pdf download - Westerly Magazine
pdf download - Westerly Magazine pdf download - Westerly Magazine
WONG PHUI NAMObitIt is as thin smoke blown in from a firefed from the edges of a distant field.Word of your having died settles as hazefor an afternoon; what remains of it,of you, in me will soon disperse with changein the day's mood, the next turn of the wind.Even the hunger that could not over a life-timeburn itself out in the gut will now recede;the fine ash settling, leaves in clear aira nothingness. Over your seventy odd yearsyou worked that terrible maw - a birdforever in flight, flinging itselfinto an opening void, between grey earth,grey sky, resolved into one great devouring eyefor nothing else but the world's insufficiencyof insects, grub and grain. You were consumedand made over into its living heat.I wonder if, in that final morningwhen the walls of your small room began to swim,dissolve into the darkness and time itselfappeared ravenously to open upand set itself upon you, your single eyewas not still locked on the struggling worm,or did your very bones cry out for weariness,for all the years that were spent on addingto what seemed to be breaking out anew,blue sulphurous fires that would soon sweep the heart.As smoke blown in ... when you were toldFather had died in the night, you called outto us from inside of your first floor window,"Who's to pay for the funeral?" You came.You were in time for sealing of the coffin.You, who were so little involved, Uncle,had managed to put it in your termsa little of what each of us could well have said.14WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989
WONG PHUI NAMLast Days in HospitalAt first it was only the split skinparting from excessive dryness at the heel,showing some blood. But when the sinsehsnipped a little off the fleshand with it, the infection, I found my selfso contracted I became the pain,the heel bone that would soon show -porcelain, or pearl but for the blood.For a while, poultices helped - from crushed herbs,some days, chicken mashed live under stone pestle.These banked down the fire until an angry rednesscaught on such remains as would not wash,then bloomed, unfurled up calf and shinto make of my thin shankone tight congested melon, ready to give outits soft pulp at a touch. When the skinturned black and peeled I thoughtthe devil itself had clapped its mouth upon me.Such violence upon the flesh has left mein middle age nursing a stub,left-over portion of a leg that for a timewould wake to its own new life, but drying nowlike smoked ham, dead pink in partsnot yet going bad, it lies delicatelyamong the sheets. A cap of rough whitecotton clothed the severed end so thatthe bone in the cover of sutured flesh and skinwould not be seen to thrust upand show with too much nakednesswhere the saw a little above the right kneehad bitten through. Like any newbornit now and then will soil the sheets.WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 15
- Page 3 and 4: CONTENTSWESTERLYVOLUME 34, No.2, JU
- Page 5: WESTERLYa quarterly reviewISSN 0043
- Page 8 and 9: JAN KEMPTo My Father, M.H.K.My fath
- Page 10 and 11: JAN KEMPThe GypsySuddenly before yo
- Page 12 and 13: WONG PHUI NAMA Death in the WardThe
- Page 14 and 15: WONG PHUI NAMCousinI had to call to
- Page 18 and 19: So thus I lie here fearful of movem
- Page 20 and 21: VIRGINIA BERNARDA ValedictionWhen N
- Page 22 and 23: "Yeah, yeah," I call, returning the
- Page 24 and 25: she flops for a bit, slurps her tea
- Page 26 and 27: well her students did, she was neve
- Page 28 and 29: English or Indian, that they had th
- Page 30 and 31: ANDREW TAYLORSpringSpring is a dive
- Page 32 and 33: CAROL SElTZERAiming for the MouthTr
- Page 34 and 35: GRAEME WILSONA Selection of Japanes
- Page 36 and 37: a highly ambivalent attitude to his
- Page 38 and 39: Esson attended some rehearsals of T
- Page 40 and 41: the literary life of Bloomsbury. Lo
- Page 42 and 43: Without Yeats Esson would quite lik
- Page 44 and 45: "What theatre do you have in Austra
- Page 46 and 47: In the back room Esson could feel t
- Page 48 and 49: "When we started our little theatre
- Page 50 and 51: a screen against a wall. A theatre
- Page 52 and 53: VINCENT O'SULLIVANSinging Mastery:
- Page 54 and 55: flighty relation in most statements
- Page 56 and 57: living and the dead; that places hi
- Page 58 and 59: quite diverse traditions towards th
- Page 60 and 61: WARRICK WYNNEThe Wetlands (for Liam
- Page 62 and 63: JAN OWENSmileOur mother aimed the b
- Page 64 and 65: RICHARD KELLY TIPPINGOlympic Airway
WONG PHUI NAMLast Days in HospitalAt first it was only the split skinparting from excessive dryness at the heel,showing some blood. But when the sinsehsnipped a little off the fleshand with it, the infection, I found my selfso contracted I became the pain,the heel bone that would soon show -porcelain, or pearl but for the blood.For a while, poultices helped - from crushed herbs,some days, chicken mashed live under stone pestle.These banked down the fire until an angry rednesscaught on such remains as would not wash,then bloomed, unfurled up calf and shinto make of my thin shankone tight congested melon, ready to give outits soft pulp at a touch. When the skinturned black and peeled I thoughtthe devil itself had clapped its mouth upon me.Such violence upon the flesh has left mein middle age nursing a stub,left-over portion of a leg that for a timewould wake to its own new life, but drying nowlike smoked ham, dead pink in partsnot yet going bad, it lies delicatelyamong the sheets. A cap of rough whitecotton clothed the severed end so thatthe bone in the cover of sutured flesh and skinwould not be seen to thrust upand show with too much nakednesswhere the saw a little above the right kneehad bitten through. Like any newbornit now and then will soil the sheets.WESTERLY, No.2, JUNE, 1989 15
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