T.Wignesan
For Michael Hrebeniak’s jazz saxophone
[This
memorial poem was published in Radical
Poetics (Inventory of Possibilities), Issue One (
I
a
life of toil for the man in the centre
a hub
in the peripheral tireless wheel
where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people
working at waking man
II
no
words cling now no words meant in blame
the
tongue he lash the words they now tame
no
shock of blast open laughter rock the hall
everyman
there say there sure were a man
a
man no fear cowed in communion to other
made
for no gods made for no demons either
all
men he know best when he see just once
no
second thought resurrect the man if bad
so
go tell the magi no trek in sight in
sky
here
a man be born here he so sure die
other
no like see one so bright stand up high
other
no like feel like sky fall low into ocean
what
make ‘m i say with feeling so just
is
sure he different he force hisself work
work
work work work an’ again work
he
work nite an’ nite so 50-hour in day
where he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people
working at waking man
where
you go from word born here now
turn
and twist all whoring the alphabet
III
‘don’t
write anything you can get published’
so
publish only what you can’t call your own
writing
like reading’s a public coital act
so
showing your work is exhibitionism
‘why
don’t you send your stuff around
keeping
it to yourself’s sheer masturbation’
reading-watching-listening’s
just voyeurism
so
sending wares around is prostitutionism
where he go then where he go this
working man
he
go on waking people working at waking
man
IV
he
it was in minesweeper capture aurora borealis
message
from extrasensory enter into he word
in
only
in deepdown psyche water drip drip dry
then
on land he no see reason to the fight
so
he let he wrists spill he guts to the fill
then
he take the world on all by he torn self
he
spare no skin in dug-Malayan-jungle-out
what
he do what he think he do he no tell
everybody
meet man an’ no see albatross hang
he
no tell story like ol’ mariner in dream
he
go wake people from dumb dead trance
many
many people high up no like this act
some
call him stuckup other just ‘im damn
where
he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people
working at waking man
is
all he do then what kind of working
this
is
big work man ‘cause most body dead sleep
where
he go then where he go this working man
he go on waking people
working at waking man
© T. Wignesan 13-15 October
1995
NOTE
When I first
met Eric in the summer of 1957, in London, at Wang Gung-wu’s flat in Shepherd’s
Bush [ Wang a former colleague of Eric’s in Singapore - later becoming the
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong - is now the Director of the
East Asia Institute of the National University of Singapore
], he had already read most of the manuscript of my first collection: Tracks of a Tramp, and more. He came late for dinner and was so vociferous and
ebullient, I had hardly time to think. Now and then he stopped short to shoot a
few questions at me, mostly about my educational background, and, finding there
was none to speak of in literature, riled me for not having joined
Some time later, in the
mid-sixties, when I had been published and Eric was then ghosting the American
literature columns of the Times Literary
Supplement, Eric gave me the best advice I’ve ever listened to in our métier.
He said very offhand-like one day, and his demeanour meant every word he
pronounced ponderously: ‘Don’t write anything you can get published!’ with the
result I’ve only managed to publish about ten percent of what I’ve been writing
since then.
In the early nineties, Eric
seemed to me to soften his anti-Establishment stance. He urged me to publish.
He appeared as if he would make certain concessions, and it took me some time
to realize that he may have changed course for strategic reasons: you can’t
fight the Enemy where no one hears of the victory!