A Rowsing start
By kevin martens wong zhi qiang
originally published Friday, 14 april 2023
on tigri sa chang
Koitadu | Content warning
Please first read about my writing in the Skribadorang or Writing section on the Igleza page here before reading the piece below so you have advance warning about the rather spicy things that I often like to write about, and why I choose to write about them, especially in terms of subverting unhealthy stereotypes about gay people, Kristang people, Creole people, Indigenous people, masculinity, neurodivergence, the body, healthy forms of attraction and sexuality, and using my writing to process the severe individual, collective and inter-generational trauma and abuse I have faced across my life.
A gentle heart,
far too clever by far,
a bigger bugger than ever's been known this side of Malaya, I'll tell you.
I don't know anything about you;
I've never even heard of who you are—
but trust me,
mark my words:
You're going to be a star.
I would have loved for you to be me, of course,
playing around with minor fifths and a deep sense of loss;
but you're Eurasian as hell; hell —
you'll make your own secret sauce.
And since you're gay
you better slop it all over them;
that's the kind of great-grandson I'm talking about,
that I want to hear stories of, all around the house.
Do you know how long she missed me, little lion player?
Every single day; she needed to see her
great, big, discombobulated tiger.
You don't know what it's like until you're gone forever.
But you know what?
She never said never, my little macho Martens man:
she never said they would ever get to her,
and you know what?
They never did.
When she taught you Kristang,
it was all she had left,
but it was enough.
It gave you everything and more to be tough.
To love with the steel of Edwin and Reggie, and to love taking it rough.
Let them be, mixed-up Martens, you're as melodious as they come:
you learned from the best.
You are undoubtedly, and will always be,
your great-grandfather's island in the sun.
Maybe the horse put very far before the cart;
maybe the best the Eurasians have ever had
as a new, and very much desired, glorious headstart.
For my great-grandfather Frederick Joseph "Tommy" Rowsing Martens, 1888-1944