The Table of Contents for my next book SOLIDARITY WITH THE FLESH EATING MOSAIC AND OTHER POEMS coming out in June 2011

The poems will be posted eventually in their entirety at www.rajbooks.com

For now some of them can be found in notes I wrote  in Facebook before

and all can be found on my poetry blog www.xanga.com/rgdinmalaysia

Just search the name of the poem in Google with either my name or my blog name.


PART I
Other Gods 17
Michael ’s Somersault 19
Solidarity with the Flesh Eating Mosaic 20
I’ll Marry the Nurse 21
The Dracula Reference That Need Not Apply 22
Delicious Agony 23
Agents of Deliberate Misery 24
Referring to Origami 25
The Dishonesty Brothers 26
Hey Local Machine 27
Evening Interruptus 28
The Million Dollar Quartet 29
The Vacuum Abhorred by Nature Triumphs 30
1984 Never Happened 31
A Simultaneous Scherezade 32
There’s Murder in a Whore ’s Last Breath 33
The Third Conundrum 34
Aggressively the Sun 35
Devil Handed Samuel 36
Ambulance 37
Dark Monk Freakout 38
A Cruel Reminder 39
The Grapefruit Theorem 40
Duality Processions 41
Madwoman 42
Children ’s Book Author 43
Knucklefruit 44
Lurking 45
Needlenose Pliers 46
Girl Talking to Midnight 47



PART II
Our Intrepid Reporter 51
The Elephant Symbol 52
The World is a Ruin 53
 Angel in the Dark 54
 The Psychedelia of Children 55
Device for Flirtation 56
I Killed a Drifter 57
Pharoah Comparisons 58
For ST 59
On Reading Oswald Spengler for the First Time 60
No Need to Buy Apples 61
Planet Sexy 62
I Want to be on Good Terms 63
Child Molester Santa ’s 64
14x50 65
The Ritual of Being Inside 66
The Love That Will Kill You 67
Like A Husband from the Lower Classes 68
A Friend of Beauty 69
The Truth Will Harm You 70
The Orphans 71
Heavy Legs 72
Midnight at the Wax Musuem 73
Divine Life Organization 74
Humpty Dumpty Betrayal 75
Friends of Your Own Age 76
Moneystomach 77
Five Different Types of Free Expression Fighting to be First Through The Exit 78
The Coldest Day of the Year 79
The People Who Know Death 80

THE GIRL FROM THE COAST BY PRAMOEDA ANANTA TOER

The Indonesian writer, Pramoeda Ananta Toer, the author of THE GIRL FROM THE COAST, which I have just read has had the dual honor of being imprisoned by the Dutch and later by the autocratic Suharto regime.  This book simply written is one of the best examples of how little a woman’s life is worth in a place like Indonesia compound that with poverty and the life of a woman is worth even less.

The heroine, the daughter of a poor fisherman, becomes the wife of the Bendoro,an Indonesian nobleman through an arranged marriage.  The reader is constantly shown how she is little more than servant despite all the ritual that goes along with being wife of a nobleman of this level.

We realize later she is but a “practice” wife and is married to the Bendoro only at his whim and to bear him children-sort of a long term prostitute.  Later he will need to take a wife closer to in stature to his place in society which leads to the inevitable sad ending.

Toer’s style simple and full of the art of not saying too much makes me want to read his most famous work the four novels that make up THE BURU QUARTET.  He makes quite a statement here without a lot of histrionics. 

   

THE RETURN BY KS MANIAM PLUS THE LATEST LITERARY CARE PACKAGE

Currently reading some Malaysian literature THE RETURN by KS Maniam is an autobiographical tale about the author growing up poor on in Northern Malaysia-His family did the laundry for a local hospital among others.  It’s well written and evocative but so far feels more like a collection of anecdotal stories.  That being said, the author really has a talent for creating a scene not just description of things but mood, tension, etc.  

The latest literary CARE package coming my way….

WORLD LIGHT by Holdar Laxness

MY BROTHER, MY EXECUTIONER by F. Sionil Jose

HOUSES OF ALL NATIONS by Christina Stead

TIME WILL DARKEN IT by William Maxwell

Will post reviews when read.

REGARDING PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE

Several weeks ago, my passport was stolen.  Getting a new one from the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur was not that big a deal.  However, I did have to show a certified original copy of my birth certificate to receive a new passport.

Let me say for the record that I am not a birther.  I do believe that President Obama was born in the United States.  However, it is also not true that he has released his original birth certificate.  If I need one to get a passport, I think the president should also have to release his in order to meet the requirements to be president in the first place.

It has also become the excuse for people who already hate him (racists etc.) to spew the most ridiculous conspiracy theories that he is a Manchurian Candidate a secret Muslim en enemy agent etc.

I think there might be something personally embarrassing there.  His parents weren’t married at the time he was born or even more likely his mother was pregnant with him at the time his parents were married.  However embarrassing these details are, there is nothing there that would preclude him being president.

While it’s nice to assume the best about people, the racists tea party Republicans having one last temper tantrum before economic collapse are letting fly with open xenophobia and racism.  Being above it cannot work with such an ignorant, loathsome foe.  For that reason, Obama should release his original birth certificate.

  

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE POETRY OF PATRICK KAVANAGH

The Irish have their own language when it comes to poetry….Infused with words both made-up and from the old Irish language , it becomes like the works of James Joyce – inscrutable but understandable through context.

Patrick Kavanagh is an Irish poet who is not as bad as all that….He starts out at the same reference point as other Irish poets such as Seamus Heaney but is more primitive in his descriptions and oriented towards nature with the language used almost religious in its devotion.

Sentiment is more readily apparent in his work and he is clearly a “feeler” one with great sensitivity….I’m particularly fond of this poem THE HOSPITAL…. We do assign meaning to the places we stay even briefly in life.

http://www.tcd.ie/English/patrickkavanagh/thehospital.html