This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....


Saturday 6 March 2010

The Man in Malang

(Central Java)
He stepped
from a shop doorway,
stood.

 Our eyes held.
Then I was past
in the taxi.

 A fair woman,
considered beautiful
there.

 And he
lean, dark,
piratical.

 Not Indonesian.
Too tall, curly-haired ...
a mystery.

 That was all
until, back home,
headline:

 These men missing,
believed dead.
He, centre photo.

 Portuguese engineers,
East Timor take-over
(1979).

 Already escaped
that day?
Or

 visiting
and went
back ... ?


[Poem #86]
at
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1 comment:

  1. Rosemary Nissen-Wade24 June 2019 at 14:10

    Comments from original posting:

    Pearl 13 March 2010 at 04:01
    hm, tantalizing how close we get sometimes to more of the story.

    Rosemary Nissen-Wade 13 March 2010 at 10:45
    We were both out of context. He drew my attention simply because of his incredible handsomeness. And I, as I say, was considered a great beauty there by dint of my colouring (though not at home lol) so I guess it would have been the same for him, that and a curiosity on both sides as to what this person was doing there. It wasn't a great tourist resort or anything.

    We didn't even realise East Timor had been invaded until we got home from our holiday; it happened while we were away, and we weren't listening to world news.

    There was another bit I must write about too: some friendly young soldiers at a friend's house in Surabaya, whom I later realised must have been on their way to do the invading.

    Pearl 21 March 2010 at 06:39
    wow, friendly young soldiers on their way to an invasion. funny how that can be.

    ReplyDelete

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