blessed cny (:

Other places

“人在千里，家在心里” - 徐子淳

Within the Atlantis of my mind are many chambers, filled with familiar winds,
voices brimming with questions we never stop asking: Papa, where are we? Why aren’t we
home yet? Will we be there soon? to which there are no answers. Only doors to other cities,
where the walls are adorned with portraits of here: old teachers and friends, perhaps
even family; the strangers in whom we discover companionship. I meet and know
the old man who used to lean from the window of his flat at ten thirty (invariably during Math),
his gaze stopping short of the shutters of our classroom; the lady selling the morning-
daily at the train station as I find, then make, my way to work; the nurse who will pass,
finally, by my bedside and mark the weeks during those anticipated, graying days.
Some have names: Ali from Muthu’s Curry, whom we always suspected, but couldn’t be sure,
was a brother of the latter; Diane from the bank, whom we have never met, but who sends us
a card and three brochures each time either of us has a birthday; even Mr. Eng
from Father’s hurried past, who turned up when we bade him goodbye. From nowhere
wafts a scent of toothpaste and lemongrass, distinct but unpenetrating, drawing me
through streets at once tender and unknown, strewn with toys I once thought I’d lost:
the copper coin, pressed and printed, that flipped into the drain; the cloth bear Mother hid
once I was old enough to sleep alone; the howling shell washed away by my first brush
with the sea. These are reasons enough to believe that here is not only where I grew up,
but why; that I might, someday, return and know: all there ever is to another place
is selfsame home, through which runs lengthwise a trackless road that finds no rest.

another one!

grandmother stories

we are remembered in her forgotten tales, returned

to her quiet solace in amnesiac words and worlds gently

calling us between comebacks,

drawing us from afternoon naps that cannot

last forever. unwillingly filial at first,

we soon uncover strange prodigality

chained like a jade pendant to curiosity,

a piety frail and spidery as the fingers we grasp

sitting cross-legged by her good ear

struggling behind her dialect and

straining to let no syllable slip

from her slow unhurried beat.

rapt and reverent,

we trace the edges of her past

round the contours of her face

as her dentures scrape the stories from the

corners of her gums –

there they sit, embedded,

golden in the dark,

streets without names that map the paths

of her memory on our history

leaving wrinkles at the intersections.

---

we imagine, we see

the alley she was born in,

the corners she played and prayed,

the markets where she learnt to tell

her pomfret from garoupa, each old and buried place

an almanac of home. in her telling and retellings

we unearth slow-boiled concoctions of

her ancient remedies, otherwise prescribed

to the absence of landmarks

in the abscesses of her time.

occasionally we find potholes,

burnt into her path by tears

that answered prayers for rain, their

hollow monotony carving

ridges in her hands. those were our childhood nurseries

many times removed,

the puddles that once cupped with joy

mother, Uncle Kenny and

Shanghai-emigrated Aunt

as they grew up by her side,

pushed to fly the egret path,

then come home for the winter.

---

at once we sense courage

laced with quiet aged care,

the way her charismatic eyes

swirl grey with cataracts, their emanating hope

still shining in the fluorescence

of our now-adopted remembrance.

we are suddenly characters ourselves,

more transformed than absorbed

as we listen to her parables and find

fragments of familiar trees

woven through their canopy. Somehow subconsciously,

we lean closer and demand for more

as if we were children again

asking for stories.

a poem in a while (:

After Father.

saturday lunches my mother’s hands
are invariably porridge-wrinkled
and garlic-stained. sprinklings adhere

to quiet corners of her skin,
fragments of spring onion
burying their heads in her grey skirt

her jade bracelet sieves
the ashen sunlight in coconut milk
throwing a halo on the bare wall

cracked as the lips
that once kissed me, then fragrant
with steam and affection

two sparrows or three
grace the windowsill
drinking the fingers of a wind

still cold with veiled morning
suspended above the empty bowl
at the head of the table

like conversation or drying laundry
draped piece by piece
limp in the midday sun.

burrow through the ground to the other side of night

Borrowed four volumes of poetry from the school library yesterday and i've been spending my time reading them. i'm beginning to see the parallels between local literature and my school library - both actually DO have good writing; the words just take some time to unearth.

1) One Fierce Hour - Alfian Sa'at: This precious book now resides in hands even more precious than mine, but it was thoroughly enjoyed during the two hours (read: History and Chem lessons) where I read the entire collection twice, first in awe and then in reflection. shocking, witty, occasionally homosexual but mostly criminal, this is one wicked, satrical read that destroys everything you thought being singaporean was and is.

2) 100 poems - E. E. Cummings: What Sa'at does with words, Cummings does with line breaks and even word breaks. This book forms a concise and detached description of love that actually does not desecrate love.

3) The Music of Human Flesh - Mahmoud Darwish: This volume deserves special mention because it was written in arabic about the palestinian struggle and translated into the invaders' language. It is more than a book about culture; it is an insider's view of cruelty and oppression in stark language.

4) Days of No Name - Boey Kim Cheng: Leaving the best for the last is something i do often, and these poems match up to Sa'at's in terms of power but reserve a warm simplicity. Deeply inspired by nature, cooking, fine art, music and life in general, here is one true artist who is unafraid of the unknown.


Lent "Night Train to Lisbon" to jie and "Sympathy" to joanna; started reading "The Silence of the Lambs" from Kengyi and just got "The Lovely Bones" from Pat today :D i am a happy person!


"And she threw into the camera
twenty gardens
and the birds of galilee
And continued searching beyond the sea
for a new meaning to truth.
- My homeland is a clothes-line
for the handkerchiefs of blood
shed every minute
and i stretch out on the shore
as sands and palm trees."

Birds Die In Galilee - from The Music of Human Flesh by Mahmoud Darwish

Child

Child, you step in

shallows and shells

gather at your feet, where

waves of churning wisdom

thinly salted with your charm

wash your darling tears away

and kiss your baby skin; you cup

some of ocean’s power

in between your tiny palms, and you

wonder at the water dripping

from your fingertips –

worlds escaping from your grasp

run in droplets down your arms

I snap your picture, standing

there between the sun and sand

and wonder how you ever will

be tainted by the world;

but that is far from me to judge

I leave you standing here in awe,

a poem of your naiveté resting

on the tongue of God

churchcamp!

Dear Readers -

Here's a slightly angsty poem i wrote at church camp:


Rocks

The girl on the beach asks me
if I can take her to the rocks
where I sat to watch my
memories kill themselves with
each futile crash
the day before yesterday.

I smile, wistfully, and decline.
There are some places
where you can only go
to watch yourself die
once.


But life is short, and i won't waste it!

Came across this quote today: "Living is more than a skill, it is an art." I think i'm far from mastering it, but in searching for simplicity and happiness i think i'm getting closer, day by day.

A huge thank you to lanabel, kengyi, pat, jess, jo, john, bum, uday, zyl and the other church friends + CAPpers for helping me get through this week!


Below are some of the other little observations that I made at church camp; enjoy!


Road to Port Dickson

We roll along, snail-paced
and men with faster wishes pass us by.
If I tied my dreams to a carriage,
would they run so wild and free?

Or will they drift,
as we do now,
with only trees by the wayside
for greeting?


Away

The soft-boiled sunset
dripping across the plantations
beckons us from our
gilded cages.

We fly down highways,
past billboards,
crunching gravel away from home.

Even ice-cream tastes better
when we are on holiday.


Home

Nasi lemak for breakfast;
we sit and talk
of how to cook kambong with belachan,
of the distance between Uncle’s office and Great World City,
and of relatives back in China.

Eleven Singaporeans
clustered at a round table –
we re-create a coffee-shop.


Childhood

There is no sunrise
in the clashing of the waves;
the golden pastel fades into the
sky behind me as I stare
out towards the sea,

and am reminded of
many childhoods, of cycling down
crowded jetties at full speed
and dangling feet in
many waters, of calling
seabirds as they passed and
seeing seashells on seashores.


Before the Dawn

The clouds part;
a seagull steals the promise
from the sunrise
and the lighthouse
paints over it with its strobes.

Some say the waves
dashing the rocks at my feet
are persistent, but I say
they have reached
the end of their journeys –

No better place for an end
than on the shore
before the dawn.

The Straight Times Editor

Time

Raindrops fall like acupuncture –
sticking to skin,
thinking for a moment,
then falling off.

How strange it is, that the souls
these raindrops hit
have little time to stop and think
even for a moment –

They pace down whitewashed corridors,
spouting words they do not know
and scolding their children for not
dotting the ends of sentences,

which contain unfinished thoughts
(that aren’t allowed either, because they waste time).
They run from room to room and check their phones on the way,
because they might’ve missed a business call.

They walk past yellowing plants which are thrown into pots
and expected to live, like
thoughts that are formed in busy minds
but not given breathing space.

Busier than raindrops,
they do what they’ve abeen told to do,
and forget
to make time.

Bus rides to nowhere.

A piped-in soundtrack
disagrees with
the music from my walkman phone
as well as the notes that still
scamper across my mind –
leftovers from
the morning’s practice.

A cacophony that
embraces my thoughts –
of sojourns to nowhere,
forbidden love,
and unfinished homework.


---


Faded signs advertise
an internet café
next to a forgotten bistro
and a hawker of memories
in the form of traditional biscuits –

These are yesterday’s
foods for the soul
for different people
alone the same road.


---


He liked live recordings
because the music had
more atmosphere, or perhaps
it was the spirit of
performance and communication
that invigorated him.

But she liked studio music
because she didn’t like
his applause
spoiling her soundtrack.


---


The creative moments occur
in transit –
the crowded train, empty bus,
or even the barren path
are sources of inspiration.

Perhaps it’s because
these places afford us
a temporary detachment
from the things
we’ve been told to think.

MRT.

A social studies lecture once

told me; that we stick to

one another for protection

and for companionship.

 

But here where we call home,

protection and companionship

exist where we brace ourselves

for train-rides home, pretending

to sleep and praying not to be

recognized. Where our faces are painted

with less expression

than traffic lights.

 

It is these evening pilgrimages

that we think of when we say

“heartland”, the sights of huddling

strangers, and the sounds

of fake voices.

---

A couple mutters in Cantonese,

hoping nobody catches

their secret nothings.

 

The irony is that

there is no-one to hear them,

amidst the automated speeches,

hearts clamoring for

more standing space, and

Sony-Ericsson Walkman earphones,

blocking the banter,

surround sound.

 

The couple go on whispering

their unnoticed love.

---

Children learn to read,

cross-legged on non-descript seats.

It is not a mother who teaches them,

but a storybook.

 

Elsewhere, parents look away

as teenagers bury their heads

in handphones. The antisocial one?

Not my kid.

 

Adults bow their heads

in pretended rest. A long

day of paperwork is

simply too much. 

words.

It is a warm night.
We ponder words, and their place in language –
how warmth describes not only the
way your heart embraces empty space,
but also the heat of memories
flying to and fro through dark sky and stark moonlight.
We study how
‘a’ comes before ‘warm night’
because there can only be
this many remembrances;
and how the nameless ‘it’
is dangled in front,
because we don’t know if there is any other thing
that memory can mean,
or bring.

- Thank you L'angel.