Stone On Rock (The Acropolis)

   

The climb had reminded of the skaline going up to the village and also the house on the coast above Bijela. There were paved segments where tile had been laid, with some concrete controversially added here and there; but in many places the limestone crust had been cut and shaped, which provided steps that had once carried the ancients whose names were honoured in the present day streets of the city.

One afternoon near hotel Soho, Sofokleous appeared like a visitation. With better lookout thereafter Evripidou, Lykourgou and others unknown and not easily found in the searches.

Early Spring in Athens, 8 degrees shortly after 8 in the morning setting out, in order to avoid the larger crowds that had been mentioned. After the years on the Equator the compression socks from the flight were needed with the sandals; a cracked heel too caused some nuisance.

On the flat up top again the embedded rock everywhere took almost as much notice as the fashioned marble that had been quarried some distance away in the north-west beyond the valley, where the city spread in the light like another marvel of it own kind. On all sides around the famous temple the rock protruded.

A rectangular outcrop of that profile that stood between the valley and the port on the other side was always going to draw the attention of visionaries. The landform itself rearing up toward the clouds, topped by a natural platform, suggested a magnificent pedestal; a temple to a deity of one kind or another, inevitably. In the earlier era a forerunner chaste, honourable virgin who was guardian and saviour, inevitably.

In one of the notes there was the suggestion not long after its erection the giant statue of Athena had needed to be pulled down, because the glinting of her helmet or spear in the sun provided a marker for enemies.

Loosely scattered in a number of places where basins of soil had formed stood little newly sprouted poppies. Almost blood red, modest and only dispersed here and there singly. You came upon them on a patch of ground, then ten minutes later again through cracks in the rock, and finally on the last round within some overgrown weed on a larger plot, perhaps a dozen & half unclustered.

After Singapore’s award-winning curb-side garden beds—planted, watered and pruned by the dark foreign workforce—their Botanical Gardens that had replaced the former lush jungle, the untidy overgrowth in Athens, the weeds and the flimsy wild poppies on the sacred Acropolis surprised.

On the Spring climb to Village Uble with Neki fifteen years before there were many different blooms on the mountain sides, some of which Neki could name. Again, modest and delicate in the natural setting, easily missed, like some of the quiet Greek beauties one passed on the streets of Athens.

There was far less make-up worn by the women of inner Athens and men’s dyeing almost non-existent. Visitors from the Malay world would be instantly struck.

Two days before the planned assault on the heights Han Kang’s Greek Lessons had been passed on a street-cart in the fashionable quarter of Monastraki, a short distance from the more democratic Omonia. In the last couple of months two of HK’s stories had been read in Singapore, one an earlier version of the Booker winning volume, where the domestic tussle with the husband over the woman’s vegetarianism featured. This Greek novel was an unknown. Naturally, a reading immediately suggested itself; a brief inspection showing some of the incidental Greek material gave more than enough impetus.

The earlier readings had shown Han was not exactly up one’s alley, but that was a short sample and how to neglect this now?

The €15 was another obstacle, made more steep because of the down-at-heel Omonia quarter. What was that, AU$27 for a pocket-sized novella? Food was expensive in the inner city and the second hotel on the lower side of Omonia damn pricey too.

Three attempts on the purchase had been made with the chap manning the cart, an upping of offer each time proving unsuccessful.

He was only a worker there, the fellow deflected. Without authority; couldn’t do it. Practiced at the role and giving a little winning smile on the third day.

As expected, the writing was toilsome, strained, highly worked up, overloaded.

Withered bloodstains. A clean hunger. Lanterns shrouded in perfect beauty & serenity.

A great many squiggly lines were soon made in the margins.

Overly soft feminine too, domestic without grit or force. Later work it turned out, though secondary—it happened to the best writers—despite the gushing blurbs & prizes.

Kang’s politics and right-feeling were clearly admirable. The reason for the avoidance of the ceremony in Stockholm was likewise admirable, as well as no doubt fitting for a author who wrote of her chief character in Greek needing to take up as little space as possible for herself in the world.

In the opening 15-20pp her greenery, flowers and blooms irritated, as suchlike colouring always did in novels. Conventional decoration of that kind instantly fell flat.

Bruised petals, voluptuous blooms...Pale green trees undulating… flowers a riot of unbelievably beautiful colours.

The produce of flower farms almost as good as plastic. Likely Han had seen little of flowers standing naturally in their own element, largely hidden and offering unexpected greeting.

Under the order of urban planners elsewhere there would be boxed poppies along the climb to a national monument, curved wrought iron benches & umbrellas with their advertisements. On the natural platform of the contemporary Acropolis if you wanted a seat before the Parthenon it needed to be taken on one of the more shaplier rocks.

As for others, for the Greeks poppies may have served for remembrance. On the Acropolis they had thus far resisted elaboration.

 

 

 

                  April 2025

Coming Through Slaughter

 

How many of these Africans are refugees here? Like in Melbourne, few look like it. Sub-Continental labourers likewise. The first news-reports from many years ago, which often featured Eritreans, ought have prepared; yet against geography, their presence seems more odd than in Australia. Is it the great strength of the survivor after the ordeal? Dauntlessness, unable to be intimidated, come what may? Sub-Continental foreign workers in Singapore carried themselves similarly.

Monastiraki, Athens

Mod. Malaise

  

Old Chinaman at the Lavender stop in a not-so-new green tee with mainly large Chinese characters. Too many, far too many you would have thought for a translation of the English at his waist:

PROHIBIT ANXIETY

Perhaps the modern illness needed quite a bit of the old form to put properly.

Difficult task fully and immediately conceded by the man. And more strong agreement again at the suggestion that such a feat could possibly be pulled off precisely here in this Republic—A Fine City, as other ambulant billboard tees routinely mocked.

Definitely. Definitely.

The bus was too quick for further exchange.

The Albino

 

Late afternoon on Jalan Sultan the Chinese albino had it about right—a world of horror and nothing else, unable to be endured. Eyes clenched tight, shielding arm raised high and the other feeling his way along the shopfronts. It was torture right enough, the man likely knowing only the half of it. The rain had come down almost without cease the last 48 hours, puffer jacket needed against the aircon in the library and Helen’s big payung, which even so was unable to protect the cuffs of the trousers. There was hardly a squeak of light, yet the poor man was dreadfully assailed. One hundred the number of casualties in the renewed bombing in Gaza according to the initial reports, climbing in increments from there into the 2- 3- & 400s. Zainuddin fwd-ed a member of the Irish Parliament it must have been crying out against the inhumanity. For those who did not know such devastations from their own sources, their own race memory, the new-reports & photos could be stomached for many, many months more, years in fact.

Confrontation

 

There were too many dead birds on the roads these past days, one or two of them steamrolled horribly flat. (Last week a foreign worker was killed by a steamroller in Carpmael Road, 100m along from the house.) On one of the paths one bird looked an unnatural or desecrated death of the kind reported from battlefields, rats or possibly cats the only explanation. And that was before the news-reports from NSW of large numbers of corellas dead and dying in Newcastle, poisoning suspected by farmers, presumably. The Kursk casualties late afternoon left only poor imagining; “horror movie” one of the witnesses resorted to in his description to the BBC. Then on top of everything the little Arab kid with her older sister on the bus returning from town, choking her sobs and hiding her face by turns. There was silent freak gaping at the sister when the latter came over beside her. Adjacent the mother remained fixed on her phone, not neglectful, only the Arab Tiger form. The child couldn’t be helped—that was the truth of hardship and despair, even from the get-go. You hide it if nothing else, bite down on it, get used to it.

Publication news: Attention! - Airplane Reading

 

Hallo all

Another short of mine has just been published in the States, delivering again some aerophobia, with couple other matters intermixed.

Free on the site here—

https://airplanereading.org/story/5131/attention

All best

Pavle

Beyond Blue (mid-00s)

From the files: Beyond Blue dates from the mid-naughts

 

 

Late morning the radio omitted the cause of the out-bound crawl, reporting it as traffic info.

Police Response van angled, lights flashing. Other vehicles were clustered round. The break-down truck had arrived first, before it was realised what was happening. In the pass the central figure was sighted last. 

The other emergency vehicles had pulled up short, not encroaching. Red stanchions placed in line.

            In his drab clothing the chap sat on the top-rail looking out like a fisherman awaiting his catch. Back turned on all the slowing traffic, the police & flashing lights, as if none of that had anything to do with him. 

Jaw and fleshy jowls, unshaved. The man half-turned in profile. 

            Half an hour later surveying the wares at the Salvos in Inkerman Street two reports arrived. Through the head-phones the chaps in the Studio were keeping a sharp ear out for further bulletins. As the updates proceeded there developed a kind of tease of insider knowledge. Attentive listeners would have been alerted. No mention of smash, pile-up, tanker over-turned, nothing.

            With the short banking of traffic at the time the man could not have been sitting long. One of the other cars near the police van must have been his own.

            Pics from the passing motorists proved irresistible, especially good from the passenger seat. The 40km helped.

            Being prior to the soc. media, despite the public interest the footage wouldn’t be used. That well-known platform on one of the major arterials in the city could not be advertised. Were the pictures marketable the price of the man, his thick thighs, looking across at the cops and out to the bay, dangling, a bidding war might have been conducted.

When the bridge collapsed in the 70s some lucky men had ridden the concrete down.

            Wide sky and the bay, with the masts of the yachts in Willy. The chap would not have been looking down at the river for the half hour. 

Clear bright sky and still. To date the Spring hadn’t produced many of those windless days. The wind-socks at the football grounds would have hung limp. Otherwise the man could not have sat so long.

            Fishing him out of the slime was a gruesome thought.

            Sittin’ on the dock o’ the bay. 

            Pool-side kind of aspect. Though a chap of that sort would hardly have one of those at home.

            Standing on the rail the matter would have been clear in the first instant. Sitting as he did, the import had failed for a second. Such untroubled ease completely deceived.

            The police on the roadway were young lads. Before the specialists arrived they needed to cope meantime.

            Monday late morning. Jobless most likely. Shaggy-haired, dark tee, nondescript. The well-to-do would not choose such a place. Something more private and discrete for them.

            Fine and clear. Could a man do such a thing in rain or a squall? Those days those kind of blues were not so bad, perhaps. Bright sunny days were the worst downers.

            The posture suggested he might be talked round, loose-limbed like that. There might be a chance of survival too if he missed the piers. More than a few had been fished out of the river downstream. Once there was a report of a fisherman at the Power Station snagging one.

            Dying of fright a lot of them before they hit the bottom, the medical people suggested. Same as in war. 

            Ten minutes at least it had lasted. The man would have tired. With his weight he appeared to have sagged even in the brief pass.

            A good deal of talk would be needed to allow someone to get close enough. For the young lads it may have been wise to refrain from engaging unless drawn.

            After half an hour’s sitting the man could not have let himself slide away. Doers don’t delay like that.

 

 

            West Gate, Melbourne

 

 

 

NB. Beyond Blue is an Australian help service.

 

Taking Wing (Mar25 update)

Rather a sight this young woman out on the paving by Block 7. On the return from supper it was nearing 9. Some fun with a drone was the initial thought. Chinese female of that age, alone at that hour, amusing herself with those infernal killing machines? They did love innovation here, anything for new frontiers, frictionless whatnot. Truth to tell, there had not been any deployment of those particular contraptions here, whether for amusement or anything else… Well, ten odd years ago on the shores of Bedok Reservoir a group of young men had been encountered sporting with something that we struggled to identify at the time. When approached here at the Haig the lass became startled, alarmed in fact and began moving off to the sheltered walkway. Oh! No! Lassie. An elderly pair had stopped a few meters off, ready to offer aid. From the courtyard of the house a paper plane was eventually sighted. Anything other would not have drawn the observer back. It was doubtful the woman had noticed the first pass, so engrossed was she. Slowly she paused in her retreat and the old fogeys got themselves off. Instructions online had guided the gal, but something was wrong here. The plane she had created was supposed to boomerang-like circle a little way out and duly return to her. Not the simple version that shot out in a straight line 10-12 meters, before nose-diving to the ground. The more complex other, with a particular wing fold, would make a short half circle, then without much loss of altitude, obediently return to hand. At school some of the boys had mastered the art. The lady’s attempt was inadequate somehow, hardly in fact able to launch on the air at all. Some little wind associated with this NW monsoon was giving trouble too. Friday mid-eve and getting on. Presumably the woman lived in one of the blocks, or else the landed properties on our side. There was no one in her orbit who had taken a fancy in this aeronautical interest. No dog or cat had been brought along for company. Doubtful there were children at home. It was impossible for the scribe to offer real fellowship, much less perform meaningful rescue; the stars were mis-aligned. (There were never any visible in Singaporean night skies; the lack was impossible to gauge properly.) Here was only the usual resort next morning, falling far short and negligible of course; in some ways like a mention in prayer. In early teens one had fairly worn oneself out bedside at night attempting to recall all who were in need of succour—the household, neighbours, the teacher in the hospital. The German lady in the Vernon Street post office was recalled in this context, for some particular struggle now forgotten. In his late-70s Zainuddin reported the very same problem currently for his good self.

More Recent Billboards

 

Going out for lunch an old uncle at the Kallang stop stumping along under the sheltered walkway beneath his baseball cap, rolls over his belt. There was an acquaintance at the airport perhaps, or giveaway for ministerial visit at the CC.

         EXPLORE

         In the pass it wasn’t clear whether it was one of the Never Stop EXPLORING.

         Yesterday meeting Gabby another older uncle on North Bridge had fared more badly in the trenches. Some years stooped and without his stick he was completely shot. Fairly crawling, but striving best he could nonetheless:

         SURPASS

          yourself

         A nano second the smile passed into a guilty grimace.

         Properly cashed-up foreigners—and we’re talking juicy load of $$$—could join the protected species here and rejoice.

Kallang MRT

They blew only hot here, citizenry as much as government. The Chinese majority, needless to say; earnest Han civilisation—then add the coolie history. (Difficult to recall Malay in particular bearing such apparel.)

Bystand (Nov23 update)

published by an online Singaporean lit. mag called Of Zoos, Jan 2024.

You’re actually alternating standing-by like the rest and being pinned to the bed mooning, with some mental equivalent of running down the road flapping your hands and mute screaming like the napalmed Viet girl sixty years ago. (God forgive the comparison.) 

So much was foreordained. 

Bucket loads, street after street some days in endless array. Wherever, every which way you turned. All sides & little variation. Caps, crosses, jade bands, silver bangles, didn’t matter, all were deep in together.   

Win an aspic 5-Day K-Pop Experience. 

Government notices, commercial, motivational, spiritual / religio.  Blurred. 

The karung guni were never idly standing-by. Recall the elderly HK-er or Shanghainese cleaner reported in the paper, delivered to her job in her wellies & apron back of the family Bentley. Say die? Never those ones. (The Yanks would have no chance against them.)   

For some reason there were more of the myrmidons here. Some kinda misadventure had cowed the populace. What had undone so many? The coolie past? Meritocracy rammed down throats? Unbroken sixty-year one-party rule you would have to call political by-standing, big time. 

Dyeing & comb-backs. The heat brought the dopiness, yawning and collapse at the tables. Shop assistants, the gold-shops particularly, epitomised the matter, perhaps especially post-Covid. Like hungry dogs hanging over their empty bowls, Bab would have observed.  

Going by one of the bathroom supplies the other day, you actually swung an arm indoors to scoop some cool. Downplaying the heat was State policy. 

The gap between morning & night teeth-brushing had become razor thin; calendar days peeling like scraps in the wind.  

Hal was wonderful, but there was no flame. For Yani & Rina fortnightly management tided over.  

All the strife from the demented Bhutanese down in Melbourne the last six months didn’t help. More troubling still was the looming sale of Bab’s. It could not be avoided; the hour had dawned, obliteration of the last physical remnants.  

With their pigeon holes, no such attachment applied in Sing. In SG the past clung on in the various observances, the ceremonials & festivals. Foisting the alien tongue had done its darndest—remorseless deracination.  

Pulverising over-work. The lass at Toast Box told of her hours: she would finish at 10. But she had not started at 10. In fact, she had started at 7AM.  

Die, she laughed, in the usual, choking way.  

Die. You die, they mock-moaned at their ordeals.  

Once more the library had become a refuge. Twelve years later a return to Toast Box. The Serangoon KV was far less congenial than Buffalo Road, which the pandemic had killed off. Ice cream now in a traditional Tamil resto. 

Shirt & shoes guys showed ugly the way they ordered their drinks. MENU. Abrupt tone reminding of the caste system. It was abruptly repeated when the waiter couldn’t hear over the hubbub. Only the cashiers wore saris. Queues, plastic cups for water, the uppuma rarely lasting to lunchtime. No doubt the place featured in all the government promo; ( recent years Modi had visited). Less punishing than elsewhere. And the colour helped. Rarely was it countermanded entirely; it usually took more than a single generation. In the inner-city down south colour almost always dressed passable white; the immigration arrangement guaranteed that. Lashes & body art remained rare at KV; even nails. And nothing of multi-coloured & speckled. By the stairs around Tekka, the faded loitering signs hinted at livelier scenes in the past. 

Eyelids, shy smiles beneath baseball caps, look-aways on passing. The hints of the entrapment made it more painful here. Before the purpose-built dorms the Mainland construction workers in Geylang had indicated the richness of the Han past.  

Regular scenes of urban slaughter at tables, benches, the concrete at the Voids. 

In Jogja a sculptor off Sosrowijayan had mounted on a little rooftop the only representation of the heat sighted in near a decade: three tin men in poses of utter exhaustion. 

Lately you were pulling some house of horror faces yourself too, Bud. Very little headway on the serene. The old Buddha continued to defy imitation. How did the artists ever get it in that semblance in the first place? More mysterious than Mona’s smile. Living humans bearing such visage, really? Once or twice you had caught something approaching it, memorably in the old painter in Malacca, up on the Peninsular.  

You would think soulful ease could be carried a few hundred metres from the library to the Box. Awareness Place. Evernew on the other side, with some decent shelves at one end. (Decent tag for old classics.) Passing by there was like a breeze. The portraitist Eric’s art supply opposite was not hobbyists either—artists actually grappling.     

Just so happened we had whip-cracking thunder on arrival at the Box that particular afternoon. Made the gal at the register cringe, hunching her shoulders. Window glass vibrating; sprays drifting in. Magnifique. More refreshing than any of the spa retreats up the road in the Arab Quarter.  

Bucketing rain always released animal spirits. You wondered endlessly how the pours were received by the old folk in the lee of the karst up in the hills with the flocks   

The ancestors were commemorated yesterday with a fast for Orthodox Veliki Petak—Great, rather than Good Friday. More than a little inspired by the example of the Muslims, who carried it all through the whole of the Lent equivalent.   

 

 

                                                                                             Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011-23

https://www.ofzoos.com/12.1=pavleradonic2.html

 

                                                                                         

	NB. Between times the third Tin Man had collapsed entirely and was carted into the garden of an adjacent losmen, where he lay in an undignified heap in a garden bed.