AISODONOLAH ~ another Manglish poem by Antares

Aitelyu ah, every year laif getting harder,
Not like lastaim so seemple one.
You remember ornot dat taim we all in skool
Honda Cub five hundred dollar can buy.
Now how much oridi? Five tausend over!
Becos of INGFLATION wat, dey say…
So whatever happen to INFLASI SIFAR hah?
Dis mins debladigarmen’s kempen for “Zero Ingflation”
Only add up to NUTTING pulak…
But aisodonolah…

De udder day my son come home from skool,
Say he nid computer.
Defler form one only, man,
Oridi want to so high-teck!
He say, nowdays got standard six buggers
Using word plocessor – Oi! Mamasan 2020, yutingwat!
So like a bladifoo I take de rascal to the IT Expo
And buy him two tausend linggit computer,
Summore got "Intel Inside" one.
Now defler as soon as he back from tiewshun
Oridi sitting like hunchback wid new video game: Taa-taaaa-taaaaaaang! Zoop-zooooop!
Waaah, got STEREO sound one, pulak:
CIA, James Bond and Mossad versus Al-Qaeda and Al Gore!
Arfturds I go and see how de bladi ting work...
And de ungratefoo chap, ah,
He tell me to go away!
Never gif his old man chan to play…
Aiyoh, chewren dese days ah, watusay,
Aisodonolah…

Hweeyoh, doan tok to me about TRAFFIC JAM, brudder,
See my blood pressure oridi shoot up!
Lemme arsk you ah: got so many so-call iconomicks expert,
How come dey kennot add up how much
Taim, petrol, energy and payshuns wasted
In de bladi name of Progress, hah?
And how come de Otorities seemply allow
Dose gawdam devilopers to build high-rice condo
Even where got only kampong road?
Tingking of da FUTURE, da tick-skin flers say.
WHOSE FUTURE, I arsk you? Their own lah!
Two, tree housing projek oridi can retire,
Get free condo summore…
Cheh! Aisodonolah…

You want to hear a good joke ah?
Why garmen awfis orways got Piles of Work?
Becos dose buggers sit on their fat backside all day long
Till dey all kena PILES pulak –
So dey say PILES OF WORK is Ockupayshunal Hazard lah, haha!

But now ah, I hear dey will be UPGRADED, man:
Every seevil servant will get computer and internet
Under da Smart Awfis Plan -
Mins da furniture smarter than deflers who work there lah!
Dat’s wat MULTIMEDIO SUPER CURRYPUFF is all about lah:
From Mediocracy to Mediacrazy – waffor, man?
We only arsk dem to bekum NICER HOOMIN BEANS –
No nid for all sorts of ackspensif e-kwipment lah.
Aiyoh, so many kampong steel got no paip water
Or letrickcity; nearly half da bladi pawpoolayshun
Kennot read or rait (nemmain their speling lah)…
Steel sumflers want to ackshun only,
Awfer Bill Gates CON-SULTAN JOB IN POOTRAJAYA.
Yuting we kennot awford ah?
Twenty million a month oso no ploblem, man!
But where de heck da money coming from?
Oso, where de fuck de money going?
Aisodonolah.

Tok tok tok tokkok only!
ISO dis and ISO dat,
Aisodono wat.
Everywan and Kompeni going GREEN nowdays,
Mins wat? Learn to PLAY GOLF ah?
SARS-TAIN-ABLE EVERYTING…
Including GREED.
Watudu, booshit is manure - and manure good for growth wat,
You better shurrup and main your own affairs.
Any ploblem call Gurmit or Karpal Singh lah!
But who will do our Dirty Work for us, hah,
Wen dose flers retire or die?
Aisodonolah.

Oridi everyting PRIVATIZED and PIRATIZED,
Now no more Public Sektor lor!
Survival of the Fattest, yutingwat –
Dontch know your Charles Darwin ah, brudder?
“Aiyah, CARI MAKAN lah,” some say,
But ackchwurly ah, CURI MAKAN only.
Sneak around wid bags full of LOOT,
When caught REDHANDED wid pants down
Like dat oso never get de BOOT!
Ackshun spik lauder than words, dey say,
But in dis kiasu-kiasi so-sigh-ty ah,
You tok too laud you get DETAINED;
Kip quiet only, you bin DEBRAINED…
So waffor I tok to YOU ah?
Aisodonolah.


[Written 29 January 1997; revised 4 March 2007 and 13 October 2011; doodles by Antares; reposted 2 November 2015 & 29 December 2021]  

3 Short Poems (repost)

MEMO TO MO

God sat in His Office
a little worn out.
The Day wasn’t done
and the Night Before
cluttered His desk.

Maureen, He said, picking up
the phone: cancel
Everything!
I want to be Alone
with You.



SIR OILY

Sir Oily and his goily
Went swimming in the sea
And were eaten by a big fat slick
The same that got Moby Dick




A POEM ABOUT THE SEA

I sat on a dead tree
watching the mighty rollers
break upon the shore

And I said to myself,
“I shall write a poem about the sea!”

Whereupon wave after wave
of appropriate phrases
flooded into my brain
and drowned me.


[From MOTH BALLS, Magick River, 1994. First posted 19 February 2007, reposted 21 July 2020]

Dusting off some ancient poems from "Moth Balls"

Whatsapp inspired this post. Sharanya Manivannan - sensuous poet, consummate weaver of enigmatic tales, high priestess of aromatic and erotic prose, and my beloved friend in Chennai - sent me some audio clips of her poetry. My flagging appetite for wordplay aroused by the piquancy & precision of her sultry voice, I was prompted to unearth my 1994 collection of "eschatological & scatological poems" titled Moth Balls (Magick River, 1994, limited edition). Experimentally I recorded a few short ones and sent them over. She responded most encouragingly and magnanimously. I was sufficiently heartened to rummage through the hoary collection and pick out a few for a fresh airing. Thank you, Sharanya!

The first offering is, I believe, my earliest attempt at versifying, written as a Creative Writing class assignment when I was 17...

PAEAN TO THE BRAVE SOLDIER

Is it not quite often thought
(& very often believed)
that the brave men who fought
and died for God & King
(or some other Thing)
are inadequately aggrieved
and cried for,
though inordinately touching
(it is often said)
is their sacrifice of costly life
that must be paid
as patriotism's price?

Anyway no one I know
will go so far
(since the war is won)
as to say we have not mourned.
In truth no tear has been forborne;
no ceremony neglected;
and in good cheer
we'll have erected
a monument of marbled brick,
to be unveiled to the public
while brass bands playing
(the nation's honor portraying)
salute good citizens
(the ones, of course, who are taxpaying).

Altogether it will be
a memorable testimony
of our pride
in the honorable
men who died
sailing against the
Evil Tide:
loyal men, courageous & willing,
who were killed while they were killing
for God & King
(or some other Thing).

1967

WHEN NOTHING CAN POSSIBLY

when nothing can possibly
be more than what the public eye can see
& everything that is believed to be;
when there are no more trees
for sleepy sitting under;
when each & every busy bee
but lives in concrete hives for plunder -
then creation has only been a big bad blunder

when there is not a lot of or
even just a little time
& absolutely no space for
one heart to feel
full of all the love
that is, will be & was -
inadequate space &
insufficient time for love sublime -
then this race of humans is an inhuman crime

1970

IN THE PALACE GARDENS

under mushrooms of vermilion
in a maroon pavilion sits the King
                                          typing this
                                          trifling
                                           thing: the
                                         disting-
                                   uished ring
                                   of the King's Royal machine
                            at each ending
line
reminds me of times
I laid with the Queen
as we played with the genes
of Frank & Stein the Einst (such fine
clients of science) and

under gold & green umbrellas &
masses of gases
our moments of mirth
gave globular birth
to elfin princes & princesses
in new blueprint dresses
peopling a virginal
Earth

1972

3 SHORT POEMS

MORE SHORT POEMS

A SUDDEN OUTBURST

NEVER TOO LATE TO SELF-CASTRATE

AISODONOLAH ~ A Manglish Poem

[First posted 22 October 2013, reposted 19 November 2015, 4 December 2016 & 13 December 2020]

I THANK THEE EACH DAY, CHARLES FORT ~ a poem by Antares

i’m looking for a needle no one ever lost
in a haystack that never was,
a haystack that never will be

influenced only by my own inertia
trying to find the why of because:

i watch the blood fall from the sky
i see angels rise from the mud;
like fish that swim in an ocean of pain
people drown themselves in pleasure

too much of everything
and too little else
is enough for me and more,
is enough for me and more

all should be well,
all should be heavenly,
if I didn’t have to go through hell,
if I didn’t have to go through hell

sniffing roses in the garden at sunset (sniff sniff)
plucking daisies in the morning dew (pluck pluck)
there’s a vast black thing poised like a crow over the moon
there are things that are false and things that are true…

i found you in the nick of time
you left me at the crack of doom
all alone in a lonely world
the oyster dreams of a pearl,
the oyster dreams of a pearl


19 June 1979

Quite a few lines are borrowed from, or inspired by, Charles Fort – eccentric genius, independent researcher, ephemeralist of the highest order. 
He wrote three books: Lo!, Wild Talents, and The Book of the Damned.

[First posted 22 August 2015]

Behind The Scenes: PROJECT LAZARUS (repost)

In March 2007 I bumped into Daniel Tang (left, disguised as a brain surgeon), an old friend who used to work in Rediffusion as an audio engineer and who is now a senior partner at AddAudio in Petaling Jaya. I mentioned my desire to rescue hours of music from analog oblivion and Daniel impulsively offered his expert help with digitizing my archives.

Despite a very busy schedule, Daniel put in laborious hours lovingly removing mold from 20-year old acetate recordings - some on ¼-inch open-reel, the rest on compact cassette. He was assisted by film editor Kate James, whose patience proved a great asset when it came to manually unwinding and respooling yards of fragile acetate.

The project was delayed by weeks when Daniel discovered that their old Studer A-807 MKII open-reel deck needed repair and realignment before it could be used. Fortunately, Daniel had the foresight to document the painstaking process by snapping these images which he later uploaded on Picasa.

There's no way I can adequately thank Daniel Tang (and Kate James) for helping me raise my music from the dead, thereby making it available to posterity. Daniel's photos below show how the musical resurrection was accomplished...

Tools of the trade: ¼-in. splicing tape, Ampex 10in. metal spool, 3M 6in. plastic spool, Isopropyl alcohol in red bottle & paint brush.

¼-inch open-reel master with most of the tape unwound 
(the tape had not been wound on a metal spool and the yellow leader was where 
the tape had split into two separate sections). It was a tedious 2-3 hour job 
to rewind the tape by hand so as not to damage the edges of the fragile magnetic tape.

Re-inserting the core of the spool: sections of the tape were carefully removed
and old splices were inspected to make sure they still held, a process that took hours
(with many coffee breaks in between).

Winding the magnetic tape by hand using sheets of paper to keep the edges from being damaged.

Film editor Kate James kindly volunteered her help as angelic tape rewinder -
or Daniel would have been stuck all night in the studio!

Studer A-807 MKII 2-track deck on slow wind to keep the tape spooled as smoothly as possible. This was done multiple times to compact the spooled tape before actual playback
and digitizing could proceed.

Tape oxide residue on the Studer after playback of a 20-year-old reel.
The heads had to be repeatedly cleaned with Isopropyl alcohol.

The 1988 "Padang" recording (a 30-min contemporary ballet commissioned by Ramli Ibrahim) arrived in its original Rediffusion box. Incredible to hear an audio master from 20 years ago,
still pristine & sounding great!

A hand-written note from Antares accompanied his moldy open-reel masters...

Oh no... here we go again! Thank goodness this one was still attached to its core...

Good exercise for the wrist - like a 2-hour meditation on time and eternity.

Some of the outtakes still sounded magical, so Daniel decided to digitize all of it.

A Digital Audio Research OMR 8 audio workstation was used
to digitize the audio from the Studer ¼-inch 2-track recorder.

The first digital re-issue of the Antares Musical Archive will be my 1986 2nd Coming album. For more info, please click here.

[First posted 10 August 2010]

Yabbayabbadoo! This blog just turned 7!

HAPPY 7TH BIRTHDAY,

MAGICK RIVER BLOG!

A SUDDEN OUTBURST ~ short poem by Antares

A sudden outburst of outrage

Brought on by gasps of indignation

Cataracts of complaints

Cascading down adrenal gutters -

Innocent bystanders are in for a soaking!

There must be better things to talk about

Than private outcry against public obscenity.

There must be better ways to get it off

Than to do it up in everybody's face.

Mr God didn't expect to stay for the speeches;

He thought it was going to be all fun & games.

On top of that the chocolate chip cookies

Were stolen by crooks from the casino.

More music is what the government should listen to.

And it's never just a question of taste:

Music is everything that makes sense and rhythm

Out of the contrapuntal harmony of Chaos.

By this time most humans have realized,

Being sapient has nothing to do with homogeneity.

In fact the truth has been cleverly disguised

In strange forms of fiction authored by deity.

Next you'll be asking for a bibliography

Of every book you feel you ought to lay your hands on;

The trick is not to fondle the folios

But to caress the ideas within with your soul naked.

You're probably wondering where the thread runs

That connects the first verse with the last.

Who said anything about last or first?

And what do you mean by verse?

[Written in 1975, first published in Moth Balls, Magick River 1994]