I wish someone would love my body

I wish someone would love my body
more than my soul.
To love my soul is to love nothing
more than the whole
sensational thing that is my body;

it is to love the memories
my body has of
autumn, winter, spring and summer
in a first love.
The mercy of memories!

Yes, my body will grow older.
will totter, will fail
the test of cold infinity
but let me feel
its affinity for growing colder.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Mr Koh,

It has been some time.

Gonna spend some time reading yr archives!

Happy 2007~

Yr (ex)student
4:51 AM
Jee Leong said…
Why remain nameless? I don't know who to thank for reading my blog!

Jee Leong
11:04 AM
Anonymous said…
its me!
9:04 PM
gracethz said…
Hey Mr Koh

Wishing you a happy 2007 and a (very) belated x'mas.

it's winter there isn't it. better layer on more clothes. :)

Wishes,
grace
12:11 AM
Jee Leong said…
Hi Yimin and Grace,
Happy New Year to you! Yesterday was so warm I walked around with a t-shirt. Today it got colder again.

All best,
Jee Leong
4:24 PM
Domch said…
Hi Jee Leong,
Hope you've been well! This was absolutely lovely, from the provocative opening to the sparse, bare end. Somewhere between the second and third line there's a skip that I can't quite follow, but I like it very much all the same. :)

warm wishes,
Dom Chua
4:46 AM
Jee Leong said…
Hi Dom!
good to hear from you again! How are you doing? Do get in touch and tell. I'm glad you like the poem.

Jee Leong
7:45 PM
Larry said…
Jee, this is so funny and sad - one of the best of your body poems.

*applause*

Larry
1:40 AM
Jee Leong said…
Hi Larry,
glad you like this one!

Jee
5:22 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reading Thumboo's "Ulysses by the Merlion"

I've just revised a poem written years ago, a poem that delineates the different responses of four readers, of different generations, to the seminal nationalistic poem by Edwin Thumboo . Thumboo is reckoned to be the first major Singaporean poet writing in English. First, Thumboo's poem, then followed by mine. ULYSSES BY THE MERLION (for Maurice Baker) I have sailed many waters, Skirted islands of fire, Contended with Circe Who loved the squeal of pigs; Passed Scylla and Charybdis To seven years with Calypso, Heaved in battle against the gods. Beneath it all I kept faith with Ithaca, travelled, Travelled and travelled, Suffering much, enjoying a little; Met strange people singing New myths; made myths myself. But this lion of the sea Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail, Touched with power, insistent On this brief promontory... Puzzles. Nothing, nothing in my days Foreshadowed this Half-beast, half-fish, This powerful creature of land and sea. Peoples settled here, Brought to th
Read more

Steven Cantor's "What Remains: the Life and Work of Sally Mann"

Image
Sally Mann, The Perfect Tomato , 199 0 Since it is moving pictures, a film necessarily captures--produces--a process. It turns photographs into the making of photographs. It joins moments ("spots of time") into a Life. This I expected watching Cantor's documentary on Sally Mann's creation of the exhibit "What Remains." So photographs of a long-dead beloved greyhound "lead" to photographs of the Civil War battlefield of Antietam, to photographs of Mann's Virginian farm bloodied by the police killing of a runaway convict, to photographs of decomposing bodies in a forensic study site, as if each group of pictures forms an independent yet preparatory stage in the creative process. What I did not expect to see is the influence of the film-making on the photography itself. Mann begins to think of her exhibit as a "narrative," and wants the narrative of death to end on a more uplifting note. With such an idea in mind, she takes close-up pic
Read more

Goh Chok Tong's Visit to FCBC

Image
I am surprised by how much this incident is affecting me. I thought I have moved past my former religious life, left it behind in Singapore, but like tin cans tied to a dog it has followed me and is rattling me. I am posting the incident, and my response to it, here on this blog, because I want to remember that the past is not yet past. When Emeritus Senior Minister of Singapore Goh Chok Tong visited Faith Community Baptist Church on 13 January during a Sunday service, Senior Pastor Lawrence Khong took the opportunity to deliver a hateful anti-gay message . Among other things, he said: We affirm that the family unit comprises a man as Father, a woman as Mother, and Children. This is the basic building block of society, a value foundational for a secure future, a premise fundamental to nation-building. and warned ominously that We see a looming threat to this basic building block by homosexual activists seeking to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code.   Examples from ar
Read more