Haiku #31

Barber: Violin Concerto

The mercury moon,
Stirred by the tip of your tongue,
Spills into the night.

Haiku #30

When I picture you
Smiling at my misfortunes,
I am warm again.

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

This is Sophocles' last tragedy, and perhaps the most perplexing one. Why does Oedipus die a mysterious death near Athens after leading a long life of suffering? Perhaps this has to do with Sophocles' new position after Philoctetes. As early as Oedipus the King, Sophocles establishes the position that suffering is necessary to human existence. Unlike Aeschylus and the early Sophocles (in Antigone, for example), who suggests that suffering is a means for human learning, the mature Sophocles dramatically shows us that human beings are incapable of escaping suffering. We suffer for a variety of reasons, and these sufferings have no explanations. Oedipus' fate is not a punishment; it is just an occurence. The prophecy does not tell Oedipus "if you behave immorally, you will sleep with your mom"; the prophecy says, "you are going to sleep with your mom", unconditionally. How can the gods then be justified if things like Oedipus' story can happen? I think theodicy is what Sophocles is trying to deal with in his last two plays. In Philoctetes, the bower Philoctetes is abandoned by his comrades in Lemnos, and is ultimately commanded by Heracles the god to go back to Troy. The dramatic argument in Philoctetes, it seems, is that human beings must suffer, but they must also obey the divine will to live on. Philoctetes obeys Heracles, and according to the myth, Philoctetes does go on to achieve great things. But the problem with that is, firstly, Philoctetes is forced by divine command to go to Troy; and secondly, Philoctetes just happens to be a great hero who will achieve great glory - the every day individual may very well die in oblivion. Oedipus at Colonus, I think, is Sophocles' final response to this problem before he died in 405bc. Oedipus, through out the play, believes in his destiny, which is to die at Colonus. He refused to betray himself by returning to his homeland, and instead believed in the gods and died an exile. Sophocles' choice of Colonus may be important. It echoes Aeschylus' choice for the inclusion of the Furies in The Eumenides. The Eumenides, of course, is a play about divine justice. By making this intertextual link, I think Sophocles is trying to reassert his faith in the gods, even if the faith will seemed to be blind. Interestingly, Oedipus is blind. But if that is the case, what exactly is the relationship between the human and the divine? Certainly the divine, in this play, is not indifferent to human lives. Zeus sends a thunder to Oedipus to tell him it's time to die. But further from that, what else? For example, how can Zeus permit such evil to visit upon Oedipus, who is a good person? Oedipus at Colonus perplexes me greatly, but nonetheless it is an excellent tragedy.

Haiku #29

After reading Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus

After suffering
There is hope for happiness,
But only after.

Haiku #28

After yet another embarassing loss at the mahjong table

Humiliation:
Falling face first into mud -
How funny and sad.

Haiku #27

Oedipus the King

O dark dark dark...Light
Is the greatest suffering -
Yet darkness is death.

Haiku #26

Iron-Jawed Angels

The fight for justice
Transcends physicality -
It is from the heart.

Haiku #25

The only landmark
Of citizenship is a
Poetics of home.

Haiku #24

Where can anyone
Escape from his own shadow
But in dark despair?

Haiku #23

Every pair of eyes,
With all the different gazes,
Each has a story.

Haiku #22

There is a hunger
Which cannot be satisfied
Without sacrifice.

Haiku #21

"Words cannot begin to describe who you are, but let me try my best..." ~ Catherine, Condomaniac

The nymph Catherine,
Walking tip-toe on a line
With a smile divine.

Haiku #20

On observing a neighbour after a party

A bottle of beer
Burst out a violent fountain
Of melancholy.

Haiku #19

And just what would an
Unperforming self be like?
A thing in Nothing.

Haiku #18

"Have you fallen in love before?" "No." "Then how do you know what 'love' is?" ~ conversation
"The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death." ~ Wilde, Salomé
"If it were now to die, / 'Twere now to be most happy" ~ Othello, Othello (II, i, 183-184)

Before and after
Th'intoxication of time
Is the purest love.

Haiku #17

For my new English students, after a systematic analysis of the theory of writing

The sole element
That makes writing fruitful is
Creativity.

Haiku #16

Mozart's Clarinet Concerto

Spring kisses summer
On the back of a flutt'ring,
Burning Butterfly.

Haiku #15

The strange fusion of
Aurora and Artemis
Haunts my mortal eyes...

Haiku #14

Home is where you can
Fart and pick your nose without
Being self-conscious.

Haiku #13

We live in a world
Full of brilliant readers
But short of writers.

Epistle I: Concerning the Question of "Virtue Rewarded" in Mr. Richardson's Novel Pamela

Of Virtue Rewarded here I shall sing –
A theme of substance, no common plaything.
In double volumes Richardson addressed
This theme in Pamela, a servant blest.
One greatest poet praised her virtuous fame;
Another novelist revealed her shame.
If Reason is my muse and is my guide,
Then let her guard me through this stormy ride –
Let her examine Pamela’s rise and fall,
And indicate the ways of Man to all.

The question that supplies the critics food:
Is Pamela good, or seems to be good?
The moralist can easily present
Examples of our heroine’s ascent
To happiness: her genuine intent:
A servant girl, though poor, is rich in soul,
Resists temptations with complete control;
A pious girl who holds her morals bold,
Yet never harbours hatred in her fold.
But skeptics find her unbelievable:
Her strong virtue is unachievable –
At best she fills with biases her notes
At worst, with vanity and phony quotes.
The true debate, it seems, is not moral,
But really epistemological:
How can we know if Pamela writes truth
When all we get is writings of a youth?
“What can we reason, but from what we know?”
God may be above, but texts are below –
Reality must through languages glow.
If Man must judge, let him not speculate:
Our heroine is good without debate;
If critics find her full of arrogance,
Regard her faults as human elegance.

Perhaps a better question to impose –
A subtle point which now I can expose:
Is Pamela’s nuptial ending a reward?
Is finally happiness for her restored?
Reality unfolds in world of text;
Identity speaks in a voice perplexed.
That Pamela may have autonomy
Is through a textual economy:
By writing she boldly constructs herself –
A girl that chooses and defines herself.
Her monophonic words speak to the reader;
Her ever presence is our narrative leader.
And now she must conform to texts of others,
Those texts that defined how to be good mothers.
We see a cipher glow in virtuous height
Until it voluntarily gives up light
And then descends for the husband’s delight.
A reader, then, our heroine becomes;
A reciter of rules, resting her drums
Of angry words. No longer is she
(Although her virtue we may disagree)
A sovereign lady as a moral hero,
But loyal wife who is her husband’s zero.
Reward for Pamela’s virtue is her death:
Her entries heavily dragged to its last breath.

Despair not, friends! for Pamela at all,
For Pamela is expected to fall.
The ways of Man is one simple decree:
Respect the chain, “that draws all to agree”.
Readers are trained, and writers are suppressed,
And ideologies are always stressed.
Rewarding virtues is an action sound,
But virtuous rewards are never found.

Glazunov's Piano Concerto

Having listened to Glazunov's Piano Concerto in F minor again on the bus today, I have come to be surprised about the fact that this concerto is little known and little performed. This fact puzzles me because it is an absolutely beautiful concerto. True, from a structural ("academic") point of view, the construction of the concerto is rather poor: the first movement has a traditional sonata-allegro movement, but the two themes are art-lessly stacked together without any developmental passages; the coda is rather poorly anti-climatical; the second movement is a weak variation structure compare to its passionate first movement, so there is a kind of musical unbalance. But the music - and boy the music! - is very romantic and very touching. The two themes in the first movement are so beautifully created that they alone deserves praise. Every time I listen to the two themes my heart melts; there is a kind of wonderful tenderness in the music, one that implies courage, strength, but also sincerity and intimacy. One can almost say that it is the ultimate love poem in music: I don't recall hearing anything more romantic than Glazunov's concerto. So why is it that this concerto has absolutely no popularity at all? After all, Grieg's youthful concern made it onto the big stage, and I would argue it is not as good as this one. This concerto is youthfully fresh and powerful in its writing; while it is structurally poor, its use of the variation is bold and original - the final variation is an excellent attempt to wrap up a concerto. Tremendously Chopinseque, both the orchestral and the piano solo parts are wonderfully imaginative: the solo clarinet melody introduction to the second theme is a bold innovation which works extremely well; Glazunov is also tremendously aware of the power of tonal colour: setting the second theme in A major in contrast to the lushful romantic F minor of the opening theme is beautiful stroke of courage; but when the second theme comes back in the recapitulation, this time in F minor, it speaks of tenderness and a kind of loving memory. It is a beautiful work, and I am very sad to realize that it is so unjustly neglected.

PS: ten ultra-romantic orchestral works (in no particular order)

1. Glazunov: Piano Concerto in F minor
2. Scriabin: Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor
3. Chopin: Piano Concerto in F minor
4. Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor
5. Brahms: Symphony #3 in F major
6. Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor
7. Dvorak: Symphony #7 in D minor
8. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2 in C minor
9. Elgar: Violin Concerto in B minor
10. Barber: Violin Concerto in G major

Haiku #12

Glazunov: Piano Concerto in F minor

A soft touch breaks through
The vacuum of indifference
With a surge of warmth.

Haiku #11

Sincerity is
A goddess bathing in an
Ethereal lake.

Haiku #10

I dip my face in
A pool of dragon's blood mixed
With maple syrup.

Haiku #9

Slow down and listen
To the elegiac tune
Between each heart beat...

Haiku #8

Poetic truth is
Beyond the boiling point of
Absence and presence.

Haiku #7

No great moment of
Victory is without the looks
Of disappointment.

Haiku #6

There is a red rose
Blooming in a clear, closed box -
Its stem twists in pain.

Haiku #5

A photo always
Captures an unspeakable
Incestuous love.

Haiku #4

For Sunny, who is turning 21 today...

Virginity's lost
Upon penetration of
The mind, not the cunt.

Haiku #3

There is no laughter
That is unaccompanied
By honest silence.

Haiku #2

The company of
Comrades is both a wel-fare
And a hap-piness.

Haiku #1

To be older means
To be humble, diligent
And understanding.

Song of History

Are mortals donkeys of the mill,
Forever walking round and roung
But never looking at the ground
To find all desires vain and nil?

Is history forever a path
Circular - that there is no past
Or unknown future to contrast
The piglets' potential bloodbath?

No! Mortals are but helpless souls
Chained to Fate, and Fate drags them
Along the path of Time; the helm
Fate - guided by the gods - controls.

And chained we are to the back
Of Fate - as Fate propels in time
And we can feel its motions prime
Dragging us slowly on our track.

A track that we can partly see -
Only the part already trekked
That previous actions had wrecked,
A string of past - a history.