My poetic (ad)venture started when I turned seventy in 2012. It began casually when I expressed my birthday thanks to my guests in a poetic vein, and somehow the words flowed smoothly. I realised composing a poem was a most convenient way for me to express my thoughts as I could work within small capsules of time. I felt a great sense of relief that I could write this way and my Muse soon became my comfort and secret friend. Indeed poetry is the voice of the soul and reflects the deep emotions that lie hidden in day to day interactions.
Thus my poems are my musings on topics that take my fancy, such as ageing, women, love, food, travel, nostalgia, Peranakan culture and human foibles. They often start as recollections of vivid impressions and emotions captured, and I write them at odd moments while waiting at bus stops and clinics, and on long bus/MRT rides. My iPhone has become my notepad and my index finger my pen. This way writing is easy, quick and efficient, and I can polish up later what I have written. I also enjoy making poem cards with phone apps to send as my personalised greetings to my friends.
In the past two years, the Covid pandemic has dominated our lives, and I have written several poems about it. Below is my latest poem on the pandemic, when I heard about the threat of Omicron. I imagine a fight unto the death with a deadly enemy, but then the thought crosses my mind that man himself may have created the conditions for the emergence of the virus through his own moral degradation and abuse of the natural world.
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH!
On the birth of Omicron
The Combat
Blow for blow, come and go.
Is there a villain, or a hero?
You strike me and I fall;
I rise, get set to fend you off,
flay you, spray you to zero!
You lunge again multi-pronged,
Virulent, spikier and deadlier,
Penetrate chinks and cracks.
I am double-masked, with gloves
face shield and potent spray and vax.
I retreat, isolate, get triple-vaxxed,
run away to live and fight another day.
Now you are silent, killing in stealth,
More transmissible and more terrible,
The stakes are high, the battle cry:
Live or die, it’s either you or I!
We fight unto the death.
Long-drawn, you chip away
to make me weary, time-worn.
Can we not meet halfway,
keep out of each other’s sight,
You recognise my right,
I recognise your might
The Inquisitor
The virus mutates
using human targets
geometrically propagates.
In man’s arsenal
the hypodermic needle
injects vaccine into muscle.
But was it not man who
blackened the skies and rivers,
covered nature’s greenery
with his own greenback greed
in noxious fumes that choke
the arteries of ebb and flow
allowing toxins to root and grow?
Was it not the mighty micro
that halted the buying and selling,
that saw businesses crumble and factories sleep
and fortunes and bodies tumble in a heap,
so earth may heal again?
Did not man create the opprobrium of destruction
invent boosters as his salvation, to fight
the variable genie of his own creation?
Will mRNA harm the myocardium?
Let nature’s rivers course in rhythm,
Man’s heart and mind be in sync,
Prayer and wisdom prevail over intellect
So earth be once again in equilibrium.
3 December 2021
When in 2020 I sent out my Lunar New Year greetings, never did I imagine the year 2020 would see the emergence of a pandemic that would wreak havoc throughout the world. For the card, I had composed a shape poem for the Year of the Rat and decorated it with the photos I had taken of the Chinatown light-up.

In my greeting card for 2021, my poem At the Turn expressed my disappointment at how 2020 had turned out and my earnest hope that the uncertainties and hardships during the pandemic would lead to greater self discovery and trust in a power greater than man. Perhaps the pandemic would end, but it has continued to rage on.

Now standing at the threshold of 2022 and facing the grave danger of the latest covid variant Omicron, we need to brace ourselves in a battle for survival, so it’s ‘Once more unto the breach!’
I have just created my personalised 2021 Christmas greeting card, wishing for normal days again and that we will have the spirit of gratitude as well as resilience to take on whatever life has to offer. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

About the writer
Dr Rosemary Khoo is a retired educationist and applied linguist, and was NUS Senior Fellow at the Department of English Language and Literature. She has been involved in the cause of women’s development and seniors’ well-being, as Founding President of University Women’s Association (UWAS, now GWAS), and NUS Senior Alumni.