," he said; "but the children are the most beautiful flowers of all."

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that it was merely the Spring asleep, and that the flowers were resting. Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvellous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love." "Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms.

For whom the Bell Tolls

"Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.

And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.

The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.

Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

_____________________
John Donne

From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - "Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die."

Something I found and dragged out from a folder in my computer, written long ago. Written with all the unsubtlety of youth.

A Friend
__________________

when we take photos together
we are never alone
always, you and me
separated by two or three.

when we go on dates and dinners
it is always with the others
with friends and shouts and cheery noises
your laughter amidst many voices.

I worked my way through the sunlit crowd
the implacable distance of people
through photos and functions and countless yearbooks
down queues, in meals, through changing looks.

I have been a patient smiling face,
I have waited madly by the phone
written too many poems, heard too many songs
watched you through the spaces where your library books belong.

I found you finally in the crowd
I reached my hand to turn you round
and you did, but in cheerful agreement
with someone else’s call, and your gaze was distant.

when the albums have ended, and the tapes run out of time
the voices swallowed by distance, and your footsteps too faint
I tread gently through the madding crowd still
looking for your traces, and your footsteps to fill.

I cannot help it, I miss you so much
the delight of your laughter, and the surprise of your touch.

the way of love

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love,
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love,
I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor,
and though I give my body to be burned and have not love,
it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long and is kind.
Love envieth not.
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doeth not behave itself unseemly.
Seeketh not her own.
Is not easily provoked.
Thinketh no evil.
Rejoiceth not in inequity, but rejoiceth in the truth.
Bareth all things.
Believeth all things.
Hopeth all things.
Endureth all things.
Love never fails.
But where there be prophecies they shall fail,
whether there be tongues, they shall cease,
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part,
but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I fought as a child,
but when I became a man I put away childish things.
For now we see though a glass dark plain, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then shall I know even also as I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love - these three,
but the greatest of these is love."

_______________
1 Corinthians 13
King James Bible

Biblical verses at their finest stand unsurpassed as demonstrations of how the prosody of wisdom runs in perfect natural counterpoint to the rhythms of poetry... It strikes me somehow that words of truth, the lyricism of poetry, and the subject of love are strangely, innately attuned to each other. These verses from Corinthians are a peerless combination of the three.

Growing up is sometimes an unaccountably stale, rancid activity.

It doesn't always entail self-improvement, enlightenment, sudden wisdom or the insights of maturity. Maybe it doesn't even involve change.

What it does involve, however, is aging. Sitting there, getting older, watching the soporific seconds play themselves out on the clock, ticking themselves to death.

It's time for dinner.

I can always find a little comfort during dark times in the simple, cheerful words with which Shakespeare ends his oeuvre, in the closure of The Two Noble Kinsmen:

"O you heavenly charmers,
What things you make of us! For what we lack
We laugh, for what we have, are sorry; still
Are children in some kind. Let us be thankful
For that which is, and with you leave dispute
That are above our question. Let's go off
And bear us like the time."

For all the unattainably profound thoughts about humanity and the world that Shakespeare must have had throughout his career, it makes me glad that his last lines are words of comfort and good cheer.

the last poem

This is the last poem, overdue words
ingredients gone sour on the label of a can
words long past their expiry dates
too long embalmed by memory
and pickled by regret
floating like an embryo in a silent goo.
they have tumbled off the caravan
inertia overcome
words eating the dust.

This is where I bury a life:
here lies the doom of a half-formed sentence
a time capsule of an incomplete past
of unfinished thoughts, unfulfilled wishes
some half-forgotten dreams, a fraction of time.
the inheritance of memory, given to the wind
those things that flickered around
the sundial of a life
winding down to the end.

This is the last evening
the sky heavy with the thoughts of the day
when buses ponder at every stop
and men wear eyebags weighed down with words
having a think or two over tea.
the clouds are dark with question marks
and the weatherman's worries condense, and fall.
from you, the trail of a plane like a farewell from the sky
for me, unspoken words and a dampness not yet dry.

This is the last time, this is the end
the resting-place of stories too broken to mend
seeds will not grow when they are six feet under
too deep for tears to reach or hopes to plunder
this is the last poem, a wish too forlorn to rescue
and its last word must belong only to you.

____________________

Too much has been thought and felt, wondered about and imagined, forgotten and realised much too late. It is over, all of it. This is the last poem, at least for a while.

Kierkegaard

Some of my favourite Kierkegaardian lines from Works of Love, certainly worth a read:

"If it were so, as conceited sagacity, proud of not being deceived, thinks, that we should believe nothing which we cannot see with our eyes, then first and foremost we ought to give up believing in love. If we were to do so and do it out of fear lest we be deceived, would we not then be deceived? We can, of course, be deceived in many ways. We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. We can be deceived by appearances, but we can also be deceived by shrewdness, by the flattering conceit which is absolutely certain it cannot be deceived. Which deception is more dangerous? Whose recovery is more doubtful, that of one who does not see, or that of the person who sees and yet does not see? What is more difficult--to awaken someone who is sleeping or to awaken someone who awake, is dreaming that he is awake? Which is sadder, the sight that promptly and unconditionally moves one to tears, the sight of someone unhappily deceived in love, or the sight that in a certain sense could tempt laughter, the sight of the self-deceived, whose fatuous conceit of not being deceived would indeed be ridiculous and laughable if the ridiculousness of it were not an even stronger expression for horror, since it shows that he is unworthy of tears."

Philosophers who write like that should consider an alternative career as poets.

Love

I walk about all night and fall sick in the day
Days I spend with eyes burnt out and nights with eyes alive
Each evening I will myself to rise and walk
And energy like ether fills me.
I pull on fancy pants and shiny suits
Like a madman in the dark
Lasso my spotted tie on a veinous neck
Snatch my cowboy hat from below my bed and
Fill white leather shoes in a hop. My fevers flee and all
Exhaustion escapes as I hit the midnight pubs
With disco dancing, and bursting music
That fills my soul with sound.
The faces of women I met and loved
Were so many kisses, promises and vows
So many apparitions and light-hearted phantoms
Inspired, interesting, imaginary imps
With ease I willed them disappear with the dawn
In the crazy nights I would do anything for them
In the sober days, nothing.

Sometimes I fall sick and can’t get up
I have to send for the doctor.
When the fever is real there’s no
Imagining it’s imaginary, it will not thus
Go away.

One evening, in the twilight, I couldn’t get up
I willed myself to, but I couldn’t
Each side of the bed was the wrong side, somehow
And I couldn’t chase my fever away.
I coughed my lungs out, but a face was stuck in my throat
My business ties could force nothing out.
Something was upset, but I ate my breakfast with appetite
I walked about all day and fell sick at night.

_______________________

Some things are imagined too easily, others are realised too late.