I think I need a better title...
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"Sparking Darker"
I’m wondering my sea of night skies for
A cliché glazed like a gem,
Wondering how
Will diamonds point me North
To a mirage of a meadow,
To(o)-blunt blades of grass?
How
I followed ruby herrings instead,
Landing on truthful grittiness of
Sand and salt and you, science-
Fictional oddity.
How
Should I describe you better?
Wondering how
They decided you were not Gemini enough,
Shooting you down to earthen exile.
How
Will you orbit back?
How
Horizon may-be a line fainting from
Six billion years of navigation map dust
Into a phantom boundary
Reuniting fraternal twin seas.
How
Then will you rise from hardened helium?
Wondering how
There is twinkle in you yet.
How
Waters’ fire extinguisher foam
Spared shine of cosmic cosmetics.
How
You out-stretch out-lived limbs.
And how
Can you point to North, always?
How I wonder,
What grants the wishes of
Fallen stars?
One down, four to go.
Dedicated to CAP lecturers:
Cyril Wong who loves to hate a box of many words.
Heng Siok Theng who believes that brevity is the wit of the soul instead.
And Aaron Maniam who shares my love of magic realism and realism fantasy.
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"Odd Jobber"
Not for the money,
The passion.
i.
You're a back alley surgeon,
Your scrutiny exposing more of me
Than a surgical light will ever be able to.
The wit of your cuts
Sharper than machine brevity,
As you operate on textual tumours
Piercing through layers and layers of
Excess I never knew was harming me
And cleansing ink-blood of
Parasites feeding on inexperience.
Who cares if there's no anaesthesia
To mask all the hurt?
ii.
You're an environmental extremist
With Grinch-green fingers
Complete with claws made to sink in
Christmas tree ornaments.
Only then, I'm ashamed to confess, did
Their tackiness become apparent.
You helped me see that
Forced sparkles cannot compare
To nature's Fibonacci sequences and
Firs, like all things that breathe, are
Beautiful the way they are.
iii.
You're a half-starved dragon,
Furnace in place of stomach.
The Inferno that burns, a
Broken hue of so
Many years worth of
Death Valley sunsets.
The number of years
It takes a cliché to cease
Being a cliché.
Its appetite insatiable, devouring
Paper hearts covered with young lovers' confessions
And sepia tone photographs of childhood memories
And tear-stained roses with violet thorns.
Flames only recoiling
When serendipity throws in a
Dadaist sculpture,
The kind that
Will never be replicated.
I can only hope
Your heat will mould me into a
One-of-its-kind as well.
I promise you, I'll update as much as I can when I get back from CAP.
I won't promise you that that promise will not be broken.
Now on to the poem...
"In This World"
In this world,
Everything is my work.
On the surface,
Engraved in letters,
Eternal as if set in sacred stone,
My name,
I am god.
I am tailor,
Who refuses to work with
Monochrome brownish-gray
Clay, not quite malleable enough
For my needs.
And so I turn to
Words
To use as tools of my trade of
Creation:
Picture nimble fingers gently
Stringing rivers and streams
From word after word, each
Reverently carried out from the
Heart of my chest,
Hearts of their own beat as
Living waters flow.
Picture palaces arising from
Carefully constructed building blocks of
Text, foundations sturdy to
Withstand all trivial
Tests of time,
Impossible?
Not if I dictate so.
I am dresser,
Who decides where his fabrics
Float to and who they
Fit,
He wears the garb
Of an insufferable trickster,
Complete with a sanguine mask,
The organic kind.
She puts on the apparel
Which is multi-layered; a sweater
Made from the cashmere of confidence hiding
Drab, dreary insecurities.
And I am who which decides
When to clothe them in
Shrouds of darkness, ones that
Wail and echo finality.
That is,
Whenever I like.
I am Anansi,
Spider god.
I have woven my intricate
Web, my great
Expanse, stretched out to reach
New horizons for the craft,
To capture unsuspecting readers who
Once drawn in, are
Kept by unshakable threads, in
Marvel and awe, even suspense.
I am Thor.
No,
I am greater.
The pen is mightier than the hammer,
Destruction materialized cannot
Construct, cannot
Craft illusions of allure,
Of grandeur,
Its only purpose is
Shatter-
Ring. Ring.
“What is it?
Oh,
Hello Mister Publisher,
You’ve,
Read my manuscript?
You’ve,
Rejected it?
Thought it was
Absolute rubbish?
Oh.
No, no, no,
I understand.
There won’t be a
Next time?
Oh.”
Slam.
In this world,
I have none to
My name,
Unheard, unknown,
I am nothing.
"Birds & Moths"
You started out with
Birds.
Didn’t you?
Draped in their fine,
Feathery flamboyant fabrics
Smooth as silk,
(Second-grade silk.)
Their pointed beaks
Weaving their lies
Into an auditory
Tapestry
Each thread a tone,
Each string a tune.
Beautiful and colourful and flowing
(But only to the extent of
Their deceiving coats.)
But it was how they were
Perched, proudly,
On the top
Of the display cage,
Shadowing the falcon, or the
Hawk, or the eagle,
Great birds,
(They will never become.)
That bought you
To buy them
And so you kept them,
Locked.
Behind bones
Carved out of steel,
Their touch
Chilling
To those of your own.
Did you remember to
Feed them?
Did you not hear
Half-starved, frantic chirps?
Did you remember to
Smooth their feathers?
To tenderly caress away
Any roughened ruffles?
Did you remember to
Let them out?
Just once in a while
So they could
Fly
To great heights, to
Soar.
Or at least die trying,
That’s still something.
Did you?
Why didn’t you?
They started out as birds,
So why were they
Moths?
Why did
Vermilions and viridians and
Azures and indigoes and ambers
All fade into
A dusty brown?
Why did
Their pleasantly plump selves
All fade into
Unsightly, scrawny, exo-
Skeletons?
Why were they moths?
When the cage hung
Precariously,
Its handle held pinched between
Furiously fidgeting
Frail fingers,
As you casually pried
Open
The metal door,
Letting them go.
