Pulse

Wang Gungwu, Head, East Asia Institute, National University of Singapore


Fantasia

A sudden large and a quick small,

Little Bo-Peep has a great fall;

And all the black kerbaus

Wash after makan.

The smell of grass and malaus

Lingers over the uniformed band,

Mixes with that of ghee and blachan.

Tumasik bones are dead with the sand.

 

They hang out the Washing on the New Bridge Line;

O please don't dry me and my mind;

I'd like Marx and his borthers

To tell me of leisure-theories.

Paris à la mode is not here, you wives and mothers,

Gunong Blanc is high.

Take the Taj Mahal and then the dowries,

The hucksters want to buy.

 

The lizard's world has come,

And worm-squash tastes like rum.

Let's take the human catapult

And shoot down some submarines;

Let's rally round the electric cult

And pray for colder blood --

Kiss the rotting Vice-gangrenes

Or dance a jig in the mud.

 

Contents


Reproduced with the kind permission of Wang Gungwu.

Postcolonial Web Singapore OV Singapore Literature Overview

Last Modified: 25 July, 2002