Liminality's Frail Reality
152 posts in this topic.
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If the title is contrived and dramatic, then it fits me just fine.
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I.
From Ashes
Man invents the tool of time
for the gift of golden dawns
that cleanse and calibrate
this ailing ancient body.
Wisps of rays, they wash down,
with tortuous tidings as their guide,
the tide, the tide, oh it towers so tall
and purges this vessel with power.
“Yes,” I stand up, “Let this surge through me,
so the pressure builds and expunges
every needle nesting here, pumping its poison.
Let me off of life support.”
Spring wind tickles the tumours from dead lungs,
I cough up clumps of putrefied flesh
and will that I raze all the rot deep inside
before the night comes to nestle.
Wiping dulled windows, I see my brick wall,
and driven by fancies of freshness and light,
I will that I sow a new heart, soft and sweet,
and break down this barrier so the children may eat.
As I look on the heartless horizons,
I will that I grow outside this sad garden,
become a pillar that pushes the sky
into primordial planets
and glittering galaxies,
into the great cosmos that ever confounds me.
Then as the last shadows slink back into nothing,
I reach up
and think I touch stardust. -
II.
Freedom is that rugged canvas cylinder
glowing brightly in the air,
with candle thick and burning steady
though no human watches there.
The venture of this vessel
in a gentle floating flight
illuminates the sky with awe:
even stars exude delight.
But most lanterns hang from hooks
kept pristine for gawking and staring;
protests are but flutters in the breeze
when handling hands are no longer caring.
Though strength may rest in rusty frames still
and remnants of pride roar muffled from the lights
these dead living cages can only will
to cling to the rooftops and weather windy nights. -
*Title: The Lantern
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III.
May.13
Bodies float down
the clear Klang River
and all of them are blind.
They follow the meanders
like a choo-choo train
to cut across the nation's heart
with multicoloured carriages,
though soon they all fade
into a shade
of bone.
Children fish them out;
some are missing heads,
but all of them are blind.
They follow the meanders,
playing snakes and ladders
until the young ones run for curfew
with guns popping in the distance,
vomiting black smoke,
like lightless
fireworks.
Bodies sink down
into the clear Klang River
and then, the world goes blind.
They follow the meanders
like riding waves on a keris
that stains the home soil red,
kept for frightening toddlers,
after the waters grow murky,
into their bedrooms
sorted by colour.
*keris = a ceremonial knife with a wavy edge
Read more about the event here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13_May_incident -
IV.
Animalia
Powerful vehicles skid across the frost
built from flesh, blubber and bone.
They plough through snow like tractors
but leave the trails of feather brushes.
Wedge-shaped wheels drum against the ice
as they form crossroads on the coast.
Powerful vehicles pinpoint, precise
and lunge like arrows
into the black ocean
and plunge like missiles
into twisting waves,
expunge the depths of a white foamy spray.
Winged is the beast that seizes the coat
of a single sallow stray left capsized like a boat
on shore, but as if
igniting a reserve of petroleum, it
steps on the gas
and strikes back.
Frightened flapping fades into the horizon
eclipsed by a low and hearty rumble;
blood glides off its ebony suit
then into the sea, it tumbles. -
V.
From Ashes (II)
Man invents the tool of time
to gouge out golden dawns
that cleanse and calibrate
this ailing ancient body.
Wisps of rays, they wash down,
with tortuous tidings as their guide:
a tide of new air that casts shadows so long
and purges this vessel with power.
Yes, let these waves surge through me,
so the pressure builds and expunges
every needle nesting here that pumps veins with poison.
Let me off of life support.
Spring wind tickles the tumours from dead lungs;
I cough up clumps of putrefied flesh
and will that I raze all the rot deep inside
before the night comes to nestle.
Wiping dulled windows, I see my brick wall, and–
driven by fancies of freshness and light
– I will that I sow a new heart, soft and sweet
and break down this barrier so the children may eat.
I will that I grow outside this sad garden,
in midst of the birth of young heartless horizons,
become a pillar that pushes the sky
into primordial planets
and glittering galaxies,
this light-craving cosmos that ever confounds me
even now, with its retreating shadows,
I reach up
and think I touch stardust. -
VI.
Bielefeld
The old German town
That always existed
Became quite renowned
In a way rather twisted –
But don’t get me wrong
There was no evil scheme
The odd goings-on
Were merely a meme.
Three questions were asked
That most answered ‘no’.
Those up to the task,
That did in fact know
Were silenced to secrecy
For no one could prove
They weren’t in the conspiracy
Or had minds not removed.
The story went for a whirl,
But the fun still intact
Even Chancellor Merkel
Got in on the act.
She had a confession
That she laid quite bare:
“I had the impression
I really was there.”
And the mayor of Bielefeld
Reports they still call
To ask if the town
Ever was, after all.
And how, may you wonder?
It’s easy, you see?
To say that this blunder
Was written by SIE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bielefeld_conspiracy -
VII.
Little Children on a Bicycle
Two little children
together ride a bike,
T-shirts bright against the tired white
of the backdrop:
a decaying alley
stained with splashes of slate grey
that point ghostly fingers down
at the matching concrete pavement.
Somebody put them there,
superimposed onto this
dark and dirty place coated
in a history-murky film
like vinegar pickling
a past too-fondly remembered
and never eaten.
The chalky blue mould clings
as years do.
Two smiling faces
are forever frozen on a bike;
the sun-burnished bronze of their cheeks
leaks out onto the wall
as if cleansing it of oldness
with sepia brown clouds.
Nobody dares
to whitewash it.
Where is he now,
who must have loved them
so very much
to trap them in our era?
Artwork: "Little Children on a Bicycle" by Ernest Zacharevic
(The first mural in this collection: http://www.ernestzacharevic.com/outdoor#/georgetown2012)
A/N: This is an iconic mural that was painted in my hometown. I wrote this poem based on my own impressions and ideas regarding the image before I looked up its background. When I was younger, I had always thought the picture depicted an older time in Malaysia, the 50s and 60s that everyone here has so much nostalgia for, because it wasn't a scene I saw often growing up. We were always told it wasn't safe for children to go around on bicycle anymore. As it turns out, the mural was based on "scenes of everyday life" here and real people from the area, so maybe it's just me. -
(May need to put this challenge on hold until April or May. Major exams coming up again, including English, so I'll need to save my writing time for prose practice.)
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VIII.
Squares
We don’t have room for squares
here in George Town Penang.
Our lives are vacuum-packed
into nets of corridors.
We don’t have room for living
here in George Town Penang,
though my neon-swaddled neighbours
may be running marathons.
We don’t have room for squares
here in George Town Penang;
Two hundred years of movement
needs about two million metres.
We don’t have room for gloating
here in George Town Penang:
named for someone else’s king,
ripped from someone else’s land.
((Had time to write this piece, at least.)) -
IX.
The School Field
Never saw I so green a grass -
so coarse it was, so charmingly crass -
that tickled my skin, no, never again
would I encounter.
Thus, desperately I skipped, and I skipped
the soles of my shoes asunder. -
X.
Watson (or Living in Change)
Arising from the outskirts of the land,
One gush of strange unprecedented stream;
He thought the mind a putty in the hand
And genes as soft as patisserie's cream.
Decrying what was thought, and what was known -
A comet shot where no man ever dared;
The present and the future seemed his own,
And just as quickly flew into the air.
But those beloved could barely stand his sight:
A fleeting image, blinded by the light.
((John B. Watson was born on the 9th of January. He was an American psychologist who founded the behaviourist school.)) -
Week I.
The prototype of a snowman
is the smiling child who builds it
with little leaf eyes a little too
life-like.
The prototype of a snowman
is hats, crowning ambiguous fluff
with the shape of anthropomorphism,
slightly lumpy.
The prototype of a snowman
flips through years like pages
of grey-scale stories that melt
away. -
May Haiku (without articles)
Ocean-blue Sky
Above, ocean-blue
sky dissolving white light on
earth-hued clouds below.
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