Wasteland

Sometimes I wish for the Earth to stop spinning
for the sheer madness to hold
for people to give less of a fuck
and give more
more

of themselves

We're all more or less
                                           dying

初一

Once a year, there are as many shoes as there are people.

Once a year, life is caught in a postulating pause. It's as if the passage of time is more pronounced, less subtle; more effect and less cause.

I still remember the days when my brother, cousin and I would be playing in our aunt's 'Lego Room' at these yearly affairs. 太婆 would walk in, her smile so nurturing it punishes the austere face of the wall, before sitting down and telling us in Cantonese, "Xiu peng yao, tai po kar lei mon hong bao."

On this day, however, 太婆 merely sits up and wonders aloud, "Erng ji bin gor da bin gor" ("I've forgotten who's who"). When we pay her our respects, we introduce ourselves. She remembers little.

Today, we aren't in the play room. 太婆 can no longer walk at will. Perhaps ninety-four 'yearly affairs' later one seeks, in watching people go about their own ways, an odd assurance.

So let me assure you, 太婆, let me assure you and your daughter, our grandmother - who tears when she realises that it's exactly thirty years ago that her two sons were taking their A and O Levels, just as my brother and I are this year - let me assure you that when you both have long forgotten, that when your memory is lost to age, I will introduce 'us' to you again and again, for as many times as it takes; that when the past tempts you, eludes you, forsakes you - I will weave coherence into your confusion.

There will be as much sense as there are shoes.

Come on, now - we have so much catching up to do.

Q&A

You may not want to barge in through the chimney
'Cos at least Opportunity knocks at the door.

We'll put out the milk and the cookies
We'll sit by the tree with bated breath
But Age will serve to tell us
That it's another no-show;

For silver hair live out our golden years
Before our bronzed skin is taken
By the things we fear.

Eyes will glisten and
Hearts will listen
As radios speak of
A Berlin night of terror
After Aleppo waited in horror
and the world didn't seem to bother.

Santa,
Santa
For all your gifts
Your hand-crafted blessings to Mankind
- does world peace happen to be
one of them?

I know
they say everything is nicer in
black and white
But we're all still after colour,
chasing rainbows we cannot ride.

To paint is to taint but to sketch,
To sketch
is a means of drawing hope
from our deepest reserves and sometimes
Sometimes
That's not a bad thing.

Dust the dirt off your carousel
Whisper
Shout
(Sound like you mean it)
There is plenty
to be Merry about.

In time gone by

If Dream had a best friend it'd be the acrid smell that rain leaves - no, hangs - in the air, suspended not by wires and ropes but nagging persistence and a little companion called Hope.

If Dream had a face it'd be nondescript; the kind which gives little away.

If Dream had eyes they would be soulful like dirt, and you could look into them, and at that very moment you look into them you would see into a world of possibilities. They'd just be a vision, in a dark, extensive, elusive experience beneath his eyes.

If Dream had a hobby, it'd be running, so no one could ever catch him (but they'd all keep on chasing).

If Dream had a dream it'd be made up of the things he fears the most, and yet it takes courage to fear.

If Dream had a favourite colour it'd be blue because the sky is the limit - it's just that there's no one to tell us there's nothing up in it.

If Dream had one last day on Earth the planets would all stop spinning and watch with wry smiles on their faces; time will play a fool, and Dream will lend himself to the very air he breathed, slowly carrying him beyond existence.

Fortune's always hiding

No moon is too blue,
and yet no flag too white
You join this late game
of darts and sights.

Gaiety glances are shot

and questions abound

But they're cunningly cerebral

And it's loss that I've found

Words have a curious way

Of reigning themselves in

Absent then, of course, are

The things I truly mean.

To keep another's words

In a time-tested safe,

And to think they keep yours

Takes a measure of faith.

When silence glares at you
with its head in the clouds
You begin to wonder
if thinking's allowed.

(What's worse...)

Happy endings are a problem

We can never mend, for

Whatever happened to

Being happy before we end?

Untitled

Maybe

if we ignored the darkness

Then

the light would have no excuse

for not showing up.

Ghosts in city lights

Perhaps words
are people
with bipolar disorder;
now they are dying to be said
when we are all living to die;
the manic meandering
through lost fields of coherence

then, moments later,
not looking too wise
nor frightfully fearless
- they are here to stay

and yet they lie in wait
still they stand in line
to traverse the sky
side by side
on another day