when I am not writing poetry

by Pey Pey Oh

I am stalking Neil Gaiman on Twitter,
I know when he’s cutting his crazy hair;
when he walks his white dog Cabal and his
new puppy Lola;
when he saw bear shit in the Minnesotan woods.

I know that he’s been stung by the bees four times - that’s once a year
since he’s had them, or mopping up fountain pen spills on his front pocket,
I know when he is oiling pigs with his mate Wossy
and I know he only wears black T-shirts and
hates shopping for clothes. And I always know
when he’s got a tux on.

I know when he’s flying out to meet his
fiancèe Amanda Palmer who might be dressing
up right now as half a Siamese twin called Evelyn
or if he’s playing the tambourine, or the chain saw
with her at the Boston Pops, or kissing her in Poland;
I stalk them both so I can see when they tweet
“I love you” or when she hands out
pink peonies from a bouquet from his publishers,
to random Londoners.

So today I am writing poetry and stalking Neil Gaiman
on Twitter, so I know he was following the news
on Russian spy rings in New Jersey infiltrating
the PTA and the fact that in South Carolina
you must register and file a form for $5 if you wish to
overthrow the government,
But really I am thinking I’d like to try the recipe
he tweeted for cherry crumble with a whole stick of butter,
so when I am not writing poetry for the rest of today:
I’ll be baking.

© Pey Pey Oh 2010

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

Love's Altar

Love's Altar

by Pey Pey Oh

The Merry Widow’s got her red roses in the window.
She knows that love needs an altar to call it home.
She knows the symbols that sketch love’s portal open.

Heart-shaped frames, pink candles,
Rose quartz, the angora throw:
They all say, “Enter.”

Even I, who am not in the know,
Can feel the breeze in the door, the ringing phone,
The tow of the line of want, etched in the snow.

Listen to this poem:

© Pey Pey Oh 2010

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

Arcana III: What Am I Like?

Arcana III: What Am I Like?
by Pey Pey Oh

 * To My Darling Friend Kenny Mah: Happy Birthday *

“One day, the burning tower will stop burning and I will stop falling out of windows, will stop being hit with bricks, will stop choking on smoke. I’ll stagger out taking deep breaths and bandages.”

- Only in my Dreams

I donʼt wish it
On anyone but,
I AM the Tower.
If you meet me,
Watch out:
The strike is coming and
Your life will never
Be the same,
I am the agent of Change.
The sound of walls
Collapsing,
Everywhere: Fire.
Underneath,
Drip drip drip,
Erosion.

Thereʼs always Water,
At the Heart of the matter:
I am a maiden
Looking at her naked self.
Reflection.
Frankly, itʼs where
I Am always
Hoping to return,
This distant light–
On desolate shores.

I want to be that
Cool drink at
The end
Of the long road.
Nurturing the earth.
That place between
Moon and magician.
That place between
Dream and creation.
The secret knowledge,
Behind the curtain of
Pomegranates.

Both foolish
And angelic,
I want to laugh
At the edge of the cliff,
To know if the dream
Of the butterfly is true,
With only a small dog
Of caution nipping at
My heels.

Apprentice to
The alchemy
Of opposites,
I want to know how to take
The measures,
To be fractured into
Colours by the sun,
To dispense healing
Potions to everyone.

Listen to this poem:


© Pey Pey Oh 2010


Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

New York, Thanksgiving

New York, Thanksgiving

by Pey Pey Oh

“This is a soldier’s kiss”- Antony and Cleopatra

A soldier’s kiss is one that knows
No moment but this.

You move through the world like there’s a war,
Paying a poet’s price.

In haloes of mist and light,
Ranks of trees lean and turn from me,
Looming clear, then dim, in the dawn.

~

I am the girl at the train station,
Throwing flowers,
Waiting for furlough.

I am the girl at the train station,
Shaking the chuff and steam of goodbye,
From the long hair I kept for you.

~

Dried leaves running,
Frightened scurries before the wind,
The only color in gunmetal greyness.

The round sun like a moon in the morning,
The taste of your soldier’s kiss.

© Pey Pey Oh 2009


Listen to this poem:

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

Arcana II

Arcana II: The Question of control

by Pey Pey Oh

Magic’s about taking that stuff of the universe,
Molding it like putty. Here I am again,
Free of self-sacrifice but not the pain
of balance, doomed to traverse the fine line;
With or without the blindfold, it still hurts.

The lady with the scales, she has to be
My dark sister, can you see our arms shake, tense
with the ache of responsibility,
The right angle of the lion’s jaw holds him still,
Twin shooting pains from wrist to elbow: I have the beast’s
Hot breath, his slippery tongue –
She, the cold weight of metal: knowing
How to thrust right-handed must upset
The level poise of her cool demeanour.

The sun shines upon our like endeavour,
I may be small but I’m strong,
Sometimes I don velvet gloves to disguise
My steely grip on the task at hand.
She puts on her pretty dress and tiara,
No one guesses at her ruthlessness.
Maybe we don’t need to advertise
The speed of our response,
Or our boundary’s star.

The answer to this question
Is a bound man hanging from a tree that’s the world.
His willingness astounds me.
I know if he stays there long enough
he’ll hear all the answers
whispered to him by that serpent
endlessly devouring itself.

The advice is simple:
Balance. Nurture. Be Yourself. Patience. Trust
the High Priestess.
She’s the poster girl on my wall,
the rightness
coalesced,
The woman with the book.

© Pey Pey Oh 2009

Listen to this poem:

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

Arcana I

Arcana I

by Pey Pey Oh

Today the cards say,
I used to be a woman wrestling with lions.
Tangling with my shadow self day after day.
Who was she?
That smug empress under the pink blossom,
The mother of the world, harmonious harbinger.

I am amazed they have the same face and the same hair.
The lady with the lion has got a good grip.
Razor teeth, silky mane packing some solid muscle,
I, too, live in this lion’s den and wrestle daily with him.

In the now, I’m on a journey to get where I am going –
The chariot has no reins; the horses, prone to stampeding.
I have to lash them to my will and coax their velvet noses
With only my bare and capable hands, and my stubbornness.
Behind me lies the ruined tower, lightning struck
The empty house, the fragile self.

The outcome to this story, well it’s bright:
Flowers flourish under bright rays of gold,
Blessing this maker of dreams, roses under his feet.
Raising the wand of creation,
The magician’s bold, his cup
Runneth over, and infinity is sweet.

© Pey Pey Oh 2009

Listen to this poem:

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read atReadings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.

"Summer Storms the Flowering Fennel" by Pey Pey Oh

Summer Storms the Flowering Fennel

by Pey Pey Oh

Tall green many-fingered Mother Goddess,
With your delicate gecko hands lifted in
Supplication to the sun and wind,
Open and feeling each tumbling ray and tearing breath,
Even as it roars up the hill,
Bending you in submission,
Nothing to gainsay it,
Nothing in its way,
No rock or pylon or tower,
The view is clear all the way to the river.

In this louring light, you glow–
Unearthly gold and bronze, a martian tinge,
The strength of your hollow stem whips tensile.
Fronds feather each blast and
Breathe it through your frame.
No wonder the fire of gods
Came to us in your womb,
Smuggled to us in the night;
Nothing can extinguish your grace.
Let me learn it, this suppleness,
Give me your queenly strength
And patience with the world's denizens,
Let me wear each raindrop,
Like diamonds in your umbrel crown.


© 2008 Pey Pey Oh


Creative process: Pey Pey Oh: I have to take a run up to it and spend a few days talking, reading and writing poetry, as I'm usually out of my head trying to organise family life. So today I was just dreaming and watching the Fennel wave at me outside in the stormy weather, and I got into a trancy state; and I wanted to be this rather majestic plant. And so. I'm afraid I don't plan it much. I might sit on it a bit before I take it out to see if it needs an edit. Oh, and I read a lot, that's crucial to my creative process. Sometimes I use words I didn't know I knew, but I obviously read it somewhere.

Pey Pey Oh has been published in various small magazines along the way, like the ones universities publish, or Magma. Mainly she has a problem sending out things by snail mail, so if she can't hand it to you or send you an email, she's in trouble. She likes plants a lot, especially if they're aromatic, but she's really bad at watering them. Good thing it rains a lot in UK where she lives. She likes coming and hanging out with the Malaysian Poets once a year when she visits home, and loves to read at Readings. Plus, she also likes to go eating with the Food Bloggers, that's her other best activity which makes her feel more Malaysian. One of her ambitions is that she'd like to be "Awae wi' tha faeries" - and that's with a Scots accent - but mostly she's a lazy cat that needs a kicking by her friends to send out stuff. So, she thanks everyone.