All joy.
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything for the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
-James 1:2-8.
It all but took
one moment
to lose one,
and to find out
another who
might not have been
worth it
all along.
By the waters…
By the waters we hung in our hammock
swaying gently to the waves of the wind
blowing out into the sea
far away to a land unseen
a dreamy place where we both hope to be.
We held each other
and whispered under the noise
of the crashing waves that reached out towards us
never really touching us
drawing back into the deep
scheming and planning and deliberating
a future beyond these shores
as we lay there at that liminal space
ready at the borders
to pounce to run to progress.
A fragment left unfinished.
Misplaced
A delusion, maybe, maybe not
something that I never thought that
would have happened.
Perhaps I took it for granted.
No I didn’t.
But in our world today,
we do not live alone
in our small little enclosed capsules,
other people live with us around us in us
and other people might think
otherwise.
Then again, people change. I am part of “people” as well,
let’s not deny it.
Trust. Friendship.
Terms of a contract? A condition or warranty?
He drops his chains and bags
leaving behind
that which left him behind
flinging away into the stars
stuff that dreams were made on
shouting
declaring
“Unfair! Unfair!”
clenched fist
raised in rebellion
the additional sway between
honour and respect
caught the tightness of his breast far between
a perspective held beyond a time
that was not his to own
or begin with
2.
Slowly teasing her slim lithe body
Light, titillating touches then say:
“Open yourself, open, and let me
Wade into your surrender today.”
Between youth and adulthood.
Possessing by letting go of things was a secret of ownership unknown to youth.
-Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn.
Old places.
The Old Campus
Still there, even after all these years, placed along
Malan Road the old campus stands
taken over by another name, another body of
students.
The tables in the canteen have been
rearranged, less clutter less closeness,
Bebop and Rocksteady’s stall taken over
by the school bookshop.
Students flutter in randomly clad in
blue and white as well but
without ties
without pleats
everyone there suspended in disbelief
that they were not there by chance
a chinky-chonky bunch floating about.
Doors have been re-labeled
the council room now a design studio,
the old carom boards cleared out along with the
photocopying auntie
and her machines and the cushy sofas
that held too many saints in escape
of “nollij’s” grasp.
Lecture theatrettes now called music studios.
Auditoriums now called lecture theatres.
I stood in front of the shut rollers that
led to the dark corridor ending with the
Geography room, but that was just
my memory telling me what was at the end
of that tunnel; my present self telling
me that I cannot and will never be sure.
Looking down between Blocks B and C,
I peered through windows that were
never there, seeing familiar tables and
chairs certain that I had used
at least some of them before.
The smells are still the same.
Arts Village still stands, the huge yellow fitness
signboard still bears that crest
of Saint Andrew’s, a reminder of
the past not yet forgotten.
I paced myself slowly through the
old Malan Road campus,
across the red-bricked quadrangle
and up the same staircases where
all of us had once run down and away
in fear of the hairy-eared Muthu
and Miss K.
There on the field, in the corner nearest
towards the Arts Village,
a patch of mimosas still thrive.
As the sun sets over the old campus,
the shadow it casts
stretches long, way beyond
into the horizons of memory.
Being tested by adversity.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
-J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address.
Pressing on.
He presses on with this labour of love, realizing he has only taken twenty-seven steps.
Fragments: 3
It is raining now.
The rain crept in
while I was dreaming,
streaks of lightning
dancing across the sky
flashing across my
sleeping face.
I feel its cooling breeze,
I feel the rain drops
wash away something deep
within me,
a cleansing flood
to raise me to the top
of some mountain
way beyond.
The shroud holds up a mirror
to me,
I peer into and through
it admist the drumming
sounds of thunder,
searching for reflections of the self.
But I see nothing
that I recognize.
The rain is getting
heavier now
lashing the earth with
its drops.
And life springs forth.
His hand trembles
uncontrollably
at the touch of those
photos,
copies long made
in his memory
perhaps never to fade away.
Ever.
Looking at them over
and over again,
he feels embarassed
at the quickening of his heartbeat.
Death drive.
Death Drive
Strings run along
webs thin and clear
death thoughts
surface
a principle a drive
taking over
pushing him closer
Il s’en veux
il voit a l’intérieur de sang
plus jamais
ne va jamais finir
l’amanite phalloïde arrive
et je pars
Living.
The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions – gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose.
-Yukio Mishima, Spring Snow.
On home.
My Country
Singapore is a painful place
to live in.
Everything changes. Nothing
ever stays the same for long.
I returned to Kim Keat
just the other day,
the place where I spent
my childhood
which just seemed not too
long ago,
like yesterday…
like last night.
New lifts had been installed.
A new multistory carpark stood in place
of the old one.
The wet market turned super.
Even the people living
in Grandma’s apartment
were foreigners-turned-permanent residents.
The first thing I saw
when I stepped into her flat
was that green clock
still there
facing the main door
looking out towards the opposite
block.
The clock had long stopped
at a quarter to four.
Who knows, perhaps in the middle of the night
never to see day again.
Three screw marks left
in the door frame,
a reminder of an altar,
a remnant of past household gods.
Not even gods can stop
this flood of change
from taking place in
this… place… this… land.
And this is only my childhood that
I speak of.
My teenage years become
unspeakable,
as I look for an unchanging
place to live out
my adulthood.
Things Breaking.
Things Breaking
As if by individual will
cracks appear over
gleaming surfaces
darkness spilling forth from
insides
into the world
beyond.
Falling down onto the
ground, upon impact,
splintering into a million
pieces
each offspring a
part of the whole.
A smell wafts from
the wreckage
a load discharged
putrifying essence covering
a human body.
Life bears no hold
nothing ever really changes.
Patchwork dolls each
of us
piece-by-piece.
What is the sound
of a mind breaking?
Start/End.
Whatever that has come to a start, can end, and whatever that has come to an end, can start again.
