Gotta buck up

I checked the last time I wrote a poem was way back in March! 8 months ago?!! This won't do.

Honesty

You wrote me a love letter from India
and at the end of it you said, I hope
you're thinking of me. Then came another
letter from China; you said you wrote that one
while travelling on a dodgy train with your piss-drunk
friend sitting beside you. You said you saved me
photo-film cans filled with sand you picked
from all the exotic places you've been- just as I'd asked you to,
before you left.

Your last letter you wrote after you came back.
You realized I didn't feel the same way any
more. Something died in me between the time you left
and your return and try as i might I could not
find the answer.

At least this was what I told you because
in the end, it was much easier to pretend than to pile
on hurt onto your pain if I were to say in all honesty,
I just don't love you anymore.

(21 Nov 2007)

Scary Movie

I turn on the TV and a scary movie is showing, the ghost
is clawing out of a blur in a black and white photo

I peep out from behind my fan-fingers, my fear
oozing uncontrollable like sweat

The husband sitting next to me laughs
at my terror, he tells me,

hey, its' just TV, its not real - but
when the ghost jumps out from an empty jacket,

I hear him muffle his yell with
'Shit!'

(21 Nov 2007)

Desiderata

1. I sent forth my kite into the sky, my heart
in my mouth, I wondered
if the kite might ever return. Square rice-paper,unadorned,
joined clumsily with 2 crossed bamboo strips and held together with thread
and tape, a flimsy construct not destined for permanence. In my hand,
the spool makes a sudden jump
at unravelling, the kite straining to free itself. I let it go;
the sympathy in me and the wind
both welling, both taking turns to pull and let go.

2. 1984, the first time I saw the meek red drops,
otherwise inconsequential. From my childish frame, not yet
curved and bent by womanhood it came. The red appeared
like an apology, embarassed by its own unexpected arrival. It waits,
silently for me to bid goodbye to my childhood. That year,
nothing else happened.

3. I hope you'll find peace in Sorrento as I once did.
I sat myself down on a cliff top where once stood a roman castle, its' not
even a vague memory now, identifiable only by remains of rubble. Ocean, mountain
and sky stood in perfect symmetry. In the presence of god,
the soul says everything, the lips cannot
find equal words to express. For once, there are no loose threads,
my world felt whole.

(19 Nov 2007)

Photography

A photo starts with a yearning for others to see, feel and understand the world as I do.


Above: My Holga CFN 120 goes where I go. It weighs next to nothing, asks for sunny skies but very little else and best of all, gives me a more colourful world through my photos.

Hari Raya Photos- much overdue

Ok guys, here they are, kindly sorted into digital album by Nizan. Thank you Nizan!
XOX

More Hari Raya Friends Photos