wb :

as far as possible
should be made on a sunshiny day
be careful of them.
they're sweet, but burn easily.
tend to get jammed
and land the maker
in all sorts of sticky
situations with bees, especially
if you involve honey


but the best thing is
that they can be flipped
without ripping the fabric
of anything. also
they are the anti-thesis
of undulating
so you don't need to
run up hills
to go blackberry picking.


don't go bananas
making them; no need
to batter yourself
if you don't get
the proportions right.
it's rare to get
the sunny
side up first time
around

you sat there like an unmoveable brick
wall; you who used to be
such a brick


this decision is final and concrete. No
amount of termite infestation
can crumble it.


the gardeners seem intent on weeding out
deep-rooted fate; decomposing leaves,
thorns in spades


but they leave the strawberry memories;
the seeing red, capped with green.
so amongst the refuse,


i keep the turf wars, entangled vines, and
ungerminated seeds. after the rain,
surely someone


will need this place to plant stalks
again

all plants grow up. unlike
human beings. be they tomatoes,
grapes, or plums, water them
for peace, or the shoots will
anarchy. even so

it sucks to be a plant. you can't
run from invaders, or dance
can't sing in the rain,
zap leeches or jump.
foxes have a tendancy

towards jealousy. but at least
they can eat grapes and
comment on them negatively
all the fruit can do is
telepathy
sourness so they'll flee

Another day, another story.
She tilts her head at her pet dory-
"What happens now, my drop of glory?

What bubbles in your damp history?"
It gulped. She frowned; "You blasted Tory-
another day, another story,

Your fishy life is old and hoary-
And when your time finds Purgatory,
What happens then, my drop of glory?"

It turned its back, the Monsignore,
And took of kelp its inventory.
Another day, another story;

She went to bed and woke up sorry-
Her fish had died, consumed with worry.
That happened to her drop of glory;

She plunged on downward, twenty-storey,
And ended on the concrete, gory.
Another day, another story-
Thus happened then, her drop of glory.

-~-

Surprisingly existentialist, given the silly mood I was in when I wrote this.

Don't turn from the hues in the sky-
Let its darkly purpling iridescence
compose
into a liquid glow
that distracts your eye

From ricochets of lovers' feet,
clock-work crescendos down the boulevard.

You will catch their mingling melodies
of rose wine? candle light? dinners
along the Champs Elysees
As they sweep past you,
and slot themselves places
methodically,
guided by the bored hand
of some somnolent Cupid.

But wait until the light has cleared-
Tune into turgid indigo skyscape
Then slowly stroll away
solitary
from the vacuumed vestige
of the melting sun.

Hey guys, Ryan here. I know I haven't actually been writing here, but I wanted to give you guys a little heads up about a new project of mine before I start send out e-mails.

A friend and I (Matthew Reuben, for those who know him) are working on a new collection of local writing. It's going to be fresh, exciting, and it's going to be published in print (read: on paper, in an actual book). We're looking for sponsorship from NAC and everything, so it's pretty exciting.

Of course, first we need pieces, and that's where you come in. I'm sure all of us here have stories floating around in our heads waiting to be pinned unto paper. Well, this is your chance.

is not yesterday's
orange julius and caesar
salad. it might be the cold gulf
or this post-war depression

it is the absence
of cats basking in sunshine; the
lack of umbrellas on a very
rainy day. it is the unseen

puddles that ruined the best
pair of jeans you owned; natural
disasters, storms and water-bombs.
don't bother cleaning up;

life is just another infectious
disease; you climb great walls
and soldier on. tomorrow may not
see you over the moon, but

you might see some stars soon.

you're full of hot air;
flying high above
many parties,
above oceans
of hair

just be careful of
the mountain-peaks
of the rigs of ships
of the passing
of weeks

remember to check
the weather, mate
for when pressure
increases, or there's
too much

on one's plate
one tends to deflate

greenly glisten in the sunlight;
boldbeaks wing-tucked, beadeyes sleep-struck.
like beached scallops in the seabright
are these senseless, careless ditchducks.

they snooze from dawn till afternoon
and still, their languid sleepwakes’s late.
more endless dreamdoze follows soon;
these birds shall grace my dinner plate!

Based on Malory's Morte Arthur. I wanted to have a go at the Anglo Saxon style, heavy on alliteration and compound words. Blogger didn't allow spacing hence the cut-&-paste. Click to enlarge.

spring came again
with rain in your hair;
tulipped bedsheets on chairs
drying in the sun. without
the life-support of heaters,
the freezer froze over.
little snowmen live now
amongst the fish and the
fowl. they have carrots
for noses; snowfights by
the dim rim of the
kitchen light, cheered
on by birthday cakes
and leftover mold.
i open the door,
but no sign of life
just plastic wrapped
hunks of meat
and their rapidly approaching
expiry dates.

i woke up to a world
in black and white;
knew exactly what
to do. the only shade
in between was chocolate
so i had some of that too.
i could catch words
before they flew out
lighted up like fireflies
stop phrases from
whizzing down waterslides.
i could do anything;
eat fire, change the
seasons, or bring on
the ice age - still the
zebras would always elude me.

as we walked through the jardins des tulleries
spying on lovers kissing, trying to imagine
streetlights and moon as fountains and sun
and children sailing paper boats -


i did not think of the oily fool
twisting things like spaghetti round his fork
and spoon. i did not think of the many-hued
statues filling up the museum behind us


stuck in eternal bliss, or famous paintings
i completely missed; only amazed at the
dinner of internal organs playing their
strange symphony to accompany beliefs


i'd never allowed myself to believe in, fitting
perfectly into the hollows
of the gardens, the morose shapes of trees, the
flowers we can't see because it's the wrong season.

To Alcohol!- the cause of, and solution
To all my tears and laughter on this night,
To all life's problems, and their resolutions!

You ask, my friend, what caused my grim submission
To whims of fate?- Why only my delight
Is Alcohol? Well. The cause of, and solution

To young boys' woes is purposeful distraction,
And that was she! Oh, such a pretty sight
To end life's problems! So my resolutions

Were broken, and I drank intoxication,
I gasped her scent, I called her name at night
O'er alcohol, the cause of, and solution-

Aflame, it came, enraged- our dissolution,
And where she stood, just wind, and winter night,
And one life's problems, and no resolutions.

So drink with me! O, drink to this rambunction!
No better time to glory in our plight!-
To Alcohol! that cause, that fierce solution
To all life's problems, and their resolutions!

O Sun! What wakes your eye each day anew
And turns it over every sleeping stone,
Each lake, each tree, each blade of grass you grew?
What calls you to your fief when winds have flown,
When shadows cross your barony have blown?
What greatnesses your gaze had turned to scry?
What sights might waver your immortal eye?

O Sun! Within your luminous purview,
Out of the clay our shivering limbs have grown;
Those very hands wrought boats from fallen yew,
And where they fell, the seeds of cities sown;
Slaves to your seasons, yet your light disown,
And beauty artificed, as though we shy
What sights might waver your immortal eye!

O Sun! In fear, your symmetry we drew,
But pride our breasts had swelled, and none bemoan
Your blinded back, as all our sins accrue-
The starved and sick upon the altar groan,
While in their palaces, the rest atone;
O judge, accomplice, jury! As we cry-
What sights might waver your immortal eye?

O Sun! Your servants, we, have stared at you,
And seen a haughty king upon his throne!-
And we, conspiring of your power, drew
The fire and the sword you bore alone,
Usurped your crown, your reins!- O, had we known
The vastness that you stared, we would not vie
What sights might waver your immortal eye.

the laptop hums strangely
like a warm disaster
should've known then
that you would
hurtle off-key
once the playlist
shuffles track

count ships. it won't
be easy, for they like
to pass unnoticed
in the night


but they're better
than their woolly-headed,
monosyllabic
counterparts

there are many ways
you could do this


reach out a tentacle
suckered with doubts


release pools of
dark-inked missives


school yourself not
to be so clownfish


clam up and refuse
to shell out anything


or decide it's
too fishy and give up


before you finish
counting


the waves in which
you love him

invisible launchpad
to mars; mornings ascending
with the dark skies.
this isn't rocket science,
they commonly teach.
which would've been better;
space-suits, or fire-proof
pinafores? for

gatherings under the
fluorescent lights; final
checks; what's your take-off
strategy? spacing out,
sitting down suddenly, i miss a few
good-luck hugs. but
they forgive me
and my starry nights

what on earth were we
thinking about, taking those
flights? Probably trying
for pegasus not icarus;
going towards winter
not the eternal summer of the
sun. And as we farewell through
static radio waves, floating we
lose all sense of gravity

A quiet, unassuming man, he had no family- that he would speak to me of, at least- no job, for his retirement was a cosy one, no vices that might barter a year of breath for a night of brazenness, not even a hobby peculiar to men built as him- for he was built right between the jolly, redfaced heftiness of a woodcutter, the wiry, bearded strength of a fisherman, or the stately, supple grace of a watchmaker; as he opened the door that morning, he greeted me with a pensive smile, and took my hand with his own, as wrinkled as the book-spines on his shelf, and callused as the logs that made the walls of his cottage in the mountains.

The only luxury he truly seemed to need, I noticed as I entered, was the camera perched snugly atop the sturdiest shelf nailed into wood perhaps older than either of us, surrounded by ancient books and illegible papers, yellowed as the eyes that read them, strewn across the table, and a tea set which he looked at with that indescribable melange of contrition and nostalgia; and as we had tea, he slowly turned his thoughts to laughter, and our first meeting filled many a mountaintop minute with the heartiness of two with much between them yet, inexplicably, more to share.

Then up on last of the rays of the sun climbed the night, and the sky darkened, and the fire now gave us tea, warmth, and light; and I rose, and smiled, but he smiled and said to me- "no, lassie, let me show you something now- my life's work, if you will", and then the door opened- but it was he who was outside, and I was left a- amazed, perhaps- adrift, now that I think of it- but then again, retrospect never made things clearer.

And so it was that on the first night of our meeting, he took my hand again and brought me to the top of his cottage, and the ancient camera, his singular pride, joy, and love, sat upon a tripod on the roof; then he motioned to the city that lay below us, massive and corpulent, red and radiant in its bloatedness, and he sighed and took pictures of the sky, the stars, and the hills; and though he tried his best, the lights of the city always found their glare into the corners of the lens, like- like some mere tourist gazing the camera, oblivious to the wonders that lay behind them, the light glinting of their teeth like it were some trophy of theirs.

"Behold the works of Man, as many as they are terrible", he said to me, and I could only nod mutely as he sighed once more, and started to take down the tripod; but as he fastened the last leg, there rose a terrible silence in the air, tenuous and tenebrous, and suddenly the light of a million homes went out as surely as the fire below his stove; and all of a sudden, the only lights in the sky were a million patters and a waning moon, and the only gleam that the world returned shone off the burnished silver of his camera.

In that moment, his eyes widened as a child's, and he laughed, and cried, and forgot about me, and in the glorious darkness he worked with the fervor of a man who had seen that he had spent the first three years of his life babbling and wetting himself, and that he very well might spend the last three years the same way; the tripod went up, and then the camera, and in those few minutes, a lifetime's dream came true as he photographed the night in all its unsullied glory, the glory of a million stars, the blackness of the sky, and the shadows of the hills upon a sea that whispered on the breeze; and when he had taken the last picture, he merely smiled, recalled that I was there, and took my hand another time- and he said, "please have them developed for me", and coughed his last laugh into the coldness of a night that was the closest he ever felt to warmth.

-~-
Flash fiction in 6 sentences. Inspired by the view from the mountains at Nagasaki.

the constellations of desk-lights
milky way wrappers,
fallen comets,
multiply like
efficient mathematicians
biologists who
have just discovered the secret
to life.
if you were looking
for evidence of the big bang
it is right here
underneath some bars
of galaxy and inertia
too.
tomorrow's asteroid
comes nearer
like the swimmers in
the slow lane
kicking up water
fuelled by chocolate
trying to fit into
orion's belt.

i need to learn
loneliness
picking blueberries
amidst the Isle of
Langerhans;
digesting


them as i go along.
above are cloud-boats,
menancing like
thundergods.
should i make oars
of prickly, dark-


staining bunches
or wait
til the blues
have been
absorbed into the
lapping waves
like friendly rocks

He had told her to wake him in a thousand years or when it was safe, whichever was later, as he closed his eyes and laid on the white sheets on a steel bed in a cocoon of black; perhaps her aural sensor malfunctioned in that instant, or her processing core misinterpreted his intentions, for when he next opened his eyes, it would have been a million years.

All too quickly passed the first fourteen years, but while the people had long since forgotten the old days of hunting and warring, their governments had not; and so it went that while children played in pristine virtual-reality beaches and their parents enjoyed every conceivable pleasure in the synsation chambers, their leaders rose and fell like the tides of a time when the moon still possessed most of its mass, and their factories sowed the seeds of things only he would come to know of, and only for an instant.

As his shell hummed and whispered, forgotten in the basement of a home ruined by time, his family's rusted bones adorning the stainless pipes, the day arrived where man, blind with pleasure and deaf with ignorance, chose his future for himself, and picked the road paved with thorns leading to perdition; in the wake of the first bombardments, nobody was left standing who remembered who fired first, and as man strode the lands of his dominion and left the smell of regret lingering in the wake of victory, the pride of Mankind was torn as the hair from the few who survived as they beat their chests and wailed in torment.

Then it came that countless years later, as a village was digging for a well in the desert wastes of what remained of Southeast Asia, they struck a coat of ebony that even their strongest warrior could not break though he shattered his prized stone axe, and the medicine woman declared it the Devil and unbuddhist, but the elders called it a relic sent by the gods Elohim and Vishnu, and the tribe venerated the sarcophagus as readily as they held in awe the bones of their ancestors; and as they searched the world and grew stronger, they found more of the sacred relics, and they founded the first of the last civilizations of Man in the wake of what few remembered as the Flood.

One day, in the heat of winter, an archaeologist wiped the sweat off his forehead and adjusted his lead suit, and shouted for his assistants to come, and, awestruck, mouths agape, hearts pounding with sheer incomprehensibility, they beheld the zenith of all the works of Man, and they worshipped it, and they brought it to the Sister City at the other end of the world, declaring it a prize as worthy as the Cocoon of the Maker; the last elder knew what it was, and shouted and coughed his blood up in the comfort of his hospital bed, but the doctor simply shook his head and gave him an injection to put him to his last fitful sleep, and drove his nurses in his car to witness the unveiling of the priceless artifact with markings only two men alive knew how to read, both of whom were asleep, and both of whom never would witness the awakening of the relic whose title its makers bestowed upon it was World-Killer.

And then in the rain of dust and echoes he woke, and he kissed the vacuum, and it took him into its embrace; and that was the end of things for the race of men.

-~-

Flash fiction in 6 sentences, idea stolen from ZH.

I was walking down the road
and didn't hear a sound
til I passed a construction site -
jackhammer going in the middle of the night

I didn't think it much
to tell the truth I couldn't
but i left with the feeling that
i'd seen something I shouldn't.

It was not the noise that moved me
though I felt that unearthly sound
but my heart did jump sideways
when it came to me through the ground

Hide away! Hide away!
it seemed to say
the dust is flying in the middle of the night
hiding in the ashes of a construction site.

I don't know what it was I felt
or indeed what it meant
it was not the dream of things to come
or worries hiding in the cement

I'd moved too far away to hear
by the time I reached home
but I couldn't sleep for that jackhammer
just wouldn't leave me alone

How lonely you must be!
A sound without a sight!
left in the dark by no-one
Jackhammer going in the middle of the night

How lonely you must be!
A sound without a sight!
left in the dark by no-one
in the ashes of a construction site.

It came to me but years from then-
I left my life behind that day
and though I cannot recall how or when -
that unearthly noise will always stay.

this will be
a piece of cake
i guarantee


some eggs
in your face,
lots of buttering-up

i will be
sugar-sweet;
jam compliments


into every
other sentence.
add spice


to your life?
as it heats up
in the oven


i realise i've
forgotten if
i put in a leavening agent

"God help me now", he murmured in his sleep;
The roiling sheets, they swelled and crested high
As livid shades within the mirror's scry
And smoky lines upon his skin to creep;
The pattered rain, the ghost of morning's night,
The darkness fidgets, tremors in its heart
Which echo rustlings of the nether art
That brought to knees the Highest Lord of sight.
Unwilling to behold, enwrapped in haze,
The time forgot, the passing just as fleet-
Equations, vectors, furrows on his brow,
He dreamt of sun unbridled in its blaze,
He traced infinites on the careless sheets
And murmured in his sleep, "God help me now".

You told me once
you would hand me your heart,
lay it on a platter-
(for daws to peck at) but
all you gave me was a
silvered shape of stone-cold
steel.


You eyed me curiously
as I cupped that metal mass;
wincing as each beat
(surreptitiously systolic)
bit into my skin,
fettering your heart
with ribbons


of blood.
you lifted my hand
and pressed it to my chest,
(red-ribbed, battering mess
of lived lies
and dying promises);
it tears through flesh
and leaves me staring
at where my heart
once was-


But for all my
pouring passions,
hue incarnadine,
your heartless heart is
insensate,
no more flesh than
mine.


You smiled at my new heart,
now yours, consumed,
satiated, satisfied;
your heart bleeds in me
but I am
impervious to thee.

the rise and fall
of flour; spilt milk
in a quarter of an hour

make sure you
don't burn out

but as it peels apart
the sink fills up


with hot soup,
though i see no fire.


fine accompaniment for the cold
shoulder of lamb


should i grill it, or
is it just small


fry? gingerly seasoned;
fingers burnt -


this is not just a stupid
root (purple in the face,


stubborn layers) so
why does it make me cry


into my hands


____________________
note: is just basically collection of lame puns, i blame this on all the cooking i've been doing reccently haha. do let me know if it's too obscure, have had to explain it to everyone i've showed it to thus far.

It's a night and day affair
and both ways it's the same
for two weeks now we're playing
this nameless, ancient game

and now you're eating at my mind
like a two week mold
left out in the cold to grow
and I hope that I return in kind
or i'll be growing old
left out when the cold wind blows

and I feel it in my stomach
every time you call my phone
and I feel it in my liver
saying I don't want to be alone

but loneliness is all it is
like a sunflower by the hour
grows toward the sun
my love grows like a weed
and lower my standards grow
the longer since it's begun.

So dance for me, sunflower girl
and I will shine for you
high love is lost on such as us
but i'll love you til' the morning dew.

A step out of arrival
and a foreign English’s eclecticness explodes in my face
like the spray of confetti at
a party of middle-aged women in pink tights.
This morning’s babble should please me more
but I now deem it unhappy variant—
though telling of home,
familiarity smacks like the mismatched attire of
a hawker whose tone demands patronage
to justify her lost sleep.


This is my country.
Open arms decked high with
consumer commerciality,
her once warm embrace now
exudes indifferent materiality as the cold
adorning charm she loops around my neck;
I hesitate
(but as the crowd presses closer,
and the scent of physicality
engulfs me in a swirl of designer perfume)
I join them, and let the mob
sweep me towards the
shopping districts.
In the background, music blares
from a store window and they chant,

“Welcome home.”

Let this be the last summation
of our moments snatched
in between movements of crowds—
Wide-eyed interludes,
the low cascading of your voice
and your accidental touch
sends undercurrents through my skin.


Now, you sidestep me with your gaze—
there is time for one last laugh and you are buoyed
away by the tide of faces;
Like pebbles, they wash unspoken hope
from the sands of my heart


but leave your memory
accreted on its plains.
Day breaks on the horizon,
and you have forgotten
what I must forget.

-~-

Do forgive the triple kill, it is rather sudden.

-~-

They go to see a play of hopes and fears;
Expecting blood and death and tragedy,
They want to break their hearts and shed their tears.
But though the theatre still stands on the lee,
It shows no tragedy nor comedy-
The stage is spartan, and there is one light,
And figures in a symphony of white.

At first, accountants gave their wary leers,
But soon it proved to be a hit-to-be
And cleared up all they still had in arrear.
The older patrons muttered, left it be,
But newer ones were all amused to see
Avant-garde things, and took some strange delight
At figures in a symphony of white.

And though nobody understands, they fear
For some strange reason, trembling eerily
To watch those faceless forms in pale appear
And then dissolve, some others turn to flee,
While more yet rise and cavort endlessly;
Nobody thought to ask of the playwright
Why figures in a symphony of white-

And he alone is certain, he is clear:
It is a joke too plain for eyes to see,
It is a play for audiences to steer;
The subject, Man! The actors, you and me!
The time is now, the plot is life! And we
Are they! But no-one yet has guessed it right:
Who figures in that symphony of white?

A number, blinking in the pale of white
Alerted him to see what he had sought-
A star amongst a million in the night;

With joy, he stood and danced, two left, one right,
And designated it- three-four-three-ought-
A number blinking. In the pale of white

Of sixty hertz and forty watts of light,
He dialled his girlfriend on the phone he bought,
A star amongst a million in the night,

Told her the news, then sat back down and sighed.
And then- a shiver- words in throat he caught-
A number, blinking in the pale of white,

He googled up his age and weight and height,
And he was there- all numbers in the plot-
A star amongst a million. In the night

Sat he, repulsed, revolted at the sight,
Stood, trembling, sure that he was what he thought-
A number blinking in the pale of white,
A star amongst a million in the night.

The sun is first, and then the city roars
To men who lose their sins, their souls, their say
It is a heart that never shuts its doors.

They make their beds, their minds, and make their way,
And bones of steel, and veins of putrid tar
To men who lose their sins, their souls, their say;

All that is left are memories afar,
And fantasies. Where steel and concrete grows,
And bones of steel, and veins of putrid tar,

Inside their rooms, a moment of repose
To dream of things that lie beyond the walls,
And fantasies where steel and concrete grows,

Then night descends; the gate, majestic, falls
For them to leave. It is impossible
To dream of things that lie beyond the walls.

They wake again, in lights immiscible-
The sun is first, and then the city roars;
For them to leave, it is impossible:
It is a heart that never shuts its doors.

i write yet again of the sea
which tosses up iridescent flying
things - not the obvious, dull-eyed
fishes, but lace-frothed waves,
obscuring the lonely, evasive eels,
the ones you need to look
hard to see.

the sand chafes the glass sculpture
the tide makes in every moment,
spinning up tiny, miniature fauna,
shaping all possible types of sea-pebbles
to pick for your pockets, pretending
a shark or unnamed underwater animal

had sniffed it, played with it as it
grew up, hid behind it when the
slamming of the shores seemed like
thunder from above, when the gulls
seemed to be crying their fates
when hooks came searching for them
and they could not slip away like the eels

the poem
touches a nerve like last night
we tossed our hearts, strands of hair,
washing powder, tupperwares
onto the grand scale, weighing up our worths


the words wave over me like a sea of lights
woofing, pawing, wanting to play
they reach right into the center
where nothing but deflated
balloons stay


they paint life with added shimmer-
the forest-colored litter receptacles,
smoky bars with no patrons, even once-
white gates no-one has sat on; darted
a glance at; grown roses on for years


now. and the poem subsumes the beetles
of our fears, absorbs the sillinesses
of the imaginary face-offs, tussles
between grasshoppers, earthworms and children.

Now, thoughts of you are like
mythical rainbows and
chamber pots of gold.
They float up unannounced
like goblets of oil from
dirty dishes in the sink's nose.

If I but told you, all the
global warming in the world,
all the coffee cups and scones
couldn't stop the inevitable
ice age and stupid sniffling
I'll explain as a really bad cold.
___________________________
wrote this ages ago, can't remember if i showed anyone though! clearing up my possessions, thought i'd better keep this in a relatively un-loseable place heh.

The touch of a hand on a screen of a lily in the water at daybreak; that is the sound that rings through his mind, and his heart is thumping out all the horrors his eyes cannot forget, loins desperately remembering the ribaldries of the evening before in sudden burning recollection, and the time is not right, the day is dark, the clouds strike with the fever of a maddened God upon the tree that stands outside his porch, splitting it in twain and setting the ground alight with the embers of a nighttime's folly, birthing ash and dust that blows away in the wind, across the lake, scattered motes of consciences and memories lingering, as though kept aloft by nothing more than starlight in the everlasting midnight of a sunless world where skeletons rock on their porches and bones rattle in their cots.

Full post:
http://whythecynic.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EBCF08A01A145542!1198.entry

Last year - dithering on the doorstep
of a forgotten, unfriendly church, in an
unfamiliar, un-navigatable city, cool
dark dusty pews and golden high ceilings,
tracing the reliefs with my sketchy belief-


This year, climbing mountains to find
flowers, I clear spaces where it hurts.
Orange-juice like light spills from the
spring windows of this chapel, dying hair
straw-color, percolating into happy singing


Coats and scarves hug the backs of chairs;
the songs from these who grew up in winters
and snow are the same old ones from my all-
round Easters at home. I carry the cross the
long trek to the silent room with its unwashed


laundry, five flights of stairs with the year's
guilt; why didn't I go into that gilted place,
why didn't I chafe at inertly training back
just to be safe, now, I pray I am forgiven
for my haste and wrath will never find me again.

i miss feeling
like i've eaten a whole lemon
i miss
the hole in my bagel,
the inside-out california rolls,
clothes that refuse to dry;
riding rollercoasters
though i'm afraid of heights.


i miss missing you.
but not you - oh no - i look
forward to that as i would
visiting unfriendly relatives
in a deep dark wood.


and as you slip past
like an iced drink,
i take the next
merry-go-round
into the wind

as close as sun is to the midnightsky,
as near to moon as comets on the roads
and with a flick, a halogen explodes
and then, together, in our seats we fly
or rather, flew. for soon we must alight
and wrap our shoes upon abrasive tar
and walk together long and lone afar
upon a path that is but falsely bright
or will you stop as suddenly as hearts
when crashed into a wall of solid steel
my hand about your neck, a pulse to feel,
a key inside your engine, nothing starts,
and ambulances bring you off. I cry,
head raised; I walk beneath the midnight sky.

this is it
this is the answer to everything
reverse slowly
when parallel parking


look over
your shoulder, checking for glow-worms
before making a u-turn.
you must


glance at the
rear-view mirror, foot like a hover-
craft whirring
over the brakes.


lest from your
blindspot comes out
like flying fish from the sea,
raging instructors


who won't
let you pass. Alternatively, wake
from the frothy
bottle-green dreams


drunk upon
speeding the highways in smuggled
cars and yesterday's hours,
measuring


reason by the
dashboard's meter. Nothing could
be sweeter, not
even the eventual


funk,
needing to extricate yourself
from the wreckage
of fairy-dust.
____________________________
ps: sorry for the use of 42, nearly sacrilege i know. pls tell me if this is mad or vaguely normal, thanks!

Are written in the ink of night, and penned
With fervor on a sheet of parlour-white,
Blazed on the signs where gentlemen alight
And hold umbrellas, gazing on the sand
Fresh-turned, and splashed with wet sobriety,
The wording blotted by the feet of girls
And boys, all sombre, shuffling feet in swirls,
All watching the manic variety
Of frantic thoughts evaporating, quick
As silver, solvent in the evening light,
To leave a blank upon the endless reams
Of soil that covers him, his walking stick,
That hides his hat and, evermore polite,
So gently smothers what remains of dreams.

I built a flower, deep and red as rose,
As lucid as the dreams of dying men
As careless as the soil on which it grows
And sinful as the dolours of its stem,
Convinced by love that hearts are evergreen;
But they are dandelions, light and wan,
That break in flakes upon a winter wind,
And flutter, faint, their nectar bled to ice,
Each petal with a shadow's linger twinned,
Unfurled upon the ground, the peddlar's price
For holding on as love yet draws its close,
So stay your sobs and wipe your gleaming eyes.
For though you would entrap the summer's rose,
Your feet will tread it in the winter snows.

-~-

Because I love writing these best.

eight millilitres of water in a bowl,
to be overturned on the fourth of each month
and the drops spilled on the earth

slowly drying in the asphyxiating
throb of vines across a neverending field,
baking in the sun like bloated purple pies

watching as skeletons of cows drag their skin
on stilts across a plain of bones,
and the sun a grin of yellow death

that with its sadness brings the snows,
and with its madness rakes the wind
across a road that bears a single man

afraid of wolves that pant with every step,
who shudders in his sleep of nightmares,
and chokes on sand

there is a better place for him
that is a hundred journeys further on
so on the fourth of every month

he kicks the skull and spills the sins
that have accrued in eyeless sockets
and spatter on the earth like tears.

Today there will be an unprecedented spate of kissings across the island:

6.43 am - The home of Ang Teck Mun and Wong Swee Lian, Bedok. Teck Mun will awaken to the sound of rain against the concrete of his three-room flat. He will stare into the darkness of his room, then roll over in bed to kiss Swee Lian, his wife of seventeen years. Then he will drag himself out of bed and head to the toilet to wash up.

10.37 am - Rooftop, Hougang Secondary School. Foo Yuan Kai, Secondary Four student, will lead his classmate Jade Chan here under the pretext of showing her the view. The morning rain will have lightened to a drizzle. When the door closes, Yuan Kai will move closer to Jade, so close he can feel her girlish breath on his face. He will hesitate. In that moment, Jade will close the final centimetre and place her closed lips upon his slightly parted lips. It will be the first kiss for both of them.

2.02 pm - Nanyang Primary School. Tay Jun Liang, economics undergraduate, will sit outside the school compound and wait for Rachel Chua, part-time relief teacher, to end her class. When - out of the corner of his eye - he sees her walking out of the school gate, he will time his standing up from the chair to coincide precisely with the moment his girlfriend wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him on the cheek. He will have missed her.

4.16 pm - Maternity ward, Mount Elizabeth Hospital. Daniel Soh, sales executive, will cradle his newborn daughter in his arms and kiss her several times above the lids of her bright, staring eyes. His shirt will be crumpled and he will not have showered for several days. But as he watches her tiny fist clench around his finger, he will believe that today will be the start of a better time.

11.11 pm - Palawan Beach, Sentosa. Ng Sue-Lin will break up with her boyfriend of three years, Jason Yeo. As the dark waves pound into the soft sand, she will stand on tiptoe and, with trembling lips, kiss him on the corner of his drawn mouth. Jason won't react. He will blink straight ahead. After she leaves, he will fling a deck chair into the sea, then hold his head in his hands and cry.

Just to remind us of the importance of standards (of beauty, wit, language, grammar and whatsoever thing things) I've looked through the archives, picked what i thought were the best (even the gratuitous one I wrote myself, heh) and collected them in this post for all of us to marvel at. We will improve! Because most of my output for the last couple of years was crap, I'm afraid to say and rather disappointed to note. We will improve!

by Eli:

Chinese New Year
is the time to shed your old skins
like a snake. Pack rats
should not be cowed
by the mountains of memories
crammed in boxes, but be ruthless
as the tiger. Out with the old!
And tomorrow, as the rooster crows,
you can pig out on cakes and civilities
til you're hoarse. Pineapple tarts and
rabbit sweets are particularly good for this.
Just don't behave like a bull
in a china shop when goaded; only children
get to monkey around. Your thrice-removed
cousin's cat stretches,
yawning like a minature dragon.
Even it is dog-tired.

the stadium at night
seems to be preparing
for something
involving the universe

little satellites round
the bends, thoughts weighted
down by apples in a bag with

homework and long bus rides
- spurting from their shoes
the remnants of rain

by Derrick:

Sonnet 43
Deliverance is still an age away.
You know it when the skies are tinted gray,
The hue of seas that burst in ragged spray
Upon a night which parts in shreds and rags
For pins and pricks of light, the morning's dregs.
This is the night that births another day,
That spawns the brood of men which everyday
Are, drowsy, dragged from concrete cliffs and crags
To stir machines of painted metal slags,
Each sputter, chokes on smoke, another gags;
Scarce older than the trees, but looking hags,
Parading puppets dressed in tattered flags-
If these are children of the earth, I say
Deliverance is still an age away.

by ryan D:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2568843/1/

by Me (heh)

IN 3046
I ran into a minstrel
on the red road outside town
he was singing for his supper
and he looked a little down -

"these are the last days
'fore time comes to an end
and we have spent our centuries
to break and then to mend

our pity, our art, our built-up things
our craftsmen lifetimes-wise
but the world will end tomorrow;
so now we improvise!"

adam

A song I wrote. Ask me if you'd like to hear the melody.

today
an arrow in the sky
today
an arrow in the sky
today
a train is going by
back on the track
my eyes are going backwards hey hey

today
a raindrop falling down
today
your face might form a frown
a crater in the sand
tomorrow will be damp

and if the streams are flowing from the rain
then the hilltops will not know water again
and if the valleys' mud sinks to your knees
then the hilltops know a desert's breeze

and if a child is born awake
a pianist will her keys forsake
and if the child is born asleep
a pianist will her keyboard keep.

-adam

Too many men have wrote of statues brought
To knees by time and wind and desert sand,
Great avatars of kings and countries grand
So reaped and fallen, leveled from their haught,
And thought it symbolized the end of Man
In watching spires crash unto the ground
The rhythmic crash, of falling empires' sound
A tolling of the bells for lord and land-

It starts much smaller. Those same eyes will know
The weakened legs, the ever-trembling finger,
And crooked back, and joints no more the stronger.
Minute a tragedy, a scornful show,
To watch his ending, in the sun to shiver,
And know that broken stone will last the longer.

-~-

Because at three forty-five in the morning I was a little pissed at Ozymandias.

2. contraindication

We go together like absinthe and God
A pair of misfits outcast by this world
Our paths a cube of ice in whiskey, swirled,
To drop into the heart, and lay forgot,

Until an age ago, when we did part.
Not many things could help me with my drink.
I teetered at the bar, to tempt the brink,
So many days, so many nights. I start;

Perhaps tonight has been too much.
But heck; some more, for letting such
A trivial score conquer my sense
Is not quite fitting with my plans.

So much for soberness. The lights are blurred,
My movements slower, and my speaking slurred,
It is a miracle I walk outside
And then receive a car into my hide.

A miracle, I heard the medic roar,
The nagging pain of needles in my arm
(Though nothing much could cause me much more harm)
And flashing lights and sirens' blares galore

But when he tried to start my heart, the doctor said,
"Just let him die. There isn't much we'll do for him."
I wondered why they left my broken body dead.
The air is colder, sound is duller, lights are dim-

I think I'm dying. Just as well tonight.
If drink did nothing for my awful plight,
There's medicine none that might relieve my blight.
I don't know much, but least this much I know-
They surely couldn't stitch a broken soul.

I walked a road, beneath a boulevard of trees that gaped and arched like the ribs of some monstrous whale that had swallowed me but was empty inside, ravaged by time and hunger and pestilence that it had to swallow something as small, pathetic, insignificant as myself to stave off its mortal pangs. As though its flesh was already half-eaten away, the sun poked its rays between the branches, stabbing spears of some great fisherman with a shield of shining gold that blinded the Medusa to take her head; so I walked down, its throat impaled by the terrible splendour of a vengeful god.

I walked that road alone, as though there was nobody else to walk with; the oldest monster of old, the last leviathan, its beached corpse sucked every breath with labour, swept every morsel into its mouth despairingly as its gargantuan bulk thrashed, twitched to keep warm, even as the rays of the sun warmed its carrion-to-be. I strolled beneath its hide, left my footprints on the flesh of that which wrecked ships, broke nations, wrought devastation on Earth so complete the ancients named it and feared its name.

So pathetic now!- but I walked the road, paved in pools of blackened blood, clotted and hardened in a profusion of pebbles, and stared as the sky sprung another salvo at the Earth, the two locked in a mortal grip like titans wrestling. At the dusk of day, even Atlas falters and Hercules wavers; I let the two rest in their writhing embrace, and brought my feet ahead of each other, intent on finding the end of that throbbing maw, the bowels of the great creature that even I called home now and walked the alleys of in search of something I only had a vague picture of.

That vague picture I held in my hand, a map or painting or torn shred of canvas on which the directions to salvation could be found. Perchance perdition, but the road I walked led me onwards, and there was nowhere else to go; so much for a map. Still its presence in my hands reassured me, as though the path I walked down, lined with the specks of shadows sprayed from the rays that spilled across the ground, was Destiny, was Fate, was the straight and narrow way that I should never stray from lest I lose my soul in damnation.

When the gods give you a road, walk it!- there is nothing else you can do, when the bars of your cage are the ribs of a nameless beast that yet flails its final breaths, shaking the world with the tremors, the inhumanity of its suffering, each quiver of agony rocking your path as a bolt from heaven splits the air and roars of its power. Each step I take is at the mercy of my maddened master, which might crush me in the labyrinthine folds of its gullet with the slightest sneeze. Stalwart I stride, but travellers as myself already know that any moment we might find ourselves less a breath and a heartbeat.

I am a traveller, and my journeying never ceases. Even on a road as straight as this, wrought by the same divinities that built our frail flesh from mud and air, there is a wanderlust in my heart that drives it onwards. May it be the patterns that the sun throws on the ground, or the shapes the leaves form in the whimpering wheezes of the grand entity that wrapped its jaws about me, there is always something different to see, something else that lingers at the edge of remembering, then bids me goodbye in the blink of a half-woken eye.

The shoes I wear are old, but scarce as old as the monster of the sea that gasps on land like a drowning man, scarce as old as even my own race, who were infants huddled around campfires when the oceanic behemoths had watched countless mountains rise and fall. Now the last of their kind lies with the last of mine, and we are two waltzers to the strains of some melody that ears cannot hear, notes that eyes cannot read, and instruments even the devil cannot hope to play. We are harmonics on the same frequency, the same flesh in different form, our hearts beating on the same accord.

I am a creature of the universe, that journeys down the throat of fearsome time who in his age lies dying on the shore. So long ago he counted all the grains, each one a day that he would live to see; now he has counted each and every one, and found the last beneath my feet, which walk and step their path because a merciless deliverer of judgement: fate, demands the souls of time and man alike.

-~-

In the tradition of posting once a month to keep the ol' blog on life-support.

// A sonnet cycle

An evening lost to strangers on the street
Who peddle hours, sell illegally
Exchanging for your soul, another minute-

You cannot come near them as carelessly
As I have done. They linger in the light,
And hawk their wares where one might triumphantly

Declare his victory over certain night
When all around, the hands of watches tick
Without a sound, so as to be polite.

And as I roared, the candle burned its wick,
The day dissolved to dusk yet incomplete
To leave a few lit windows, stark and stoic;

I checked the time, the sky, and found defeat,
An evening lost to strangers on the street.

-~-

It is the night, a shimmer in the night,
A glint of silver dream, a fetid finger
To graze my nape, the morning's old malinger
That stood my hair, that toss'd me left and right
Beneath my blanket, safe I thought I slept
But cold is flagrant, oh so gently burning,
And in my sleep, I never knew the turning
As cold and clamour carelessly they crept

I bed with Winter and a herd of nightmares,
Upon her needles, midst their maddened neighs,
The verve of phantoms clutching at my nerves
For when my eyelids flutter, into nowheres
The ghosts of morning fade by ancient ways
Into my past, a fate they scarce deserve.

-~-

My night is lit by clinic fluorescence
All through the hours, till the sun again
Dares peek through grey-wooled curtains, takes his rein
And rides his chariot o'er the senescence
Of worlds that rot in ignominous black,
The mould of time, held back by desperate men-
Like trembling scratchings of an inkless pen,
They wreak upon this earth with soul alack

For dreams are stronger, fiercer than the wan
Of pallid noon, the god of feeble yearns.
I slumber in its glory, torn apart
By night and dark, for day is powerless when
The fire in the sky no longer burns
As bright as that which lights my mortal heart.

-~-

I shiver. It is morning, and my sun
Breaks bleakly over rippling sheets. I sneeze,
Disturbing asymmetricalities,
And then their silk-dune shadows merge to one.
It is a time when I should be resigned,
But somehow, something tugs me to my bed,
That bows my black-capped, great, and mighty head
And swallows sunrays gingerly consigned
To fetch me from the maw of somnolence.
The shadow tendrils flit as light as air,
As tentative as morning's breath on glass;
Those heavy hands to hold my reverence
Have clutched it close and signed their sigils where
The brightest light will never dare trespass.

O God, thou who art mildly terrible,
You awe me with your stubbly clouds, which shave
And spatter their despondence on the pave
That shrugs the water off, immiscible.
You strike fear in the hearts of kids and mice,
O mighty one! who rocks the air at night
By knocking on the panes with drizzles slight,
The flaccid drops, o through the air they slice
To kiss the ground yet trampled by my feet
And sog up the foundations of my city
That through the years, it falls to apathy
Returning to the earth, a khaki sheet-
The slate of Gods that work their drops by drops
And watch the world until its turning stops.

-~-

since we don't seem to be posting muchly

Deliverance is still an age away.
You know it when the skies are tinted gray,
The hue of seas that burst in ragged spray
Upon a night which parts in shreds and rags
For pins and pricks of light, the morning's dregs.
This is the night that births another day,
That spawns the brood of men which everyday
Are, drowsy, dragged from concrete cliffs and crags
To stir machines of painted metal slags,
Each sputter, chokes on smoke, another gags;
Scarce older than the trees, but looking hags,
Parading puppets dressed in tattered flags-
If these are children of the earth, I say
Deliverance is still an age away.

-~-

This one was written in an epic burst of inspiration. I call it a sonnet because it's written in iambic pentameter, has 14 lines, and has seven or less rhymes. Heck, if Robert Frost could write terza rima sonnets I don't see why I can't play around a little. But eh, enough ranting.

You are like a needle shot into my vein
puncturing its wall
drawing out the gall
in a splendrous insertion of pain

Then you pulled out, and the wound bleeding, scarred,
and my blood thickened, clotted
widening, blackening, blotted
and stopped the throb of my heart.

Moonbeams gloss over cobbled streets
Washing them aglow.
A glass sea,
Deep as granite
Passes underfoot as you
Run into me.

i love it when we sit beneath the sky
and look up at it.
it reminds me that the sky is upwards, as it usually is.
and i am thinking "it's really blue" when you give me a kiss
which surprises me. i wonder why
i don't mind the taste of your spit

which reminds me. our love flows
just like the river in the spring, beside
the spot of grass beneath the tree in the meadow where we sat.
the world around us is rather green and flat,
but i write it again anyway as though nobody knows.
just like our relationship. nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

whoops, now you know why i'm fidgeting
even as i put my arm about your shoulders.
the warm caress of soil upon my arm
is starting to irritate me, damp and was that a worm?-
and the way you hold on to me, gripping, tightening,
like you want to ignite our last smoulders

into a blaze, the last of summer's sun.
ha-ha, no way.
didn't we get bored of this a long long while ago?
no reason i can think of to keep up this show.
you know we've had our fun
and you've had the lion's share of the say

the whispers, rages, weeps and roars of love.
i've been content to listen.
somehow though you never seem to stay angry for too long
and eventually it's all ha-ha and fun and song
but i'd swear to god above
all the while i'm chewing my nails in vexation.

so while you nuzzle, i look up. in fact, i stare,
at sky and river, trees and meadows green.
eyes closed, you hold me close. perhaps too close for comfort.
and you have that indescribably fascinating smile. like a pervert.
i wonder what sort fruit our love will bear?
- haps children, or strychnine.

all your fantasies and their gallant steeds
they streak across the sky, in their wake Apollo's chariot drowning
uncaring about the moon in their sky frowning

while down below, upon the blooming weeds
a rooster crows and goes to sleep

there can be no rest while the night is deep-
stop your ears, and the carnival will dance
close your eyes, and their music finds their way into your trance
purples, greens, and pinks, upon a star-studded black
and the silent crescent who turns her haughty back

never remembered by their deeds
(only in the dark does your tritium glow)
and when you walk in the sun, nothing will you know

nothing will you remember of the dancing in the sky
the meteors' frantic waltz before they blaze and die
with shimmering aurora, her iridescent gown ablaze
you will wave your hair along with the grasses
(still in your left hand, three fingers clutching your glasses)
and through half-curled lips gently tongue your praise
and in the morning when you rub your eyes

tell me- when a dreamer wakes- does he laugh or cry?

I open my eyes every morning
to see my world in a different perspective.
I’m parallel to it.
The old taste of last night’s vacillating reverie lingers,
Gently treading on not quite awakened taste buds.

I get up.
A bit dizzy from the altitude of everlastingness;
life is buzzing beneath me.
the noncongruent stories of yesterday,
and the day before and the day after
whir through my mind,
almost as if played on film.

to fill up a three second gap
in conversation
Someone asks
“what have you been doing?”
sounding the whips of syntax.
I am stuffing the tireless altitudes of the created space
– the void
With eloquence.

the sinewy efforts at sincerity
– can't you feel it gliding round you?
mutating, yielding the effort-filled phrases of speak to air,
compounding, saccharinely opening the sheerest
the trellised tiny purposes, parables,
this marketplace
of tightening truths
and balmy drops of joy

These blue chords plunging deep to twang a melody of resonating power
This luscious melancholy voice crying a note of penetrating assurance
That randy rhythm moving my eyes to gaze upon the thought of our aching memories
Hope to find my look plunges deep
Hope to find my lips cry a note
Hope to find my touch will sooth the ache
Lend me your heart, I'll give it back whole if it takes my blood
Lavish me your solace, I'll keep it secure if it costs me my own
Grant me a moment with your thoughts, alone to cherish
Hope to find my look plunges deep
Hope to find my lips cry a note
Hope to find my touch will soothe the ache
When I speak with him my toes hush to listen, in silence enthralled
When I stop and catch a sudden scent, my pores soak in prostrate delight
It's bound to be shimmering of hues, Michaelangelo reaching down to paint our sky
It's bound to be murky of thunder, Van Goh splashing the clouds with rusty rain
It's bound to be surreal as fiction, Rousseau sketching what was only dreams
When I touch his body again on that 19th of September I hope to find only him

I. mellifluous

Sweetly or smoothly
cascading dapples of
midnight blues &
lemon chiffons.
coralshades striate
antiquewhites.
a dash! of ivory,
a whisper! of bisque,
a hint! of chartreuse,
humming murmurs
flowing; melodious


II. ostentatious

showy; pretentious;
trying to etch a
presence, an
existence; but only
to leave behind
a hushed tone of
caricaturizedimitations.
blurs of intense jazz
drone in the
humdrum;
within depths of
ambivalence, yet
played seemingly
to attract attention


III. pastiche

a piece of music
confused&blurred
by paraphernalia,
stained with traces
of paranoia.
in the quiet tone
of pathos, I
envision that
you are just
another undistinguished
daub on my hued
psychedelic palette,
made up of borrowed
bits and pieces.

adam, thought you might like to know, this poem had nothing to do with you. i was feeling vicious at that time. lols. love ya anyhow. haha.

If happiness comes with forgetting,
grey matter is a small price to pay.

The Inability to describe
Whitewashed hopes in denial.
In denial of love
too afraid to risk all in a folly's embrace
too impure to hide the truth
Putting sugar-strained smiles on display
But only in gibe
too powdery to see the pink vibrance of life beneath
too thin to taste the sentimental yearning
Of a heart without a soul
adrift and separate by the madness
The madness ingrown
too many times before
too many times before
too many times before
oh! the discombobulate
emotions in a verbal manner

bodies entwined in smoke and dancing
writhing desperately –
clinging.

dusted visages, titian sanguine lips
painting smudges
on collars and
burnished cheeks

careless whispers of love and desire
hearts twisted, tangled
and reason has stolen
fancy’s painted wings

the phantom shapes that haunt
sweet reveries of
lives,
seemingly on filmstrips

What cruel vices poets do inflict
upon the fright, unknowing, youthful world;
upon an early morning interdict
with Language's faint and frivolous curls
a flower I find I can no longer smell
without immediately thinking of a bell
and rhyme's tyranny I patiently bore
until my coffee turned a metaphor

what beauty justifieth this torment?
in time each word must surely lose its power
a symbol of some artist's discontent?
i much rather call a flower a flower

this was written one disgruntled night
by a poet short on sleep and sight.

Each sliver of disguise
that peels away from you
I treasure it contentedly
I nurse it in my eyes

That when you fall apart
and flippantly entombed
You float in faint eternity
Preservèd in my heart.

"What use are hands on a clock?", he said; "You can't hold on to time. It slips away, it crumbles like a weather-beaten rock".
"That's true", I replied and smiled at him, "fingers on time have just the use as stones on the graves, on those who have died".
He laughed and sipped at his tea and stirred it; "Not consolation for those who've kicked it".

I write for you. It has to be
better than feeling like a worm,
while wallowing in increasingly
melting goo. So I shall mow
down any feelings that show, peeking out
like sprouts in brightly
green rows. Spring came early
and uninvited, that is true,
but everything I do, I'll
later rue. However, it's an easy
matter to glue a letter firm and
tight so I won't squirm,
and I'll never remember.

It should comprise things about
the universe and seas, then go
on to curse and wheeze. Perhaps
some metaphors comparing love to
war, or to unidentifiable black fungal moss?
Why, that might help to close some
doors. Not that you really care,
of course, but even if we never
watched the sunsets in a breeze, or
languidly together fed the fish, which
sounds quite boring, and probably
is, shock and horror, I think I'll
gladly? miss? whatever constitutes "all this".

____________________
comments v appreciated, especially if it's too prosaic?
eli

is the time to shed your old skins
like a snake. Pack rats
should not be cowed
by the mountains of memories
crammed in boxes, but be ruthless
as the tiger. Out with the old!
And tomorrow, as the rooster crows,
you can pig out on cakes and civilities
til you're hoarse. Pineapple tarts and
rabbit sweets are particularly good for this.
Just don't behave like a bull
in a china shop when goaded; only children
get to monkey around. Your thrice-removed
cousin's cat stretches,
yawning like a minature dragon.
Even it is dog-tired.

eli

_______________
(extremely unseasonal post. well, i wrote it before cny! and please tell me you guys know what a pack rat is. half the people i showed this to didn't!)

freshly basked, make you toasty
when it's cold, or so I'm
told. These just
look at me quizzically.
No, mustn't act rashly.

Must it be none? Not even
one? The browned and crisp
crowns seem to frown
at my indecision.
Outside the sun winks - almost,
I think - and I say "Nuffink."

eli

On a Monday on a bus
as the road whizzes by
I sometimes wonder to myself
if my soul can fly
at the speed achievable by an internal combustion engine.

adam

Rustle of lips that meet
brushing past
In the streets -
Lovers deeply drunk
of Desire
Step darkly into the night -
it parts for them
like the gentle yielding
of a coy lady's limbs.


Music burns,-
the air grows thick with
stirrings of poetry
and ninety-nine red roses
drip dew incarnadine -


while hearts unfluttered yet repose
on hearths of love
like ice-glazed obsidian,
still unwarmed
by the fickle furnance
of cupid's platitudes.


Sharon

i watched a train depart
and on it was my love
i heard the whistle cut the air
the sound to pierce my heart

the tears were soon all spent
your burden in a chest
and when the station held no soul
my heart held no intent

so go, my love! be free!
i cannot wait for you
for when i check the table, it
intends eternity

It was one of those moments
locked in an instant;
where our faces met, in the
reflection within


solidifying cup of chocolate.
smoke sylphed off the rim,
Leaped exuberant,
Waxed ethereal...


Then condensed-
And thawed.
You supped the dregs and left
me waiting for a different brew
to fill this empty mug.

Sharon

EDIT: I, the dictator of the blog, demand updates. And don't tell me you haven't written anything. Cheng, put up that piece of prose you showed me. Sharon, the stuff you wrote last year. You all have a week!

This is big news: I've changed the blog layout, Yes!

Things to note:
1. The title of the blog has been changed from the rather trying-too-hard-to-be-funny "Writer's Blog! I swear it's a pun!" to the stylishly ambiguous "wb : " in lower case letters, WITH a colon.

2. The blog is now grey, which is the colour of the FUTURE. Yes. In the future, everything is grey.

3. Due to an accident involving a time machine and a small portable hard disk, our old tagboard is gone and has been replaced with the old defunct tagboard on my old blog which was originally taken down because it got spammed with russian porno ads. It is also futuristically grey.

4. Because my school taught me Creationism instead of HTML, i have been unable to correct the fact that the name of the poster is no longer displayed on entries. You will have to label your posts manually by typing your name at the bottom.

5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. We now have an atom feed, which is hyperlinked under the moniker 'Feed' at the top of the page.

6. We now have a logo on the right which I hacked together in 5 minutes using mspaint.

adam

scritch of computer
conversational
much harder than we thought, a poem
much harder than a rock
tinkle of keys
like the stones on the bed of a brook
burbling in some childhood scene.
breath issuing from a nostril
he's had a childhood illness and only breathes through the left one
an exigence of air like frustration or exertion as he roots
through his tattered soul for fragments of beauty, only finding
the click of fingernails and the roar of a generator.

movement of a chair. underneath his weight the world shifts
infinitesimally
the world moves infinitesimally the floor tiles an immeasurably tiny distance away from his feet
suddenly the walls are strange.
suddenly the air is different from this infinitesimal movement
above the world his weight shifts
movement of a chair.

crickets. The idea is almost laughable. he closes his eyes and imagines them
perched on a gaggle of rocks outside the ground floor window
some demonic creator's plot device
he knows he should laugh but he trembles 'chirrup'
with the crickets.
the bustle of a fan cools his back
gives him air for a sigh
there is no home in the night-time only the creeping dread that with each tick of an old clock the universe shifts an infinitesimally small distance away from him

but elsewhere in the vast emptiness the air aches with the silence


adam

On the road
90 kilometres on kerosene
slow it down, we're only eighteen for now

On the road
is a bright blue sky
the future's a bright blue firefly
losing the urge to keep my hair down

On the road
we'll drive your dreams
into a drunken ditch
and lie back stargazing and throwing up

On the road
we'll have had enough
we'll drive back home and pack our stuff.


adam

"a meeting of minds" is not so apt
to describe the pothole-ridden road of love
more like a smashing together of pies
and seeing if they stick together
and taste just as good mashed up

memories are not so much holding hands
sitting together on a bench in the park
but the sound of ground gladly receiving
the shit of birds, splattering, splat splat
and jumping up, screaming, wiping fervently
hasty apologies to no one in particular,
uncomfortably fidgeting on the way home

not the footprints left in the sand
but getting cut by broken glass
on pristine beaches, feet as marble, streaked
across the sole with a dash of tabasco sauce
and the desperate rush to hospital
to do a test for aids
just in case, its better to know, you see

but when i think of you
(i don't even need to hold your hand)
all this shit is fine by me

is just a way of saying that
the number of fingers on your hands is something that I sincerely miss
four is a great way to have a family
four is just the number of countable ways I could've said 'I love you'

3

is the number of holes in the front of your face
I guess I'd say that I miss each one
Three is the number of sunsets I actually enjoyed
After three it started to get
a little overdone.

2

Is how we count your eyes
they are almost too large, and slightly fruit-shaped
Two is when we take stock of the number of people
it takes to hold hands
Two is the number of minutes I could rest my head on your shoulder
without cramp

1

Is what we say for romance
as if a person could possibly have two hearts
One is the number of times I will let myself look back
Once more and I'll break your legs.


adam

on a night such as this -
how are you? good day,
what is the time?
may I? you may

let's go for a walk
i'll take up a ride
on a bicycle!
we could walk or we'll fly

to the moon don't be silly
i want you right here
it's enough that you're over
it's too much that you're near

let's give up (let's not)
i think of too much
i think of too little
maybe we've lost touch

with what we wanted to say
took too long in the thinking
the moment is now
the poem is inking

slowly but surely
(let's just take our time)
there's only one moment
and that is now, we've done it, it's over, we've made our
rhyme

it's too late it is gone
the moment has flown
what did it look like?
could we have known?

or just grasped like a straw
it didn't exist
it was in illusion;
moments are mist.


adam

he built a castle of roses
and watched it sway in the breeze;
the moonlight would wash
over petals and leaves

on the midnighter's table
next to an empty glass
then he sighed with the wind,
slumped over a letter

like all the works of man
toppled in the end
by nary more than a breath
and a wave of the hand

first a little
in the mornings when you wake up
and discover that the spawnlings of worries
have taken up residence and bred in your sheets
and your sleepy mouth sour with the filmy milk of what ifs and should haves

afternoons are terrible. the sway of a leaf
becomes in one terrible instant the sway of jeans on a hot school day
or the shadow - the silhouette of a smile
a breeze is the memory of a past kiss.

evenings - quiet roads now ring with longing
no more solitude but emptiness
long shadows - a quiet play only for your audience
the puppets secretly laugh at the living

it hurts but then the next foot falls
and your shadow lags behind a step
and, tarrying,
hurries to catch up


adam

I ran into a minstrel
on the red road outside town
he was singing for his supper
and he looked a little down -

"these are the last days
'fore time comes to an end
and we have spent our centuries
to break and then to mend

our pity, our art, our built-up things
our craftsmen lifetimes-wise
but the world will end tomorrow;
so now we improvise!"



adam

every saturday he sits in his corner
and smiles.

then he takes out his little keychain,
and twiddles his fingers about the bones
rayed out like so many cold cold ribs.

he walks to the door, the glowing black door
and he puts the key into the lock
twists it
twists it, hears the click

and now he is happy
locked in.

Labels: poetry