the heart has its reasons
This was written in response to an article in a local newspaper on a Singaporean guy reading English at Oxford. The article made me angry. i rarely get angry, even though i do a fairly good imitation of it when necessary. (And in my previous job, it was often necessary.)It's quite a purple poem, and a little inconsistent, and not totally polished, but i thought i'd put it up anyway, partly because i've been receiving complaints that i don't update this blog quite enough. i hope this has at least a temporarily mollifying effect.
And, for those of you who want to know, all the images in the poem are indeed taken from real life. These are images i've carried around with me, for years in some cases, awaiting articulation. My hope is that the next time you, Gentle Reader, see the things described here, you will see more than what others do, (and this more need not be the same as the more that i saw), simply because you know there is more to see.
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Given his smarts, I can't help but wonder why this former Gifted Education Programme student from Anglo-Chinese School (ACS) chose English when he could have easily picked from a wide range of more 'marketable subjects' for his higher studies overseas. – Jasmine Yin, 'Today', 11 Aug 2007.
"There is no why," I want to say, but the mind
rebels against wearing the heart on sleeves.
I will not speak of love or truth; decline
the defence of a poet's art. Which leaves,
instead, this song of rain trees laced, wet-black,
on grey velvet skies; cities rising, rose-
blushed, on the wings of dawn; a snail's long trek
across pimpled tiles cracked where moss still grows;
golden french fries jewelled with salt; blood-veined
marble in a silent church; a broken
bell that tolled the hours before the bombs rained
down on the town where once it was spoken:
"The heart has its reasons, of which reason
knows nothing." The last prayer of the season.
...
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posted by eothen @ 12:47 AM
2 Comments:
i like the poem, especially 'golden french fries jewelled with salt; blood-veined/ marble in a silent church' and "The heart has its reasons, of which reason/ knows nothing." =)sorry for being ignorant, but what's a purple poem? and why were you angry?
ms leoww
'The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing' is a quotation from Blaise Pascal, famous mathematician and writer of the 'Pensees', a series of meditations on Christian issues.
'purple poem' is a term i sortof coined to describe poetry that is generally overwrought and written in 'purple' language. (remember what you do in PC?)
i was angry because of the journalist's attitude towards English as an academic discipline. i mean, i'd be the first to admit a personal ambivalence about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of 'doing English', but i would not publicly dismiss it out of hand the way this journalist did. i don't mind that kind of 'English is so useless' attitude coming from taxi-drivers, for example, but for a journalist (educated, presumably knowledgeable and well-informed) to articulate it in a national newspaper is
1) deeply ironic, given that journalists make their living from the craft (i wouldn't say art, not in singapore, anyway) of writing, and should therefore at least have SOME respect for their fellow workers in the same field; and
2) an "institutionalisation of taxi-driver-ism", as a friend puts it, which runs counter to Singapore's efforts to become a 'Renaissance City', and which simply confirms our status as a wannabe-nation with a relatively under-developed cultural scene.
ok rant over. you *did* ask. :)
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