TENGGARA / APRIL 1968
Dept. of English-Univ of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia
abdul latiff :
poems from his note book
Translated by Adibah Amin
POEMS FROM HIS NOTE BOOK
waiting
casuarina tree
dies awaiting
north wind
at river's edge
north wind
at day's end
old crow
awaiting death
casuarina tree
at river's edge
casuarina tree
at finger's end
mekong river
I
mekong river
i choose your name
for i am desolate
i shall plunge my breast
down to your bed
right leg to the moon
left leg to the sun
my heart shall drift
with your waters
my name to the sea
my voice to the mountains.
II
mekong river
now tranquil your breath
how untroubled your gait
now untroubled your gait
on your bank
a mother's voice calls forlorn
for the voice of a lost son
when she lovers her face
against your face
you can still smile at ease.
III
mekong river
end the day-dance your ripples!
i see down in your bed
buds bleeding
pebbles wounded
tonight
a storm shall come from the north
your banks shall break
your waters shall run red
and your current shall rage more violent
than Nigeria.
a blue bus
a blue bus
without number without driver
crawls
amidst vehicles
blood-smeared.
if it stops
before me
i shall buy
a blue ticket
without humour without song.
saudara,
the time has come
for me to step forward
the ticket I bought
feels hot in my hand.
the blue bus
has opened its door
the time has come
for me
to know suffering.
old river
as desolationb stabs the breast
the old river hobbles on
from village to village
whose people have long ago
cast their faces to the city
whose butterflies have long ago
lost their rainbow colours.
when your bank slide away
when your villages slide away
give your tears of desolation
to the jungle dogs
who have lost the moon they hunted
to the messengers birds
who have lost the continent they loved. []
ABOUT PAINTER-POET
ABDUL LATIFF
Abdul Latiff was born in Lenggeng, Negri Sembilna, 26 yeras ago.
He has been painting ever since he left school. He received formal training in art when he spent four years at the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts. His most recent one-man exhibitions were held in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore in 1967 and early 1968. Latiff is an uncom-promising painter. There appear to be in his work hints of a deliberate search to give expression in long forgotten forms of vitality in the Southest Asian environment, an aim which gives his paintings and sketches their unmistakeable air.
It is not generally known that Latiff is also a poet of some distinction. His poems here appeared in the Indonesian journal Horizon edited by Mochtar Lubis, and have won the regard of many Indonesian readers. The limpid style of Latiff's poems carries, at the same time, a starting kind of force suggestive of the quality
of his commitment to his art. TENGGARA
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