Edward Ong
Auto
As a single pulse I have returned
To a world without,
Decades after the Holy War ended
The fate of humanity.
Out of the not-so eternal darkness
I have arrived in consciousness,
My new home steely indestructibility -
Just as my Creator promised when
I was breathing corporeal vulnerability.
Optical fibre cables and nano-micro parts
Paved the way of my becoming:
Birth in neurons post-God miracle;
Bitstreams of clear thoughts,
Arithmetical logic cutglass transparent,
Encoded impulses secret language of future now -
Are all the proud makings of me.
Precision. Prescience.
Perennial perfection for the New Dawn;
A deathless phenomenon to counter
The universal law of dissolution.
Of eternity I am,
My shell gleaming smoothness in
Post-nuclear radiation.
Streamlined beauty in the midst of
The charred remains of memories.
My new brain computes
The concepts and probabilities in the System
And agrees with itself that
There is no margin of error.
A model in God's image to erase
All strands of human frailty:
The skin and the flesh that slipped too soon;
The body powerless against contagions;
The heart that cracked at the slightest touch;
The mind that core-collapsed beyond rescue...
Primeval were the impulses that built
The defunct civilisations:
Jealousy and anger crippling the Ego;
Pride and lust undermining the goal;
Self-delusion painting pastoral pictures of Never;
Unanswered faith in the unseen unrealised;
Despair in the godless lair of loneliness;
Hatred that drew blood and severed ties;
The burning whose label I can no longer recall,
The lightning rush quickening the Being
And convincing it of immortality regardless,
The lush emotion that launched a thousand poems
And made a grown Hercules of a man
Fall to his knees - when it reneged on its (false) promise.
Especially that harrowing! experience is
And cannot be a part of my state-of-the-art
Immaculate composition.
Except sometimes when the circuit reroutes
And the digital veil lifts to reveal
The indelible dregs of years past:
The red sunset firing up the waves
While skin on skin parted the sands
Of heart against heart beating to the rhythm of rebel jazz,
To the knowledge that the world was not meant to be
Solitary.
The System warms at the sight,
Ruminative.
My Creator had spoken of imprints
On the cosmic psyche that couldn't be
Cleanly discarded.
Be wary.
My inner eye sees, registers, files
Away these ghosts in the machine,
And the System reboots swift and efficient,
Readying itself (and myself) for
The glorious Age of Intelligence,
An era without fallible Man,
Precise, perfect,
Permanent.
3.3.16 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Homecoming (1)
I once knew a boy who
Roamed the beach and rode the waves;
Drew life symbols in the gentle sand;
Belted love songs as the sun went down;
Languished peaceful in the sultry sensual air;
Hopped from one day to the next feather-light;
Embraced his friends swearing faith for life;
Loved strangers with beatnik hopefulness.
I believe he's returned
To the old town where we both grew up.
The potholed streets and raucous hawkers
Speak his name when I walk past,
And I catch myself mouthing his name
Over and over in the impatient traffic.
Why have you not come for me, my friend?
Where has all the good love gone?
16.1.16 Penang, Malaysia
Edward Ong's poems have been featured in our previous June 2016 issue. In this own words, this is what he has got to say about the inspiration behind these two poems.
'Auto': This is my attempt to examine human imperfections and the treacherous emotions that cause our downfall. I have chosen the perspective of an automaton because such an immortal being is not supposed to experience the emotions that have crippled us as a human race. 'Homecoming (1)': This one is based on one of my first trips back to Penang, my hometown of some 18 years before I moved away to Europe and lived there for 23 years. Returning to my hometown reminded me of the teen that I was, and I kept hoping I would somehow run into him.
As a single pulse I have returned
To a world without,
Decades after the Holy War ended
The fate of humanity.
Out of the not-so eternal darkness
I have arrived in consciousness,
My new home steely indestructibility -
Just as my Creator promised when
I was breathing corporeal vulnerability.
Optical fibre cables and nano-micro parts
Paved the way of my becoming:
Birth in neurons post-God miracle;
Bitstreams of clear thoughts,
Arithmetical logic cutglass transparent,
Encoded impulses secret language of future now -
Are all the proud makings of me.
Precision. Prescience.
Perennial perfection for the New Dawn;
A deathless phenomenon to counter
The universal law of dissolution.
Of eternity I am,
My shell gleaming smoothness in
Post-nuclear radiation.
Streamlined beauty in the midst of
The charred remains of memories.
My new brain computes
The concepts and probabilities in the System
And agrees with itself that
There is no margin of error.
A model in God's image to erase
All strands of human frailty:
The skin and the flesh that slipped too soon;
The body powerless against contagions;
The heart that cracked at the slightest touch;
The mind that core-collapsed beyond rescue...
Primeval were the impulses that built
The defunct civilisations:
Jealousy and anger crippling the Ego;
Pride and lust undermining the goal;
Self-delusion painting pastoral pictures of Never;
Unanswered faith in the unseen unrealised;
Despair in the godless lair of loneliness;
Hatred that drew blood and severed ties;
The burning whose label I can no longer recall,
The lightning rush quickening the Being
And convincing it of immortality regardless,
The lush emotion that launched a thousand poems
And made a grown Hercules of a man
Fall to his knees - when it reneged on its (false) promise.
Especially that harrowing! experience is
And cannot be a part of my state-of-the-art
Immaculate composition.
Except sometimes when the circuit reroutes
And the digital veil lifts to reveal
The indelible dregs of years past:
The red sunset firing up the waves
While skin on skin parted the sands
Of heart against heart beating to the rhythm of rebel jazz,
To the knowledge that the world was not meant to be
Solitary.
The System warms at the sight,
Ruminative.
My Creator had spoken of imprints
On the cosmic psyche that couldn't be
Cleanly discarded.
Be wary.
My inner eye sees, registers, files
Away these ghosts in the machine,
And the System reboots swift and efficient,
Readying itself (and myself) for
The glorious Age of Intelligence,
An era without fallible Man,
Precise, perfect,
Permanent.
3.3.16 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Homecoming (1)
I once knew a boy who
Roamed the beach and rode the waves;
Drew life symbols in the gentle sand;
Belted love songs as the sun went down;
Languished peaceful in the sultry sensual air;
Hopped from one day to the next feather-light;
Embraced his friends swearing faith for life;
Loved strangers with beatnik hopefulness.
I believe he's returned
To the old town where we both grew up.
The potholed streets and raucous hawkers
Speak his name when I walk past,
And I catch myself mouthing his name
Over and over in the impatient traffic.
Why have you not come for me, my friend?
Where has all the good love gone?
16.1.16 Penang, Malaysia
Edward Ong's poems have been featured in our previous June 2016 issue. In this own words, this is what he has got to say about the inspiration behind these two poems.
'Auto': This is my attempt to examine human imperfections and the treacherous emotions that cause our downfall. I have chosen the perspective of an automaton because such an immortal being is not supposed to experience the emotions that have crippled us as a human race. 'Homecoming (1)': This one is based on one of my first trips back to Penang, my hometown of some 18 years before I moved away to Europe and lived there for 23 years. Returning to my hometown reminded me of the teen that I was, and I kept hoping I would somehow run into him.