RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds)

THE COYOTE AND THE MOUSE

While not a poet of great renown

Perhaps I relate to you a story with a frown

As a golf course Marshall my job can be seen as akin to a diplomat

Keeping the pace of play

Making impatient golfers happy and gay

I have a numbing early morning shift on a Saturday

Believe you I’d rather be sleeping away

But being mostly alone on this early morning shift

Natural beauty is not to be missed

Deer, rabbits, fox, falcons and increasingly lean and hungry coyotes

And in front of me a coyote joyfully playing

Oh my isn’t that creature cute!

Dancing, prancing and tossing something up in the air

My goodness it’s a mouse and but a part of the coyote’s deadly game

The brave mouse on his hind legs for a final defence

But he is no Repicheep from Chronicles of Narnia

And is gobbled up

The coyote smiles as he witnesses my horror and fascination

and trots away

Just another hunting day

And blissfully ignorant to what I have seen

The golfers continue their game

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Japanese Literature: Where Art and Poetry are Born (Natsume Sōseki)

“If you work by reason, you grow rough-edged; if you choose to dip your oar into sentiment’s stream, it will sweep you away. Demanding your own way only serves to constrain you. However you look at it, the human world is not an easy place to live.

And when its difficulties intensify, you find yourself longing to leave that world and dwell in some easier one- and then when you understand at last that difficulties will dog you wherever you live, this is when poetry and art are born.”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

RKS Russian Literature: Russian Upper Class Corrupted by French Language (Nikolay Gogol)

“It is not inappropriate to observe that the conversation of both ladies was interlarded with a great many foreign words and sometimes entire long sentences in French. But however filled the author is with veneration of the salutary benefits conferred on Russia by the French language, however filled with veneration towards our higher society’s praiseworthy custom of expressing itself in French at every hour of the day, out of a deep feeling of love for our fatherland, of course, still, all that notwithstanding, he cannot bring himself to introduce a sentence from any foreign language, whatever it may be, into this Russian poem of his. And so, we shall continue in Russian.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: Lady Pleasant in All Respects (Nikolay Gogol)

“This name she had received in a legitimate manner, for, indeed, she spared nothing to make herself amiable to the nth degree. Although, of course, through the amiability there would dart-oh! a sudden flash of the female character! And although sometimes out of every pleasant word of hers there would stick!-oh! such a pin. And God protect us from what was seething in her heart against any woman who somehow and in some way insinuated herself into the front ranks! But all that was cloaked in the most refined manners that could possibly be found in a provincial capital. Every movement she made was in good taste, she even liked poetry, she even sometimes knew how to hold her head in a dreamy manner, and all agreed that she was indeed a Lady Pleasant in All Respects.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: ON MY WAY TO BE AN “INFLUENCER”? SAYONORA VIETNAMESE GENTLEMEN

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: ON MY WAY TO BE AN “INFLUENCER”?  SAYONORA VIETNAMESE GENTLEMEN

My winning the fixed Singapore Westie of the Year contest was an attempt to make me “a prized commodity” as Bobby Jr. put it. Why I didn’t know.

That spiny black toad incident that nearly sent me to The Land Beyond became a media event in Cambodia. The story was carried on National Television of Cambodia (TVK) and in Toronto on the “ethnic network” known as OMNI on some Cambodian news programme.

Additionally, all networks in Singapore covered the story, as after all, “Cuddlecakes” was a (fabricated) Singaporean West Highland Terrier.

At our last evening at Sofitel Angkor Phokeethra Golf and Spa Resort the hotel’s manager arranged a farewell poolside dinner with an “important guest” the deputy chair of Cambodian Tourist Board (CTB) who offered me a key role in promoting tourism to Siem Reap, specifically Angkor Wat. Bobby Jr., beginning to look very pained, thanked the deputy chair and said some time was required to consider the offer.

The hotel manager proposed naming our suite “Cuddlecake Suite” and that a new house champagne at “Explorer’s Tales”, the hotel’s champagne bar, would have its label feature my picture! Again, Bobby Jr. requested some time to consider the offer.

The manager had brought in a local Khmer dance troupe to entertain us as a post meal treat. What a colourful performance but after its conclusion the cause of Bobby Jr.’s pained face was revealed. Prior to our dinner his mother Madame Fong phoned him to tell him the two Vietnamese Gentleman had been murdered in Haiphong. Someone was on a murder spree and we had just met with all four of the victims!

RKS Russian Literature: Women Showing Their “Possessions” to Lead a Man to Ruin (Nikolay Gogol)

“The waists were pulled tight, with contours that were very firm, and pleasing to the eye (it must be noted that in general, all the ladies that lived in the town that will remain nameless were rather plump, but laced themselves so artfully and had such pleasant manners that their stoutness escaped all notice). Everything about them had been planned and premeditated with uncommon foresight; their necks and shoulders were exposed precisely as much as was necessary and no more; each lady bared her possessions to the point where she felt, according to her own lights, that they were capable of leading a man to ruin. All the rest was held in reserve with exquisite taste……

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: Dreadful and Fearsome Old Age (Nikolay Gogol)

“The fiery youth of today would recoil in horror if you were to show him a portrait of himself in old age, So take with you on your journey, as you emerge from the tender years of youth into harsh, coarsening manhood, take with you all the human impulses, do not leave them along the way, you will not be able to pick them up later! Dreadful and fearsome is the old age which will come, for it gives nothing back, nothing in return. On the grave will be written: ‘Here lies a man!’ but you will read nothing in the cold, unfeeling features of inhuman old age.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: Plyuskin the Miserly Estate Owner/Part TWO (Nikolay Gogol)

“Far more noteworthy was his attire. By no means or efforts could one ascertain what his dressing gown had been concocted from: the sleeves and upper parts had become so dirty and shiny that they resembled the black-tarred leather used for boots; dangling from the back were four flaps instead of two, with cotton stuffing leaking out of them. Wound round his neck was something, whether a stocking, or a garter, or a stomacher could not be made out; but certainly, it was not a cravat. In a word, had Chichikov encountered him so attached by the doors of a church, he probably would have given him a copper coin.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: Plyuskin the Miserly Estate Owner/Part One (Nikolay Gogol)

“At this our hero could not help but step back and stare at him intently. He happened to have seen many people of every kind, even such as the reader and I will perhaps never have occasion to see: but he had never yet set eyes on anyone like this one. The face was nothing special; it was almost the same as that of many gaunt old men, except that the chin jutted out so far that he had to cover it with a handkerchief to keep from slobbering it whenever he spat. His tiny little eyes had not yet dimmed, and they darted about from under his high bushy eyebrows like mice, when thrusting their sharp little snouts from their dark holes, pricking up their ears and twitching their whiskers out to see whether a cat or mischievous boy was lurking in wait somewhere, and give the air a suspicious sniff,”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: The Sticky Nature of a Personal Nickname (Nikolay Gogol)

“Strongly indeed do Russian people express themselves! And if they bestow a particular epithet on someone, it will become part of his lineage and posterity, he will drag it around him into his place of work, and into his retirement, and to Petersburg, and to the ends of the earth. And however cunningly he may later contrive to ennoble his nickname, however he may compel the fraternity of scribblers, for monetary recompense, to derive it from an ancient princely family, nothing will avail; of its own the nickname will croak forth at the top of its crow’s voice and clearly proclaim the nest from which the bird has flown.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.