night of all the dead saints

 
nights like these engulf the dark
make an anomaly of light
alter the perception of loss

nights like these will turn you blind
if you ever let your guard down
bloat shadows back into their fold

nights like these scorn the senses
for even in the dark of dark
silhouette always a volcán

 

The window

Looking out the window, a postcard

– the dogs on the patio, resting –

– the steep downward slope of the street –

– the lake sitting in the caldera

spangling in the morning bright –

– peeking above the lip of the volcanoes

banks of clouds and ash plumes –

even this is a harbinger of life.

One can discern the vibrant lanchas

cargoing the commuters across

– arrows on the still waters –

the trees around unmoving almost

yet the wind surely flutters by

– the birds hardly beat their wings.

The window isn’t quite clean

– though Maria did them all yesterday

and she’s a pretty good cleaner –

for the ash never takes long to settle.

When the wind blows over the lake

the window groans, the joints creak

and let the rain in when it’s lashing down. 

At night the breeze whistles through

– even as I caulked it twice already.

In an hour or so when the city is bustling

I’ll hear every passing conversation

every distant motorcycle engine

– as if the window weren’t there –

the birds chirping as if sitting on my lap

– not much of a window, I know –

yet every day before work I look out

and it’s the same postcard I like

– on rainy days it cools my forehead –

– on warm days it turns the kitchen table

in the perfect sleeping spot for the cat

– whose bowl clinked on the tiles

like the Fuego on a bad day.

In that same spot yesterday sat

the puzzle of you I had just finished

– when I finally found the truth out –

heartbroken yet unable to look away

– missing pieces didn’t matter anymore –

for when I showed you, you knew, and cried.

Today I wish all the world’s Fuegos would

all go at once so we could be done with it.

The Spinner

 
Here I was, am, shall be,
tending the tree I planted,
by the well I built,
with water from my hands.

The clay under my fingernails
that wouldn’t wash off.

In turn my gaze, piercing volumes:
strata of stars and nestled nebulae,
maelstroms of filaments:
from roots to trunk to branches:
twigs, leaves, crown.
Birth, life, death.
All of my own, and none of mine.

There is, shall be, was no day,
no night, no time:
only the thirst, mine and the tree’s,
quenched by the well.

Both absolute darkness and light
thrumming out of my bosom
fluttering in strands about my robe
my fingers spunning like twine
woving into the tree’s roots.

In my reflection in the bucket
my eyes sparkling constellations,
seeing all around, through, across.
And back. All that was, shall be, is.

Seeking, and finding, and ruling, always.
Making sure that which cannot stop
shan’t be, wasn’t, isn’t, stopped.

Sleeping in turn but ever awake.
Vigilant, aware, keen.
Then, here, there.
Once, now, yon.

All is, shall was be, making sense
as one uninterrupted yarn
eased by the clay and the water
and the hands’ constant spinning.

The heartbeat in the hand touching the tree
his, mine, that of the space inbetween
the home, journey and destination,
the source of joy, grieving and sorrow.

Here I was am shall be
all and nothing and myself
between and the tree and the well.

 

Some lives

 

Some lives, arduous, indocile, unbridled,
need not be shunned but embraced –
they show where strength can be found
– when all one sees is woe and pain –

These lives had to trudge through deserts
and snows and tundras, so now they know
how to balance a mountain at arms’ length
and not yield under the impossible weight
– how to bend the darkness to find the light –
– how to cradle a pulsar, tame it, and love it –

These lives are wont to carry heavy things
– hearts, breathing, silence, boots –
they know what to do with the dark
– fold it like an origami – dense like
ten hundred thousand suns –
– seemingly effortlessly yet
their shoulders bent and their gaze away –
– paperfold firmly set on their bedside table
glowing shadow in the unlit room –
– a constant vigil so it doesn’t unfold –

These lives hold the maps to emptiness
– had to find paths through unmarked lands –
feeling their way with outstretched hands
– unsure of step and yet adamant on
learning how to harness the darkness –

Those sheer voyagers of the soul
pay no heed to us who carry joy
like a handbasket on a Sunday morn
– they carry chagrin like a moving globe –
– thus we may sit still, unmindful, on the grass
unsuspecting of the pain we’re spared –

A knowing nod, an intent handshake
would lighten their selfless toil
– if only a little for a little while –
for carrying what we couldn’t has a toll
which would make our joy trivial
and our issues embarrassing

in the face of some lives.
 

Mermaid

 

Strange calls in the night
songs unsoothing the soul
the place where the gods had left
I had arrived

I was done, so done
I was ready, at last
I unwaxed my ears
sank my sail on the skerries

woke up tangled in kelp
a mermaid glaring over me

both wondering why
I was still breathing

I asked her to sing again
and again until I drowned

I saw all my pain and grief
manifest and explode
but it didn’t kill me

I taught the mermaid
heartwrenching songs
and singing she spun me
round and round
down to the bottom

but I wasn’t drowning
so I forged a blade
for her to spear my heart
opened my shirt wide
showed her the beating flesh

she stabbed at it, twice, thrice
her nails clawed it out of my chest
squelching blood in her angry fist
beads of pearls on the sand at our feet

but I wasn’t dying

we embraced and shed tears
we tried a million different ways
time lost importance, even for her
she consoled me every time
I woke up breathing

something in me wouldn't let go

one day as she held my head
on her lap, she stared at me
for so long days passed
weeks perhaps and
in time she said I love you
and plunged in the ocean

I waited for her, and waited,
suns and moons in harvests aplenty
she never swam back to me

the ache, the ache was so great
that finally the wild went silent
and I closed my eyes

 

A voyage home

 
The way long and long out of sight
Bearings and light leeward lost
Darkness abounding de-fettered
Night lining out our hearts
Even in daylight plain

Resolve dissolved in blood
Dreams a-throng yet wraith-hued
Picking bones for lack of food
The hands of the gods against our fists
Lost, utterly lost in the glaucous glen

Seas gnawing at our sides
Gulls sending false omens
Winds whistling us mad
Shunning our sun-seared sails
Though offerings were made

We had memorised how to recognise
Warriors, witches, and death
The nostos inked onto our palms
The eye keened to keep the way
Lit by lunar glints atop the waves

The cool of sunset soothing the burns
Laving the day’s salts and sweat
As days unnumbered themselves
Spinning inner songs of despair
No amount of wax would seal away

Death-scorning hubris we felt
For it had shied off of us still
Though countless times met
Thwarted by elden craftsmanship
And centuries-honed skills

Until one fateful moment when
Many auguries unclouded became
Whilst the sea rent the ship a-twain
Our invisible shield of hubris
Cloven in one fell stroke

Many of us drowned
Many of us in our prime
A handful stranded a-shore
Bloodied and cut and humbled
Yet clear-visioned and resolute

Like a first-time whore strutting
Unsure of step yet gut-driven
Embracing fate more than ever
We knelt to our urns in awe
Dumbed by wonderment

We knew our Ithaka out of reach
Nost-algia clouding the breath
Like agèd wine to a sour palate
Too many shores and sunsets
Dreamt of yet memory-lost

The sweetness of the stalls’ smells
Tip-of-the-tongue forgotten
Almost, almost at last remembering
A gossamer veil we couldn’t part
Weighing more than mountains

A tiredness unheard of
Marrow-burrowing
Deeper than the spearheads
Holding the tents encamped
Where we waged war

Life was odd for we were
longing-looking for home
Yet at its very doorstep
Unreckoning uncrossing
Oblivious to the signs
-
Walked on, distraught
As if blindfolded
By some callous hand
Unwishing us home
Undeserving of the kindness

We wander the wilds still
In-transit through constellations
We know never to attain
Aware of our self-brought doom
Cursing ourselves even more.

 

To the girl waiting under the tamarind tree

 
You could have had your elbows
propped up on the parapet
of the ferry to the kampong

You could have sighed
at the sunset faded
from the lone harbour

You could have taken a selfie
off the river Mekong
with a yūgen gaze

Yet you chose to sit shaded
chin cupped in your palms
under the tamarind tree

where you looked most beautiful

 

Redolent

 

The smell of mannered flesh
forcing itself up the nostrils,
coaxing the downbeat soul

self-hate feeling the urge
the exorbitant behoving
flatter and flout of the self

the mind battling the pulse
buckling under the pressure
finally, giving, in.

The travellers’ tales omit
the indelible stain of shame
the sense-agripping scents
forcing itself up the nose
the cheap perf cramping the guts
at the split of night
the retching too close
the hating, right there.
Every, single, second.

 

soul and bone

 
the soul thought firmly set
until love ransacked it blind
lungs, tendons, heart and all

the spirit ethered off
left but bled-out tissues
their fate the colour of mud

adamant to carve through
a paring knife, twist-gnawing
right where soul meets bone

 

Salt and ash

 
It was the last promise to be kept.

My grandparents reposed
where they had longed to be,
at last. For yes, I had tarried.

The morning sea was calm,
yet the hot air already at our throat,
cooled somewhat by the northeasterly.

The brief echo of thirty foghorns,
following long seconds of thunder,
resonated across the bay
with a harsh finality.
Those on the shore, invisible
but who later recounted hearing
the chilling call to salute and mourn,
bid their farewell, too.

Glints of tears and sweat
were quickly wiped,
though both were meant
to soothe body and soul.

The words exchanged on the boat
were perfunctory, hard as I tried.
The other words had clotted up,
lumped in the pharynx.

I was also distracted;
I was disappointed that I had
forgotten how heavy an urn was,
and the sheen of the sun
spangling on the wavecrest
caught my eye more than necessary.
They danced like dragonflies.

The urns swiftly sank out of sight.
My grandfather was with his wife,
my grandmother with her daughter,
my partner hopefully greeting them
with open arms and soft words.

I felt like the guardian of a time
of yore submerged by the seas,
a watchman over invisible ruins
whose existence only I could attest to
and point at on a map.

My word, as the last one alive and willing,
had been kept, yet the light felt heavy still,
unbearably ubiquitous and constant,
proscribing darkness also,
an offering on a propitious day.

Back on land, memories
were carried and shared,
glasses were raised,
as much to celebrate the past
with ones who mattered
but were no longer here,
as to hail in the future
of a resolute few who,
though tossed about by the waves,
had managed to keep the boat afloat
and their gaze fixed on the horizon
that we had been bequeathed.

It was the last promise to the dead.
On that day we the living,
amidst the silence of the seas,
where the sum of our love was,
dispersed yet present yet calm,

salt and ash parching our lips,
set foot on the shore to start afresh.

 

Some days it's hard not to hate myself

 
Some days it's hard not to hate myself
The constant state of constant failure
As if I didn’t take life seriously
As if tomorrow didn’t matter

Not even a case of Carpe diem
More like a fuck-this-shit issue

And all crumbles like a house of cards
But some cards didn’t seem to have existed

“The oeuvre was flawed from the start”
Said the old ghost strutting back in his chair
With this fingertips joined, he added
“Well well well, look who’s called”

Every time getting closer to the brink
The tiredness, the heaviness of existence
The energy and motivation getting lower
The wish to unbe turning to will
Waiting for the will to turn to dedication
Like swells heaving like heavy breaths

Fighting it still, but with less bravado
The élan dead longer than I thought

I am happy for my friends’ victories
“You are, but it doesn’t right the scales”
But I have none of my own
“Only soul-crushing defeats”

Yes, I am tired of being mediocre
And when I tried hard and failed
It was said I was unlucky
“But unluck can’t last this long, can it
It has to be something else”

I just want to be left alone now
And sleep it off, sleep for a long time
Long enough that I forget I’m sleeping
“What about the good old void
That would clear everything up”

I do not need a lot more persuasion
That it would be the best, yes
The timing makes sense, too

“Perhaps I won’t have to leave, this time”
No, perhaps you won’t have to.

 

Split voice

I want to leave an indelible mark upon this world

I want to leave the earth untouched, unmarred

I want to help, I want to shape the greater good

If we can’t make it better, we should leave it alone

I want to be in the spotlight of freedom

Let me remain in the shadow of freedom

I want to be remembered, a force of change that matters 

I want to be forgotten, my name struck out if reckoned

Let my deeds not be footnotes in History 

My donations shall remain anonymous

Acclaimed even in my sleep

Please leave me alone

I matter most because I’m better than most

What matters most is that you bettered yourself

Let people follow in my trailblazing footsteps

Let people see the steps in the snow and let them fade

I am what I am and what I do 

We are drowning in ourselves in action

Let my name echo in eternity

Let my name be lost for all eternity

Daffodils

 
Fists balled in the hollow of the eyes
Sat in the old, creaky wicker chair
The scream stuck in the pharynx
Blue-overalls despair taking hold
Between the exhaustion and the chaos
The spirit, there, at odds, blooming,
Like a, like a, daffodil

The life springing from the rot
Always in need of a new pot
Always seems to thrive more
Than the one from the store
99p, bargain-of-the-day life
Just give it a poke with a knife
Not to, not to, daffodils

You care not for the ruin
You care not for the grime
As soon as you find yourself
Right on the edge of time
And running out of one
Second or minute, year or life
Time is, time is, daffodils

Then you blame all the gods
For forcing us to rely on strife
Forgetting the absolute beauty
Of a flower thriving on blights
Like a, like a, daffodils

Life is a songbird eating
The brain of a mouse
And you don’t get it, for
How could beauty do this
Eat seeds one day and the next brains
Survival dictates and hunger commands
Among the, among the, daffodils

Daffodils, it’s always daffodils they say
For lilacs are too sad and bitter for life
And hyacinths too sweet for death

Daffodils are the living, and the dead
The hot rot on a bed of mulch
The rising fruit and the fallen leaf
Green and yellow both the growth
Of moss and of mould
Of grief and of lief

The lines blurred until they burst

The body blooms and withers
Decays one season, feeds the next
Born to fester and feast

Prayers won’t get us there
But daffodils will, inevitably.

To Florence

This is my body

 

I stopped worrying one day
about how I looked
in the eyes of others

And I was able to say
“This is my body
It’s been through a lot
and it shows

It is not perfect
stretch marks and scars
but this is what I have
this is what I nurture
I keep it and treasure it

It wasn’t always like this
it was more nimble once
and its skin smoother

And even if I didn’t always
now you and I will
treat it with care

As though it may still
suffer some blows
I shan’t let it be buffeted in vain
ever again

This is my body
and if you don’t like it
I have no other”

One day I stopped worrying
and loved the soul and the vessel
my choice to keep or to change
and loved, loved, loved

 

A Study on Grief

 

Once I met a quite serious scientist

In the underground going east

On my way to a tryst in Bayleaf

They looked at me with googly eyes

And said I’d be perfect to study grief

There was a sadness in my gaze

A slowness in my hands

That’s all they needed to see the pain

Truly they were an expert

Yet said Science had much to gain

They ran all the tests they could

And long I lay and long I stood

They penned all the words I said

Elaborated many graphs and charts

About all those I loved who were dead.

In the end they had to let me leave

As they’d learnt all they could about grief

And what they found they couldn’t believe

And threw themselves under the tube to Bayleaf.

If I love you

 
If I love you, what business is it of yours
if I love you, it is no business of anyone’s
including mine own

You cannot exact any requirement
nor any demand from my love
I do not even know myself how I do
but I do, maybe even against my will
or against any form of logic

And should you suffer from it
rest assured that I do, too

And if I love passionately, irrationally
if I love you my antithesis
you shall feel whatsoever you may
it is no business of anyone’s
and certainly not mine

And if I love with the commitment
of one circumnavigating the cosmos
if I love with the desperation
of one parched and starved and feverish
let it be just that: love for love’s sake
none can have any say in the matter

And if in the great madness of things
you happen to love me
not in return but for love’s sake
perhaps we might mind
our own business together
and be content and serene
basking in each other

like a cat in the sun, eyes half-aclose

floating specks in a sunbeam

stardust whose movement started
before anything or anyone was

 

on the wind

// on the wind // I heard your name // on the grass // a long time ago // had to be a thousand years, at least // in the night // the thought-memory of you // like a seed // like a tree // in the soil under the fingernails // your name was there too // for such a long time // the sky too overcast to notice // cacophonies of feelings and yellings // no longer drowned therein // only whispers // this unsilence for such a long time // though not the right time // the hawk ascending on the wind // on man-made moonlit mythical wings // finding time slowing down in the shade // wanting to be near // holding hands // with all those years of gestures, silences, thoughts, questions and learnings // gowpens of tragedies, love, carry-ons and acquired smiles // that was the right time // on the cairn I made on the knoll // meant the wait had been the rainbow // how I learnt to make everything I do and say // a long time ago you had been there and stayed // carefully telling everything your name to be remembered // and found // to never end // on the tip of the ear and tongue always // there // gut-feeling me through the ground // never quite lost // like a bonding of molecules with no definite centre // here but also there // now but also then // the most negligible of forces // like the faintest of rustles // on the wind //

Homemory

 

I’ll mark you in my book of memories

between sunfires at dawn and dusk

and meteor waves jolting the spheres

the memory of you will be a home to me

as the sunshafts after the rain are home to me

as the goosebumps from music are home to me

as feeling the last page of a book is home to me

you will be a home to me

in my book of memories

though the shades have darkened 

and the pages will have faded

as the storm of the century raged

home to me, home to me

Circumstances

 
Where have you been? Missed you so.
You haven’t changed, I’ve moved on.

Both are scary, what’s come over us?
Perhaps because no one’s letting go.

All them big words and no brawn,
but we’ve never been ones to fuss.

Had nothing to do, so I moved mountains
and a third of the sky off my way:

never be a hostage from geography –
always prefer wild seas to fountains.

Twenty-one grams lighter we weigh
now on our sure sway to apathy

had nothing to do so you froze right there
deer-in-the-headlights of a human being

tried with all your might to stay real
blinded and scorched by the glare

– no cure for that sort of pain –
– you don’t have it in you, sweet girl –
– no cure needed as you’ll do it again –
– chaos in immobility you are –

looking for something which stopped becoming
when you silenced your symmetry

bending space on opposite sides
won’t make it come full circle
we couldn’t even if we tried

or we might have and

we might be, different

 

Scattering of flower

 
Strewn about the vase
the petals a vestige
of a gone beauty
randomly, perhaps

Gathering the withered
soft and dead dryness
the mind but wanders
in the palm of the hand

Left alone in the field or
left to wane in the house
plucked or unplucked
the flower’s sum and parts
ordered by a deeper chirality
disperse long before they were a seed
arrange long after the end of time
yet mathematically arranged
yet unordered, perhaps

By plucking its petals
one both gathers and disperses
the beauty of the flower
contained elsewhere
randomly, perhaps