Singapore National Library (Jan26)

Café attached rather better than Starbucks, which was passed up along the way in the Bugis shopping maze.
         One good thing: waiting staff special young people carting trays before them with gently lolling heads.
         The neatness at Reference was highly suspicious. Stacks appeared completely unused. The kind of shelves and rows made to order for pristine PR media releases that make a politician look good.
         The Humanities Reference section—possibly the reason. Biz Management and the like were on the floors below.
         Remarkable rows of untouched volumes, unbroken spines, in perfect order & alignment.
         Up here your Scribe by far the oldest male at the tables, anywhere over the carpeted halls. A fright really. Where is my hometown bedraggled ancient who pops up every so often—first sighted at Soulfood was it years ago? Prior to departure the creased and crumpled angel was spotted in the larger room beside Reference at City Library in Flinders Lane, going hell for leather into a lined exercise-book. A treat to behold. What was that text on top of his pile now? A history of the Soviet empire? Latin America? Something pertinent & noteworthy.
         A pleasure to find a stand recently donated to the institution by the French Charge D’ Affairs, or some such. Celine! Virilio & Debord. Genet what was more! Lee Kuan Yew would have a spastic fit did he only know. The half of it did he know. (Never will the volumes be read here for all that. Not with Climate Change shortening the odds so sharply, for a vulnerable island of 35% was it reclaimed land.)

American Football

Willing safe-crossing for these lame elderly navigating the 4-5 lanes of traffic. The only possible method for them is to hazard the lines one by one like the greatest parody of football players achieving acreage. Still never a accident. So many nights. So many crossings. A fine arrangement between pedestrian and driver.
....Ah my darlings. My sweet angels. Can they be fully seventeen? Orange blossom flounced dress and cupped young pert breasts. As if their full budded beauty needed emphasizing. – No sentimentally you dolt. You stupid foolish thing. So richly did you sup on all that pretense. You stupid. Shut the fuck up and no more.
- Giant teenage girls too to throw one into the bottom of the pit. Dashed brains. Drowning in one’s vomit. One point nine five easily. Could easily be over two metres. This companion a woeful judge. As tall as you, she thought sufficient for surprise. Nineteen at the most. A little short-arse, spectacles and head-band, she had under her affectionate clasp, arm drapped from on high. A local more than likely. The pimps couldn't do anything with her. Dear girl, may your path be bordered by primroses.

Grace on Geylang (Singapore)

Cab hailing has a style all its own here. Whether working girls, the slave workers from the sub-continent, the local elderly, all follow the established form. One suspects in the city centre, the business class, the technocrats, the finance jockeys and the rest will have a different manner, something more fitting their status. Less pleading or artfulness; more command. Arm fully extended, at a slight downward angle, fingers butterfly wings beating gently. The roadway tenderly caressed; fluttering and rippling in the way of running water elsewhere than these tropics. Not easy to get a taxi here even for young beautifully leggy and operatically dressed lasses. They too have to hang the hand out and tinkle feelingly, pleading.

Culture Shock. (On the road: first stop Sing - Aug25)

Hose in the bathroom. No time to be shocked or finnicky, standing on ceremony. Not a problem, did the soap in the dispenser out in the hallway do its work. Plenty of rich yellow color, like some of the curry they serve in these Indian places—the button gave ample. Three good latherings & rinsings to no effect. Stink of mortality. Possibly one of the Indian lads at the adjoining tables comprehended; insufficient care with the sniffing. Second attempt, another three latherings & rinsings. Gotta be satisfied with that, vestige of doubt or no.

Mask Aug25

Thought returned after repeated, prolonged nagging. There was indeed every chance for it. Yes, sir. That nearer Jap girl yesterday on the bench-seat, constructed in the mould of the Russian Matryoshka doll: squat, neckless, helmet-hair. Warm and animated; bright, attractive spirit… Still now it was quite unclear whether it might have been Tomoko No.2. Unlikely, but by no means impossible. So a great deal was in accord. The look, proportion, manner, thin voice, colouration. Native kind of farm-girl flush. (Tomoko hailed from a remote Prefecture.) Neatness and matronliness. Fitting perfectly the picture of an orderly, efficient & responsible nurse. The thought was more than a little preposterous, yet not to be discounted. Even after an exchange of a number of pleasantries. Her side too the European of a certain size, proportion, colour could easily remain undifferentiated; it would not be the first occasion where such a thing occurred. The racial mask.

Dirty Street

Fine young Somali girl this afternoon waiting for her lift opposite the café entrance. (Faisal’s cautionary comment was her youth; he has no real eye for the ladies.) Lovely in her warm colours, covered almost entirely, apart from the small oval of her exposed, only slightly fretful face. Checking her phone which she kept down at arm’s length. Pinks predominating in the low colour pulse—the headscarf and the detail of the body wrap. An old fashioned parchment cardigan, fully buttoned, hid her womanly form. More than anything else her posture expressed her loveliness, the deep and thorough settled being. In her free hand her dress clutched, hem lifted from the dirty street, the footpath edge where she waited which was especially dirty. Flat-footed, shifting her weight, impatience all minor key, restlessness subdued. From the position she had taken up she did not stray. Did not wander one way or the other. Chiefly movement was of the head and only toward the oncoming traffic, flat expression, never pursing her lips. Twenty minutes she might have stood in the same position and disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.

In Passing (Lygon) June25

The poet said well: the eye slides from the passersby going along. Does no good for either side, observed or observer, looking too hard. Usually does no good; can't always be avoided. The smartly dressed Italo on Lygon this afternoon gained nothing from the switch-blade glimpse, nor certainly the piercing stab that followed. Reason being the altogether inferior hair-piece. What was he thinking? Perhaps the duck-tail behind wasn’t tucked properly this morning; come loose during the course of the day, the footfalls, twists & turns. On the other hand the Tiamo owner buying fruit down the far end didn’t mind the attention given his sharp black buckles that Berlusconi himself must have reserved for the bunga-bunga parties. A treat; leather of a kind rarely seen on the street. Pretended not to notice, the man. Nice guy. Emptied his coins into the hands of the beggar sitting on the path outside Readings. Mostly it doesn’t do to have the eyes on stalks. Certainly not examining every passing face, every mark of the journey. Nor of beauty either. Those compulsive days of hard looking were over. Pass on by, stranger.