Ho Poh Fun (1946-2018)

hopohfun.png

SELECTED POEMS

in the proximity of humans
(the case for bird space)

birds may still base
a style of living on trees

track an insect
peck at a worm
warble, mate, and
in a manner truly enviable
scale the lengths, the breadths, the heights ...

this, by itself being never infinitely irrepressible

once, the rude shock might have come
some nasty but reparable bump
product of extrapolation
‘midst sentries of a kindred green

now that timber’s yielded to concrete
sand, gravel, cement in continual increase
crowd of high sky-scouring scenarios
habitats more congenial
to crows than to sparrows

what ebullience surrounding presences
On swings of winged exuberance
swerving, gauging, negotiating distances?

for one flier at least
inevitable collision
up at high windows
hard walls of indifference
to palpitating feathers

a beak shattered
a wing crushed

no ambulance for birds in sight ...

civilizations aspiring ever higher
propagating greater human worth, growth and endeavour
preach no democracy to birds

leave concern for a more equivocally-definable sky space
a conscience for sustaining wider un-breach-able birdspace

to rot

March 1995

by Ho Poh Fun
from Katong and Other Poems (1996)

 

SELECTED POEMS: “Biological” >