July 31, 2013
1961.
Rain falling on zinc roofs. Neighbours having sex
Hoping they won't be suay again. They have no money.
The news coming from the sole television set. Children peeping for a glimpse of world affairs. Condensed milk cans
filled with coffee. Ah Ba will have to go to the office.
The office is also a shed. He carries sacks to and fro sheds
All day. Sometimes all night too. Last week someone tried to chop him in the head. He doesn't care. A bowl of porridge a day makes Ah Ba strong. Insulates him from the world. Protects him from things such as emotions. And cleavers.
If there had been rain yesterday, everything could have been saved. There was no rain. Now there is no television set. No neighbours. No sex. No house. Ah Ma ran everywhere with his two youngest children. They were at the provision shop looking at candy they could not afford. When it happened they ran into temple. Stayed there. Crouched in a corner. Waiting. Shaking. It did not rain. The firemen worked all day. Ah Ba ran from the office shed but he could not find them. He almost cried, but, porridge.
He found them in the temple. Waiting. Shaking. Crouching. Ah Ba held his children tight. But he never found the words.
December 26, 2003
Some weird poetry from 2003, when I was a wee child.
two weeks before
and the morning after
all that mattered was not what really happened
where it brings us now, or what a gamble
we'd just taken.
It was you planting your signature hasty goodbye
sweetie on my cheeks in the elevator just before
the doors opened to my morning; and I would
step out to the tune of one bewitched.
It was you seeking out my lips under those
sheets, in the dizzy assurance of one who never
gave much thought to all that
she said; about as clueless as I was,
But at least I never pretended to know any better, and
even came out to the truth that morning brought.
two weeks later
and a headache after
all that matters is not what games we played
what games played us, or which part of you
I saw through.
It is coarseness lingering over still fresh wounds
threatening to persist in the spite of me dumping
them in pungent saline thinking it might remove
each vestige of my guilt.
It is your image cruising over my nightscape
explaining, in the manner I knew best, how
once you were done with me these would be
all you'd leave me with.
I ought to have listened, somewhere in the interim
of that morning and this night, but tried too hard
at mending the chasm between my yes and your no.
two weeks later
and a heartache after
who can say for sure what games we played?
all that matters is not the end heralding your
beginning, but the beginning receiving my end.
It will be me seeking a closure you were too selfish to grant,
calming a present lover's fears, being the pawn
in this game of which I was co-creator;
taking danger by its horns yet scarcely daring
to hazard a breath, for it may conjure your illusion.
two weeks later, and a mourning after
it will be me claiming your scalp, not that
I care much for victory or vague triumph: only
in hastening the signature dawn of a second morning.
January 26, 2003
This was published in QLRS in Jan 2003.
I had weighed the burden of desire in my hands
but in yours you weighed reality between your fingers,
half serious even as we tried to kid ourselves
(and others) nothing else quite mattered.
I weigh now the desire of burden in my fingers
but in yours you now weigh illusion between your hands,
half kidding even as we deal with truth
ours as much as others’; nothing else but this matters now.