Who Dares To Take This Life From Me, Knows No Better: Parts One and Two

for Eric Mottram "Nur wenn das Herz erschlossen, Dann ist die Erde schön." Goethe. I An important thing in living Is to know when to go; He who does not know this Has not far to go, Though death may come and go When you do not know. Come, give me your hand, Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder We'll go, sour kana in cheeks And in the mornings cherry sticks To gum: the infectious chilli smiles Over touch-me-not thorns, crushing snails From banana leaves, past Clawing outstretched arms of the bougainvilias To stone the salt-bite mangoes. Tread carefully through this durian kampong For the ripe season has pricked many a sole. II la la la tham'-pong Let's go running intermittent To the spitting, clucking rubber fruit And bamboo lashes through the silent graves, Fresh sod, red mounds, knee stuck, incensing joss sticks All night long burning, exhuming, expelling the spirit. Let's scour, hiding behind the lowing boughs of the hibiscus Skirting the school-green parapet thorny fields. Let us now squawk, piercing the sultry, humid blanket In the shrill wakeful tarzan tones, Paddle high on.the swings Naked thighs, testicles dry. Let us now vanish panting on the climbing slopes Bare breasted, steaming rolling with perspiration, Biting with lalang burn. Let us now go and stand under the school Water tap, thrashing water to and fro. Then steal through the towkay's Barbed compound to pluck the hairy Eyeing rambutans, blood red, parang in hand, And caoutchouc pungent with peeling. Now scurrying through the estate glades Crunching, kicking autumnal rubber leavings, Kneading, rolling milky latex balls, Now standing to water by the corner garden post.