The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, 

I know quite well 

That, for all they care,

 I can go to hell,

 But on earth indifference is the least 

We have to dread from man or beast.  

How should we like it were stars to burn 

With a passion for us we could not return? 

If equal affection cannot be,

 Let the more loving one be me.  

Admirer as I think I am 

Of stars that do not give a damn, 

I cannot, now I see them, 

say I missed one terribly all day. 

 Were all stars to disappear or die,

 I should learn to look at an empty sky 

And feel its total dark sublime, 

Though this might take me a little time.

WH Auden

Ballad for a Hungry Ghost

a poem about lost memories

Past lives in present futures
Walk deadly amidst the mist
A shadow emerges in shade light,
As rose specters in the sky unite
Hanging their heavy laundry in the air
Powerless, we cannot resist,
The search for life’s great repair

A wintery, wasted garden.
Living ghosts and graces
Echo last year’s laughter,
Hardened in stoned burden
Here, we are laid to rest.
These faceless forms are etched eternal
Eternity could happen more than once
In the turning of days nocturnal


Moving on, we often move backwards
Worlds that precede worlds of disdain
Beneath the dead flesh, time, words
I looked for you time and time again
Neither apparent nor apparition
Our existence is only mutual.

We danced in a paper apartment,
Origami suits and presents
We lived like frail lanterns,
Soon, they burn these golden leaflets
Along with our pop up, cut out hearts.
In a pitiless auction for human things
They make their way to a faraway place,
Of disaffection and broken human parts.

We have left this ash-covered world
No black and white photographs
There is no technology for time
No escape from this daily rewind.
Refugees of movement and history
We died long before our deaths.

Frequent Flier

i wrote this when i was on a plane from Singapore to Madrid

It was always evening, on the way home.
A moment of dullness when dishes are washed,
Where houses smell like ginger and garlic
Beating with the sound of showers on tiles.
And repetitive voices cast no effect or course,
On mechanical engines of fuel and dark exhaust

Evening wears on endlessly like a chord.

You’ve seen this scene many times before
Like a time ordained, pre-mediated score
Often, you let yourself be written into the lines
Rehearsing polite sips of coffee and wine
But today will be different, you told yourself
You’ll appreciate this local, rooted world of things
But the neighbour’s small talk and ringing newspaper man
Spoke to you of an altogether different plan.

And she sets the table for no one in particular.
“Are you coming home today for dinner?”
But you, afraid on the other line to say,
That you, her only child, was leaving the house for faraway.
Dinner is served for one with steaming hope
But food chills quickly in bitter mouths.

Evening wears on endlessly like a chord.

Each time you were neither here nor there,
Flying is a state you knew and you were often there.
The crevice of in-betweens put you together with hooks
Your body a map of Chinese clothes and Western books
You had a talent for understanding the transience of beds,
Living mostly in musty-smelling, anywhere-taxis instead.
Restless mutterings could be heard in the night
In between the sleepless world of dim street lights
And so taking off again and again was easy,
Like those weightless, air-suspended souls

Living at the cross section of time and sleep.
A world of strangers, stranger yet to themselves
From here, all worlds look the same
Civilization’s merry go round in a plane
Ahead you saw and felt that empty space,
That horizon where night meets day in one place

Years wear on endlessly like a chord.

Smiling, the lady gives you a shiny new card
Because you’ve won all the games of connect-the-dots
You had no allegiance to any country or to any home,
Never knew what it was like to be possessed or owned.
Time spun by the web of a meridian’s robe
Everyday was new in the jet-lagging globe
Where did you take off, where did you stay?
You have absolutely no memory of that day.
An old lady in the one room flat
Serves dinner for one with steaming hope

a note on my first love

This feeling between them went beyond love, hate or passion. It was a committed resignation that theirs was to be a difficult love, one that ventured into strange lands, one that required sacrifice, selfwill and determination. He denied it and she knew that this was the only kind of love they both could truly believe in, because it was the only kind that satisfied their mutual need for personal conviction and profound desire. Their desperate need to fight for whatever they believed in.

They were both fighters in their own way. He was a resolute fighter against life’s unpredictable enemies, the kind of warrior who fought for stability and comfort in an imaginary home. She, on the other hand, was a freedom fighter who fought for everything she believed in, beliefs that were absolute and unwavering because she felt she had the right to. They admired each other and this was to contribute greatly to their intense love and hate for each other.

They were both so self possessed, it was the reason why they believed that the feeling they had was pure and true. It came from deep down within, it appealed to their inner core in a fierce form of animalistic attraction. Throughout their lives, he was the meticulous one, planning life’s every battle on a tactical map. With her, he was irrational and indecisive whenever she was resolute and determined. She was the spontaneous one, sleepwalking through life’s pleasures but so frightfully awake when her emotions were stirred. They were the anti-thesis of each other and yet they had fallen in love.

This was to be the source of all their conflict. That they hated each other yet loved each other so much. There was no denying that they admired each other’s strength of character – yet they often fought and detested each other for the same reason. For theirs was a destructive sort of love, all encompassing, deeply personal and completely selfish.

"if i wanted you to burn I would have fallen in love with you"

Lost and Found

All the clocks were broken that afternoon
The scent of green tea candles filled the room
They promised each other love
They promised each other sleep
Then, like a rising symphony
The scaling footsteps out the door

Enlightenment burned like the sun
It was not until then, that having a heart
Was a cruel, detestable affliction
All that was lost was lost over again
Waves of forgetfulness tides in like the sea
Under the drowning sounds of nature’s underground
Life could resume naturally,
Some common sense could be found

Sometimes, some days one could certainly see
The material remains laid out like a museum
But who knew what they meant anymore
Out of time, out of space they resembled sleeping bulbs.

Did history and time change all of what we did?
In the end, that dark grey day when we lay in bed
Do we, will we dare to say with belief,
That all we did, we did not know what we did?
Would he or she remember each other?
What was said and what was promised in slumber?


When and if we look into the pendulum’s swing
That destructive arc that wears and tears
Will we look back to those moments where love and wonder
Strung our tunes together like a melodious pair?

When, and if we shall meet again
Behind us the sun that’s setting and our hearts,
No longer so loud and brave in beating
Will we love and love again,
Our memories taking over bodily actions
Will we be the same as we remembered
Like the dreams we had through the years of slumber?

the disadvantages of being happy

No, I don't hear the sea outside anymore. It so happens that I am back at home, I'm closing my eyes trying to visualize the blue and the swishing sound. But I'm still at home and I cannot seem to go anywhere. I hate this feeling. I just got back from the beach this weekend and I've locked myself in my room trying to shut out the cars and concrete.

This isn't ideal. The last few months I have been rather happy, which means that I have not had the inspiration to write. The disadvantages of being happy; only a handful of unfortunate few could understand what I mean. My head is empty as a balloon, light and flying to nowhere and everywhere. I have not had an opinion for a long time because there are lesser darker shades in my world and i cant make out the big picture. I just want to keep the situation status quo and yet I desire for that dark undercurrent that will wash me away from this shore.

Rewriting

I had finally found the courage to come back and write. I have been living and living the last year and life took much away from writing, but certainly not thinking. I wrote frequently in my journal as a way of documenting myself. I have decided to rewrite the last year here as I write the present, to clarify my own life story, one that has been a series of dreams in my fatigued head.

Its hard to imagine that one year ago, on this very day, I was on board a 3rd class train from Bangkok to the ancient city of Sukhothai. I can still hear that 8 hour train ride to Phitsanoulok rattling as I travelled northward to Sukhothai...

"The 7th of July,2008

Bright yellow cracked seats, pastel green window frames and peeling blue floor boards. I'm on board an open air, one way hobo heartland to Phitsanoulok to stay for the night at some $4 hostel before continuing my journey to the old kingdom of Sukhothai. The scenary outside is pastorally pleasant - fertile green rice fields, withering shadows of slow moving men bent over at work, the occasional buffalo. The scene inside, however was a different story.

I miraculously dozed off for the first hour but woke up abruptly to the smell of dried fish. The food vendors with their big straw hats had come on board and I found myself dodging bunches of fish that were inches away from my face. The people sitting across the aisle looked at me warily - they knew i was not local. My back pack was dubiously placed on a broken luggage compartment and it's straps were loosely flapping in the wind outside the window. A kind middle aged lady with her old blind mother smiled at me from the aisle. And then there was the drunk lady sitting across from me, who had been mumbling to herself since she came on board.

Realizing I was very unfortunately placed across from her, I moved closer to the window, letting the high speed wind whip my hair around. Holding her empty Chang bottle, she moves to the seat next to me. The smell of alcohol and sadness hit me in one swift moment. No, she didn't look dirty or homeless. She just looked very drunk, but she was properly dressed and she even had a pleasant face. She tells me that she has been drinking for 2 days, since her husband left her with nothing, for another woman. Cynics will tell you to be careful, that this is how a scam begins and that you will lose your wallet in the end. Human instinct tells me she had a story to tell. In between slurring obnoxious jokes in broken english and crying while saying " I love him so much", I felt a surge of compassion at this genuinely helpless sight.

Some moments, she would break into a drunken song and apologize to me for being like this. She kept apologizing over and over, as if there was a well of guilt she had to unload. I asked her about the huge scars on her arm, they were large and evil looking like tentacles chaining her arms. She kept silent and smiled. Then she cried and told me rather irrelevantly that she was working as a construction worker to support her husband. She was on her way to look for him to see him for the last time, because she hated him and she loved him at the same time. I told her that she could be better than this, she spoke english and she knew that she was in a sorry state. "But I love him so much..." she trails off falling into deep sleep, to a place better than the one she is in now.

I realized that love, even obsessive and unfair love was the greatest thing she could achieve in her small world of pain. Love makes the smallest person feel noble and immortal, even if there was nothing heroic about how things have turned out. This is one lady who simply could not let go of the one thing that made her feel closer to humanity.

Just before I get off the train, she wakes up and tells me humbly that she was glad to have met me and to go to the temple to pray for her because she was going to end her life. She was going to leave this world, unwilling and unable to let go of her past. There is a stillness in her eyes that makes you feel like you are already staring at someone who has died. I tell her to be strong. At the next stop, she smiles at me and gets off the train in silence. Suddenly, I feel the urge to get off and tell her not to do anything stupid. In a flash, the train moves off and I look at the empty space next to me. The man who had been standing for close to 3 hours moves into the seat and offers me and the people around me rambutans and everyone eats them heartily while introducing ourselves. And that woman becomes a forgotten figure, left behind with her own forgotten past."

when ash becomes gold.

I haven't had the heart to write for what feels like the longest time. its the process of thinking, absorbing and accepting that we humans go through. I find that i am quick in discovering and learning truths, but so very slow in absorbing and accepting them. a part of me has died with acceptance that can only be true because of its finality. i know the half heart that once stirred recklessly has beat itself to death. for awhile i was mourning, some times i still indulge in that heavy hearted feeling. but yesterday, as i stayed up meandering through my books, i saw the sun rise. i had never seen the sky with so much clarity - the perspective was so intense i felt must had been noon white light, only the cool breath of dawn reminded me that it was only 7 in the morning. it was moment where my past, present and future intertwined to a point of purity, distilled to a mere drop of happiness. I'm done with the past, and i've found peace at least. some quiet contentment, aligned with a strange source of strength. all fear melted then. it wasn't just the sun's tendrils that were caressing me, it was peace and silence. i never felt true-ness like this before, where everything was dissolved into a moment of stillness. that was truth. the light of it, in one moment the darkness had left me behind, abandoning the home it loved for years leaving me hollow and blank like a child in the withered bark of a tree again.