Poem: How are you?

How are you?

Her answer is always simply

“I’m fine, thank you.

And you?”

But she never spoke of the Shadow,

The weight of Nothing that stops her lips

From articulating some Fear she knows

She feels, but knows not from which cell it spawned.

For speech is as inadequate
At expression

As people are at empathy.

She wants to say, sing, shout – be heard.

But words can offer no pity;

Lifeless symbols cannot capture

The sense of beings and things.

So she smiles and it looks pretty – good -

Though our eyes don’t meet. A gentle plea

Escapes her prison of resolve:

A soft cry for companionship –

For any one comprehending soul

To listen to the flood of words tumbling

Out of locked jaws in - ineffable silence.

I shrugged and wished that I could understand.

Then said, I'm fine - too. 

Poem: Out of the Mire of Despair

     I haven't written a poem in a long time. I've started on a few but cannot seem to finish them. Perhaps reading great poetry has exposed my poetic inadequacies and I am caught in a fear of failure - a sickening mental paralysis. The past week was tough, but when I really left my house for the first time in a week yesterday, I saw (what I think are) tulips growing on the outside of the wall. I've never really been one who appreciates flowers, but they caught my eyes - bright yellow and red. And I remembered another tulip, rather TULIP and slowly I found words. 

     2 Corinthians 4: 1-6 has been one of the most significant passages that taught me what grace looks like, and how one should respond to it. Here's verse 6 (perhaps my favourite Bible verse) before you read the poem: 'For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.'

Out of the mire of despair,

The Lord has lifted me.

He, whose image I had impaired,

Has heard my hopeless plea.

Far from my flashes of constancy,

The Lord, His word has kept.

Convulsed in rebellious ecstasy,

This being is sunk in debt

To unrighteous consistency -

The payment – yet – strangely met.

For the Curse was pronounced its doom

In tomes of ancient time;

A man would bear weak Adam’s doom,

A swap for humankind.

Then into the midnight of my soul,

My Lord has shone his light;

Evinced in wounds whence a crimson flow

Surely cured sin’s deadly blight.

Poem: Sin

Shut up God,

I’m in charge,

No place for you.

Such is the depth of my depravity,

That every atom lodging in this frame

Rebels with unashamed impunity

Against the One who formed and so did name

Me as His own – imagine that insanity!

Who would pay thought to save this helpless slave,

Who revels in his self-condemning state?

Him, whose voice shone light into the dark, gave  

Him to see the tree on which the debt was paid,

Where Christ – the promised king submitted to the grave.

Thus,

Saved by God,

I’ve no charge,

None could but you. 

Poem: I heard a throng

I heard a throng of thousand voices sing,

I looked, but darkness hid the heav’nly choir.

I know a sound of soothing harmonies

Now faint, had woken me from sleep.

I moved and found I lacked control, that’s strange…

I blinked and strained to grasp my current state -

A startled hiccup ‘scaped my unformed lips:

My hour is not yet come!

Then I felt the sting of pincers on my skin.

Instinctively I shrank against its vicelike

Grip. The invading chill refused to yield;

My weak limbs failed to parry from within.

But a gentle whirring eased my violent fit.

I felt a warmth, a numbness – pulsing; and

The chorus reached a jolting crescendo

Then I saw light! But briefly! Such beauty –

---

In the distance we hear

A throng of thousands fighting for

‘Our in-alienable right to live!’

Poem: Deleted photos

Deleted Photos

Is each deleted photo

A balm for wounds?

Or mere brooding

And breeding of bitterness?

With a click, is it release –

A way of letting go?

Or a stirring cesspool

For poisonous vendetta?

I don’t know.

I only know

I can’t control

My fingers

And my heart. 

Poem: This Christmas, I won't turn on the news

         This is a poem I wrote for my university newspaper about Christmas. I don't really like free verse, but I thought I'd try my hand at writing one. It's not a happy poem. But it is a way of reminding myself that all is not well with the world. However, I believe that there is hope, not in humanity to 'make the world a better place,' because that is unrealistic; but in the baby lying in a dirty manger, 2000 years ago. 

This Christmas, I won't tun on the news.

This Christmas,

I won’t turn on the news.

Dad doesn’t like it.

I like the other TV shows.

People always talk about love and peace.

They say as long as we are happy,

The world is happy. :)

Happiness is about giving –

I’m so excited for presents!

Perhaps Uncle Dave will get me that toy gun –

The big ones I always see on the news.

But this Christmas,

I won’t turn on the news.

Mom doesn’t like it too. :/

Big brother isn’t here yet.

We moved here a few months ago.

We came with lots of other families.

A lot of babies were crying,

But now it’s quiet here.

Big brother missed the boat.

I hope the boat is repaired soon.

Before Christmas Day, I pray:

“Dear God, please help me sleep tonight.”

Then close my eyes, and shut my ears,

Against the dying day.

Poem: I asked God in a tiny voice

       I wrote this poem about not knowing why I am facing the things that I am facing. And I needed a space to articulate. 

I asked God in a tiny voice

I asked God

In a tiny voice:

Why do I feel alone?

I asked Him

In a soft whisper:  

Why do I feel afraid?

I asked God:

If You could just –

Just show me!

So I can understand…

Christ replied

In a still small voice

Swept in from Calvary:

Hush, my child.

I hear, I feel, I know.

Poem: There is a Terror - Greater

I wrote a poem in response to the news of the Paris terror attacks, knowing that Paris gets coverage because it is an ‘important Western city.’

I didn’t spend much time on it and it’s not a good poem, and I must admit that reading Emily Dickinson has caused me to uses lots of dashes and to capitalise certain nouns. As I was writing, I realised that these two elements did help me in my attempt to articulate my thoughts. And I’m beginning to understand Dickinson a bit better.

But anyway, here’s what I wrote:

There is a Terror - Greater

There is a Terror – greater

Than the carnage in Syria, Beirut or Paris.

It’ll be a day of reckoning

Where none pleads innocence –

For we all like sheep have gone astray.

There is a Comfort – greater

Than the hashtags and profile picture changes can provide.

It’s news that justice will – nay – has been served

On all the evil of this world –

Meted out on a perfect man.

Let’s pray for Syria, Beirut and Paris –

And for all the suffering there is.

But will our hands and feet be equally as earnest

To bring murderers – of which we all are - 

The good news of Tree and Tomb. 

Poem: Once upon a Time

I wrote a poem for my school newspaper. Not sure if the form works, but I hope I achieved the effect I was aiming for. Feedback would be much appreciated. So here it goes:

Once Upon A Time

I watched my star of innocence atop

My roof go down, like brash Phaeton whose

Discontentment of his lot on earth, sought

To let the threads that held him earthbound loose.

No great amount of truth-seeking can rend

The veil that hides the truth that in man dwell

Such greed and pride and selfishness that bent -

A perfect world into a perfect hell.

A quick peek, a furtive peep – Terror yields.

Now I know not to which tale I make my plea:

That which, truth concealed or that which it reveals

This then my despairing confession be:

I pine for ‘once upon a time’ – that myth

Before the painted veil called life was lift. 

Poem: The House

I thought I'd share this poem I recently wrote. It's not great, but perhaps it will still be heard. 

The House

Let the doors be shut

And bar the windows too.

Lock the gates

That life may not tread

On its ground now bitterly shedding

The footprints of ebbing memories.

For this house is no more,

Its front an empty shell.

Its heart for bless’d Utopia has depart

A place of perfection surpassing all

The echoes of glories these four walls

With scarce, faint, dim, and weak vibes did impart.

The days progressed to years on end,

Till thoughts of hearth to forlorn pits descend;

Now warmth has left the double doors,

And silent whispers kiss the dusty floors.

For this house is no more,

Its front an empty shell.

Poem #5 Perspective on Might - John Poch: The Enigma of Modern Poetry

Superior to the philosopher of God's absence,
the avalanche is patient above those pines
it might sublimely clean its teeth with.
At the lip of the highest peak snow accumulates
on a dead man's moustache like a dead man's moustache.
Repetition isn't funny to the dead man who never
made it to that bar in Champagne for champagne
or to the avalanche whose time has almost come.
We might consider how scale means to climb
or to remove the scales from a dead creature
with this precious, precise violence we call a knife.
A philosopher needs a sharp knife to cut the cord
of pride hanging her like a Christmas ornament
from her parachute caught in the trees of the supernatural.
After all, God is present as that last snowflake settling
on the lip, the tickle which has come a long way
to now. From afar it looks so soft. Even the knife.

          Being someone who prefers traditional formal poetry, I have often asked myself how anyone can appreciate modern poems written in ‘free verse.’ Perhaps the biggest struggle I have with appreciating these kinds of poems is that I don’t know where to start in my analysis of it. I am beginning to suspect that I need another way of understanding free verse. Someone noted that lesser examples of free verse reads like chopped-up prose, and I guess that my apprehension towards this genre is partly due to the (apparent?) lack of structure and form in the poetry.

          But I am hoping to start learning how to read and enjoy free verse, otherwise I will only be outdated, so I thought that this poem would be a nice one to share. I cannot say I fully understand what the persona is saying. It does however suggest that ‘the philosopher of God’s absence’ should be a little more humble, because she is hung ‘like a Christmas ornament’ by her pride. The image of being ‘her parachute caught in the trees of the supernatural’ evokes a kind of helplessness and weakness. It is after all trees of the supernatural, and I am assuming that philosophers generally do not believe in the supernatural. 

          If I read the first 3 lines and the final 3 lines as frames or the bookends of the poem, then structurally the poem has a progression from God’s absence (marked by the philosopher’s presence) to God’s presence. Furthermore, the choice of adjectives in the final 3 lines bring to mind smallness, for example ‘snowflake,’ ‘tickle’ and ‘soft’. I think these words are used so that the irony of circumstances becomes all the more striking. ‘The avalanche whose time has almost come’ is described meekly to show how one should adopt a proper perspective on might. This is because, ‘from afar it looks so soft. Even the knife,’ but both in reality are much more superior than the ‘philosopher of God’s absence.’ 

Poem #4 Bitter-sweet - George Herbert

          Ah my dear angry Lord,

          Since thou dost love, yet strike;

          Cast down, yet help afford;

          Sure I will do the like.

          I will complain, yet praise;

          I will bewail, approve:

          And all my sour-sweet days

          I will lament, and love.

Living as a Christian is difficult because there is suffering when we serve, regardless of its shape or size. And if we are honest, I do not think most people enjoy pain. True, if we look past the temporality of anguish, disappointment and loneliness, there is a reason, there is the hope of the resurrection where everything will be made right. However, it sometimes seems so far away. And when I consider the sins I struggle with daily; when I consider the lack of passion in my evangelism, a little corner of my heart cries in despair – wanting all this to end – because the call to give my life in service to the Gospel and to others is a burden greater than I can bear.

          Yet, maybe that is the plot set out for me: that I do not find belonging nor acceptance; that I silently plough fields, not staying long enough to see the harvest before I have to move on. Well, if that is my lot, so be it then. It is not an inconsistency in God’s character to assign me this road. Herbert sustains a tension between ease and discomfort throughout the poem; in almost every line there is a clash seemingly opposite actions or characteristics. So I do pray that like the persona in Herbert’s poem, ‘I will lament, and love’ ‘all my sour-sweet days.’

           Though the outside world will not hear the silent sobs of disheartened hearts, our God listens; and though he strikes, He loves and reveals that love through the death of His Son on a wooden Cross. 

Poem #3 Redemption – George Herbert

Redemption

by George Herbert

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,

       Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,

       And make a suit unto him, to afford

A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.

In heaven at his manor I him sought:

       They told me there, that he was lately gone

       About some land, which he had dearly bought

Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,

       Sought him accordingly in great resorts;

       In cities, theatres, gardens, parks, and courts:

At length I head a ragged noise and mirth

       Of thieves and murderers: there I him espied,

       Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

          I have recently discovered the poetry of George Herbert which reflect, and help to understand the influence of the Protestant Reformation on the individual. It is in this vein of ‘Reformed Spirituality’ (as Gene Edward Veith, Jr. terms it in his book of the same name, ISBN: 978-0838750711) that Herbert writes about the experiential element of Reformed theology.

  

          There are quite a number of negative baggage attached to Reformed theology but I think through Herbert’s poetry, we can begin to understand what Reformed theology is like – not merely through intellectual study or debates, but also as conveyed through our emotions and our experiences.

          I chose this poem for its brevity and simplicity. The narrative is quite straightforward: the persona finds that he is not ‘thriving’ under an ‘old’ order and seeks God in places ‘great’ people can be found in order to become a new ‘Lord’. Instead, he finds this ‘Lord’ in most unlikely circumstances.

          However, through this poem, we can gain plenty of insight into the heart of the Christian understanding of salvation (soteriology). The opening quatrain shows the inadequacy of the ‘Old Covenant’ where the persona is ‘not thriving’. The Old Covenant of the Law cannot redeem us, its function is to show us our sinfulness.

          The second quatrain and the first tercet shows us that God had to come down to earth to redeem us, and that he left his greatness. The climax is in the volta (the turn) in the final tercet. It shows us that God is found among sinners and through his death grants redemption. I think the beauty in that final line is that before the persona, for all his efforts in seeking redemption and trying to find God on his own terms, has time to make his request, Jesus (without hesitation) already granted it through his death which initiated a New Covenant based on grace and not on works.

It was helpful for me to think about the massive truths of God’s salvation in a mere 14 lines: the redemption God ‘dearly bought’ was prepared way before I was even aware of my need for it. This reminds me of Philippians 2:5-8 ‘Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.'

Have we found our redeemer dying among, and for sinners like us, or are we still seeking our own kind of redemption? Let’s consider.

Poem #2 The Darkling Thrush - Thomas Hardy

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate

     When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter’s dregs made desolate

     The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

     Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

     Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be

     The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

     The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

     Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

     Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

     The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

     Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

     In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

     Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

     Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

     Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

     His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

     And I was unaware.

          The New Year approaches, and this year has not been an easy year. There have been countless deaths and suffering through wars, diseases and many other causes. Humanity has wrecked our world and destroyed the lives of our fellow creatures. If I consider the anguish the world is experiencing, there certainly is ‘little cause for carolings’.

          Yet the perfect rhymes in the final stanza of the poem creates a mood of hope and harmony; that not all is doom and gloom. If we placed our trust in humanity, then I think whatever hopes we carry into the New Year will slowly peter out and leave us disappointed by failure or deluded by pseudo-success.

          Yet we know that ‘the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’ (Titus 2:11). We are aware of our ‘blessed Hope’ (v13) and we are waiting for it. This is a hope that transcends the promise of politicians, economists, environmentalists and self-help specialists. It is ‘the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (v13). There is something for us to look forward to in a New Year certain to be filled with loss and hatred, symptoms of our rebellion against our Maker.

          Just as we celebrated his humble birth, we should also eagerly await his glorious return. But for now, let us ‘declare these things’ (v15). There is a Hope that is offered to everyone, let us not (like Hardy) be unaware. 

Poem #1 If- Rudyard Kipling

I have decided to start sharing poems on my blog. Poems that have I find interesting, or have provided comfort during rough patches or hope during dark moments. 

I also hope to share some thoughts about the poems and perhaps it might interest some people. Anyhow, to begin this new project, I shall share a poem that has often helped me deal with my sense of self.

If-

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

     Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

     But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

     Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

     And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;

     If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

     And treat those two impostors just that same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

     Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

     And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

     And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

     And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

     To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

     Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

     Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

     If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

     With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

     And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

It’s nice to find a poem that turns the values that society holds upside down and challenges us to redefine the way we look at success and worth. Kipling asks us questions about our attitudes, behaviours, standards, but ultimately confronts us with our Selves.

It is a great poem I think when deciding on New Year resolutions. I think it is excellent to consider the choice Kipling presents: conformation to the ‘Will’ of this world or to our own?

But then again, I think our wills are too weak, and maybe they need submission to a greater Will; definitely not of the world, but of some Being transcending it.

Who Am I?

          I was washing dishes and was thinking to myself of an existential crisis I may have just been confronted with: I have no one to live out with in my second year of university. Now that sounds more like what a narcissistic Gen-Y’s first-world problem – NOT an existential crisis. I certainly agree with that, hence I am struggling with my sense of feeling that I don’t belong to a community of friends here. It is difficult to speak against one’s feelings and emotions; though they are often irrational, rationale cannot simply sweep those doubts and questions of identity that arises at various points of our lives. However, I am sure I am not the only one who will face similar issues: not being sure of who I am.

          Going back to the dishes, I suddenly remembered a poem I came across and thought I’d share it as an encouragement, both to myself and to whoever that reads this. So here it is. The poem is ‘Wer bin ich?’ (Who am I?) by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command. 

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune        

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,

Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,

Trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

                 The poem speaks for itself. There is a deep sense of doubting agony, uncertainty and introspection – all lonely questions. Questions that lead us away from its answer. In one simple couplet, Bonhoeffer turns all fears and apprehension on its head: my identity lies not in what people think of me or what I think of myself; it lies not in my personality or actions. Its source is not internal, it is external; yet it extends beyond the constraints of this material world.

          It lies in the character and action of God, who in violently succumbing to a disgrace of His identity – death on the cross - redeemed a scum of this world. And He lovingly adopted me and calls me ‘My child’, and I cry – in sorrow and in joy, in distress and in comfort, in persecution and in peace, in despair and in hope – ‘Abba! Father!’

          Does knowing this solve my real world problem? No.

          There is no promise that tomorrow I will have people who will invite me in to live out with them. I still might not feel that I belong. But clinging to this promise will help me face each day, and when the weight of matters causes my trembling feet to stumble and I fall, I need only to look up and see the Cross, and look beyond to the Empty Tomb to know that one day I’ll have a palace to live in, and what’s the best thing about it? I’ll be housemates with God!

          But for now, I guess it’s back to the dishes, and to everyday life…

On The Road To The Airport

On the road to the airport

Heading towards my moment of glory

Leaving third world deficiencies

For greener pastures on yonder hills.

We who leave, are like Argives and Trojans

Battling for glory and armour

Blind towards the carnage and death

Wrecked around them.

What I see when the stamps before my eyes are removed

Are men sweating to make ends meet,

Migrant slaves struggling to eke out a living in a foreign land

Young men resigned to lives of hard labour for want of education

Women young and old working to put bread on their kitchen tables.

Yet here I am, insolent fool

The world seemingly at my beck and call,

Nothing to stop my march, or so I think. 

May this thrilled heart be sobered up, 

Not cut off in academia

From the brutal reality 

Of the road to the airport.