My Review of Pantomine, the Maiden Poetry Collection of Crispin Rodriguez

From the years I've known Crispin - he's an affable, humorous, extremely learned man. I'm often awed and humbled by his panoramic perspectives and knowledge on different subject matters in life. Pantomime, his maiden collection, is no less a timeless tribute spanning many topics endeared to him. From social to identity issues, anecdotes from his days as a teacher in the classroom and the timeless tributes of love, Crispin has proven himself time and again on his ability to tackle various issues with a fresh perspective.

"An INFJ Learns About Art" sparks a quiet beginning of a pained response to the myriad reasons why we write. Writing, it seems, is not so much of unearthing a reason for it as simply immersing in the act - of healing. His imagery of grafting and staples evoke a sharp pain in me simply because I'd written from those places. Moving on, the collection takes us through a litany of landscapes - personal ones and distant ones; "Father to Son" anguishes about the old rigid mindsets passed across generations, that corporate success and serving the nation are two mantras deeply ingrained in the psyche of many. The ending about poetry being answered as a graded question gripped me.

"This Poem Is Meant to Be Stepped On" is a generous rendition of the state of flow that poetry gives, how it revolves round to gift life to many things and finally back to the giver of verses. In my humble opinion, this poem does transcend itself across the borders of "Good" into the remote outskirts of "Great". "Racial Quota" whispers of the hidden pain of the ethnic dichotomy still present in modern Singapore; Crispin here paints his own anguished, and brilliant response to the racial issue in "Do I deserve my race/as a brand to my face, marked/like a slave waiting for inspection? The ending lines "Call me Ishmael, or Hisham,/or Ah Huat, there will always be questions" resonate simply because it is true that humans will always turn a curious eye to those who are not of their own skins - regardless of his skin color.

Other poems leap out: "When a Student First Discovers Sparknotes", a palpable recount of how a student tries to glean better answers and "be a Prometheus to mankind", only to be "caught red-handed" and becomes "an indelible mark on his record".

"She Tries to Be Peranakan" depicts memories of Crispin's Peranakan heritage, with the "She" here, as I infer, a nuanced reference to a special someone gone by. Edwin Thumboo is briefly referenced in passing; the not-so-open procedures of busking in Orchard are unveiled in "Busking in Orchard", and "Pasar Malam" is a nostalgic journey through - a Pasar Malam. I never took my eyes off the book here.

Perhaps Crispin, being the older-fashioned romantic yet child-at-heart I have found him to be, quietly moves us with the small bundle of love poems found toward the end of his book. "Fidelity" surprises me in the turn of phrase which I shall not give away, "He Always Knew How to Startle" speaks of two lovers' trysts in bed, and finally, "The Weight" is a quietly-moving recount of how the weight of one lover feels against the next.

In "The Weight", Crispin opens up intimately with the question "What is the weight of the world/the feeling of one breast against the next" making me read on right to the end in a single hushed breath. His answer of "gravity" delivered me a punch to the gut, rooted right there in my seat - such is the depth of memories, of how lovers feel in absence. As Pablo Neruda confides, "Love is short, forgetting is long". "The Weight" fully exemplifies the palpable length of this longing, this wait. It is also one of the most endeared poems to me in Pantomime.

Where there are good (and occasionally, great) poems in any collection, I will desist to bore with those that fall short above sea level (my sea level). Rather than drowning them in the ocean of my memory, I will thus confess my woeful understanding of matters as compared to Crispin's vaster perspectives, and re-read those poems when I have more of mood and a penchance for comprehension.

My bad for the long review, for much remains desired to be said. This is a book worthy of your purchase and enjoyment over a quiet supper, or bedtime.

Wings

The ballet girls flap their wings
of hands. I wonder why I
can't fly. Their pink leotards
blossom like flowers, carefree hearts.
Upturned lips drink the rainbow air.

Slender arms dip low to a crescendo.
The pivot comes naturally:
Suddenly they're pink tops
spinning spinning spinning
away from a calling

mother. Impy feet slow from the
blaze. The girls are unfazed:
the loss of freedom, a temporal

halt. Onward, the underpass rolls
and my troubles are the two girls

catching butterflies in unison.

Remembering Papa

A poem for X, who confided in me
the loss of her father.

I.

The stars forgot to shine that night,
yet you confided in them the loss
of your father. A heart attack, then
a voice thrown in the wind. His spirit’s
return on the seventh marked by tears in slumber.

The years carried on his voice, whispering
in leafy tongues of mangroves; the few
corridor plants he left but never got round
to tending, like his children. One fruit ripened –
that sombre pomegranate of his round
face, seeded itself in the soil of your memory.

II.

Somehow,
I understand, because I too,
have lost a grandfather. He
was the reason I picked up
little cars, added them to shelf and soul.

His gifts of Volkswagen Beetles
are rust and dust on my mantelpiece.

Those arms he used to carry me to dreamland
were stout as the young trees he once planted
outside his two-room flat in Ang Mo Kio.

The hairs on my legs are the extension
of his own furry ones (an ex once confessed
she loved caressing the animal of my legs).

My dad’s rain-beaten face, transfused
on my own, bears the same hills and valleys
as granddad’s face in the photograph
set before the altar.

The wind tugs at my heart sometimes,
serving on rain-palettes the wafts
of soil and garden these two
gentlemen before me have loved.

Somehow,
I understand, because I too,
have lost a grandfather. He
was the reason I picked up
little cars, added them to shelf and soul.

Scraped Shin

This is nothing. The jabbing of a
shin against the bench side, metal
crunching skin. Grenade of flesh
exploded; or was it a bubble, twilight's
headphone-dreams burst in gasps of sharp epiphany?

Long ago, the pain was needle threading
my torn scalp, doctor's skillful larcerations
closing
with
stings
the
head
split
open
in a
nasty
fall
at
childhood.

Memory served an itch, then went back
to being buried. Scraped shins no more
hurting than the scalpel of words in a breakup.
(I remember a pact of arms to be entwined
till dust, or else severed like hamstring)

The evenings
elope, that braised shin
hums a little in
numbed tongues, then
leaves a fresh
draft of skin, raw
as a baby's.

The Halfway Verse

they safeguard strongly their greenery
waving outside the hdb blocks.
Like orange-faced strangers, passing
they hide in their foliage, clocks:

First Date

First Date

Fruit juice tastes sweeter when shared.
Slurped, passed between caressing hands
and slurped again. Better still, cross-armed
like entwined bows, lover's coat of arms.

I thank the Almighty we'd managed to land
a stall over aimless walking, frivolous talking
(in retrospect those things that took wing
between hurried lips were flawed). I remember

you pushing me a bill despite me covering
yours. We exchanged small talk like individual
cups of drinks, each tasting his life's own ironies.
The anecdotes shimmered like cupids, then vanished.
At times, your phone's light haloed you like a gaunt

angel. The juice's forced sweetness lingered; I craved
for more: a knowing glimmer that sometimes shines
between soulmates despite having crapped a bad
joke; subtle grins that whisper how the flower's
blossomed, before the straw slurps bottom.

The Prisoner in Hospital

The prisoner in hospital, chained feet
to hands, eyes of dystopian miseries.
Reads the floor like a Taoist priest
for signs of freedom. The cold concrete

floor gazes back like stern officers' eyes.
He's shuffled (in clinks & clanks) to a room
for tests, crown shaved like a shorn mushroom.
The officers jest like gods in blue disguise.

The prisoner requests (in hushed baritone)
for water. One vested cop brings him a cup,
holds it to his lips like a neutered pup.
Young nurses throng past, avert his testosterone-

charged gaze (he rakes them like a bear denied).
The grail is freedom; hands unbound like the patients.
The prisoner would rather the slow onslaught of ailments
& the post-visit train home with the passive-eyed.

Sunsets of a Stranger

Too many missed sunsets & the eyes
remember loneliness, the cold hull
of screens whose suns never set. Frozen
ephemereal phenomena who can a paused
waterfall impress? The child bored on the MRT
is occupied more with moving pixels, an animated
face mirroring its sunrises back to itself.

For years you've carried this sadness: whiffs
of shampoo whose owners left a blazing
scent in their wake; a sunset you will not remember
her name by; her face of inscrutable dawns no
bird has taken flight. By the crowd's pact you
will nest in the screen whose suns never set,
trace the curves of sparrows never making it home
to roost, migrate with the carriages of strange
faces mirroring your own phenomena.

Perhaps Song

Perhaps Song

Perhaps loneliness crashed like a comet
through the bus & into silent hearts,
buried itself there like a fucking Taser probe.
Perhaps it landed like a sparrow on a stray
shoulder, disrobed its owner of equilibrium
(such as the sense of telling right from left
on mornings bouncing off their axle or the
sense of splitting the hairbrush of love from lust)
or the pace in hearts gone wrong. Perhaps the ear-
bud is a worm carrying pulses of comfort
persuading truce of peace in volatile souls.
I do not know. All I know are the shadowed
wings of a little bird carrying the swish
of things settling softly in the chest & tune-
less songs taking root & rhythm there
& the hands, stilling, poise of yoga.

Neon Presence

Moon hid behind clouds and the café dimmed
its neon aura against the night. Or perhaps, it never
dimmed but shone brighter, an electric presence
shrinking the sadness of darkened terraces. Next table,
a couple traversed each other with caressing
hands, exploring territory too tender to Asian eyes.
The coffee kept me sober amongst the intoxicated
too burdened with their own excesses, tasted of burnt
toast or a heart gone bitter. Strife seemed to be the act
of sitting there without a pair of warm hands to
tend the quiet, tame the unwanted duet of crickets
and invading smooch-sounds from that couple. Empty
cups remind drinkers of choices: how their chasm curates
your choice of tea or coffee, gets filled with the froth
of beer if you choose it. I scraped back my chair, left
the couple doubled over each other in love land, left
the sight of him re-tracing secret continents on the back
of her hand, left the neon presence soon dwindled
to absence.

Housekeeping

Perhaps in your world, there isn’t an obvious

measure for love; neither spoken nor tactile.
You line the morning hours with house chores
and leave me to find my pace and place in coffee;
a sometimes whispered word of maternal concern.

Some days I notice the roughening of your hands,
the callous way the seasons have coated them
with the essence of decades. Some days I spy the fine
threads of fragility, the way a spider, wary of world,
has spun them; like how you weave your silent act
of house chores into a web of love and order. Outside,

the potted plants lay down their drift of leaves as I tiptoe
through the sparkling threshold. Knowing you’d blended
yourself into the TV drama once more.

Bus Drones

Silence accrues
like a stale drink on the way home.
I refuse the lure of music,
bid bus-drone singe my ear.

Months have died since the ripe
taste of a kiss honeyed the lips.
I remember failed dates singing –
oh engines humming in memory!

The highways of dating sites have
met a few accidents: crashed heart
picked up by love songs and quiet
dates spent with self, or a close
friend at seasides. The birds -
intuitively - understood the silent
dirges of solitude. Solace
was one drink too many.

Vengeance of hurled rocks.
Smashed bottles. Now I pick
any moment anywhere and it
sings to me- bus drone, silence’s
low ditties, the soft sound
of slow breaths returning,
like slow surf in me.

Ladies Drink

She breaks our moments of flirtation to huff
like a wolf discontent with its found food.
In reality, she was a stranger who served
her body, half-soul on my table where I
was quaffing down beer like a widowed.

We'd exchanged a few light touches, no more.
And even so, I kept myself respectful - or like
to believe myself respectful - of the hallowed
name of feminism. Awkwardness breaks
its bucket of ice & I am suddenly left

to brood on my glass and her stray one.
I do not say I'd poured her drinks from my
own jug, but kept the cab fare home. Such
are the rules of proferred companionship:
the clink of glass like ice, the covert tips

for sweetened sips, or the numbed heart after.

sighs, lingering

under the starlight, i pale
in insignificance, black of void
swirling hoarse opinions into wind- 
blown jests. the playground weeps
its lonely state, like children grown &
forgotten the tugs of solitude. over
this window, days convinced the nights
to dab the color of age over the skin
of earth. under no starlight, i seek
rebirth: arms, outstretched; whisper, evaporating,
enticing moon its cold stage, before
the lightening
shades of morning.

Lingering Sighs

Under the starlight, I pale
in insignificance, black of void
swirling hoarse opinions into wind-
blown jests. The playground weeps
its lonely state, like children grown &
forgotten the tugs of solitude. Over
this window, days convinced the nights
to dab the color of age over the skin
of earth. Under no starlight, I seek
rebirth: some child's evaporated whisper
calling moon into being, before the lightening
shades of morning.

Freedom Haiku

The lost sparrow hops
between pillars of legs, seeks
fresh lands, like caged hearts.

Of Soup and Soap

How much energy does it take to keep
awake? The waitress serves me a baguette,
her apron caked with crumbs and eyelids
smiling with mascara and drowsiness.
Perhaps she is dopey. It is unlikely but possible.

The long bread tastes of buttered sweetness;
the chef's battered his soul into the spread.
The waitress is the messenger delivering
soul, buttered, its taste leavened by the
hunger of waiting.

I thank her, I try to thank her
with upraised eyes, eyes creased
with wrinkles of gratitude fashioned
out of a protest against drowsiness.

Alas, she goes back into her auto-
maton mode, fetching cults
of patrons their cutlery and cuisine,
speaking with hands scarred possibly
by soup and soap.

Moon

The night yawns like a bored teenager.
She delves into her bag of stars, throws them
where no one can see. Obscured by her
mascara of clouds the moon
is late in arriving. I do not wait anymore -

I'll sink deeper into my seat at the bus stop
and wait for moon, that girl of dreams
stifled by the monotony of arising.

#copout

The Sparrow

The Sparrow

hops, pecks at crumbs & bits

of rice under the kopitiam tables,

scurries through pillars of legs, a

fugitive of the free world. How did it

enter where there was no window, this

enclosed space
of food and human essence?

If a leg moves, it is a branch, breaking

off and falling. There are

no earthquakes.

The sparrow

flies at the whiff of sound, a striking

arm raised against its pea-field of vision-

you do not strike a sparrow. It flits quick

as houseflies, is not a mynah whose cackle

calls its raiding brethren to the table.

This sparrow escapes, is gone like wind, a

thought; that little darkened ray of light displaced

by shadow, a caesura of freedom my body, chained

to its firm stance of earth, cannot comprehend

of placement.