Air

Gion Haiku

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Geta beat like drums
Sunset, then nightfall and rain
Quick, light the lantern!

Ritual

Open your eyes.

As a breath enters your nostrils, fills your body and leaves your lungs, give thanks to the Creator for your soul, able yet to inhale and exhale.

Give thanks for yet another day laid at your feet; this gift of possibility and potential, another chance to strive a little further.

Open the curtains and windows. Take in whatever light and air there is.

Remind yourself how small you are in this world, but remind yourself too that small things can make a big difference.

Inhale. Exhale. Stretch.

Put on some music. Tune your heartbeat to the rhythm of the awakening world. There is music everywhere, if we choose to listen.

Listen. To your heart and your head. Listen without judgment or regret, without the desire to control or direct.

Leave the distractions of commentary and imagery alone for now. This is time to be still and silent before the deluge of information and stimulation and noise attack you later (as it surely will).

Move. Perform a sun salutation, or ten. A push-up, or twenty. Run the block, or a few miles. Your body has rested; it needs warming up.

As you move, take note you that your heart and soul is housed in a body: your body. It is fallible, limited. But it is faithful and beautiful. It is yours alone. Do not take it for granted as you wander through this realm. Eat, drink, nourish it.

Read, at least a line or two. From the morning funnies. Or the Holy Scriptures.

Speak: to God, to yourself, to the universe. Ask: for guidance, for protection, for courage, for strength.

And now, you are ready. To meet the rest of your day, and the rest of your life.

Saudade Season

You're as tall as the tree
Sophisticated, you see
The tinsel in truth is tack
The gifts prove their own lack
Of insight into your standing now.

Yesterday's bells ring
Today's melancholy sting
Come then crowd of unwelcome ties
Another dinner to tell more lies?
Asides and clever lines for your brow.

Under the bough, no more surprises
Another lost year chastises
Too much wine, you yawn
Where could the magic have gone?
Resigned that it's lost, you bow

Goodnight youth, goodnight now.

(October 2014)

Affogato

To pour the whole shot

In one shot

Without spilling a drop

Was always a skill of yours

At first the globe floats in defiance

Refusing to succumb

But already revealing canyons

Flooded with rivers of black-brown

Soon the stirring

Melts as it mixes

The ice and heat

Embracing each other

Between forgetting

And bittersweet fantasy

I taste long gone

Weekends

Now all is left

Is a line of beige

On clear glass

And an aftertaste

Of smoke and caramel

(September 2012)

Crumpled

Unravel me

Untie the knots

Only you know

How to untie

Iron out the creases

On the crumpled sheets

Of my bundled mind

Salve my bruise

Rub off my scar

Kiss away the sting

On my broken body

My empty hands

Fill them

My blistered feet

Heal them

Speak to me

And in speaking

Give me hope to reply

Unfurl my sails

Let me dare

To dream

To fly

With you

(August 2012)

Mang Guo

I wrote in my previous post that a script I wrote was being made into a short film. It is finally out. I hope you enjoy it. Constructive feedback is most welcome.

Mango(steens)

Five years ago, I was part of a devised play called Lost & Found at The Actor's Studio (when it was still at Lot 10), directed by Joe Hasham and Gavin Yap.

It was where I met Justin Wong, who not long after the play ended said he wanted to make a piece I wrote for the play into a short movie.

He's finally made it, and I had a chance to be part of the rehearsal and shoot. It was certainly a little surreal.

Unfortunately, the title fruit was out of season when we started shooting, so we substituted it with mangoes instead. #closeenough

It seems my creative writing with fruits in their titles seem to be going places.

Watch this space guys!

Moonfruit

So sometime ago, my short story "Moonfruit" was read on my favourite radio station: BFM 89.9.

You can find the podcast here.

I hope you like it!

Note to Self for 2015

Treasure time. Treasure now.  

Simplify (but not too much). 

Dance (even if it's just hopping to the car). 

Read more, listen more, see more. 

Fear less, worry less, criticise less. 

React slowly, help quickly. 

Give abundantly, without expectation. 

Act to change, don't whine. 

Keep learning. 

Keep moving. 

Keep improving. 

Create, create, create. 

Serve, serve, serve. 

Count blessings. 

Love more completely, more fearlessly, more selflessly, always. 

Happy New Year everyone!

The Prince and the City

The Prince gazed out the window

He could not, would not, be moved

By the reluctance so poorly hidden

In the words of the Council. 

I need not listen to a Council of Fools! 

Was it not clear as the summer sky? 

A child would have heard my words

And comprehended better than they.

Snub out the light, and the moths will no longer come!

Take away the honey, and the flies will disappear!

Then the glory of the City will be revealed threefold

And those afar will yearn with envy

For our streets cleared of the jetsam

Our roads free from flotsam

Our temples cleansed of  fallen souls.

His swift decree by sundown 

Left no doubt between the lines

This City will no longer cover

Those who must not be sheltered

And he who lights a candle

Shall too be sent into the darkness.

And so it was, the glory of the city

So sought by the Prince

Never shone, never glittered

As each lamp and candle and fire 

Was put away and blown out.

In the bitter cold the Prince learnt

That the glow of the city

Had come not from the ivory towers he built

But the love in the hearts of its people.

Cartographer's Lament

By the same stars we navigated,
We intertwined our paths
And layered our maps
Like the blankets we shared.

I marked the miles
As he measured the hills,
New streets we drew with borrowed lines
We didn't know could turn
Overdue.

I knew right from his left,
My landmarks were his,
Plotting the fate
Our constellations had designed.

The light in the horizon
Covered cracks on the road,
Perhaps I ignored the warning
That at times even stars 
Don't stay their course.

He kept silent miles before
He took the sudden turn,
The edges could not bear
The pull of divergent routes:
It tore our atlas in two.

Left with fragments
Of a once familiar map,
I go down wrong paths often,
Blank spots aplenty and
Lampposts too few.

The routes I take
Are now disconcerting,
Part familiar, part foreign,
Half still the same, half all new.

My landscape has been relaid,
The scale is all askew,
The directions erased,
Buildings wrecked and
The once bright horizon 

Now wavering lines of gray.

I pass the old clocktower;

The minute hand lags,
The library is half crumbling, 
And the town hall melting
Into the square,
Now not quite a square.

I am a stranger in my own town,
Half-hidden faces pass in view,
I fear I may see him at the turn
And fear that I never will.

Anamnesis

I took my things the day I left you, 

I left you to the left,
Or was it to the right?

The left, I think that's right—

I can't recall anymore.

But besides the things I took,

I think I forgot to take

Some thing, or things,
(I can't recall anymore)
Which I left behind, to your right.

What was it? I can't recall,

What they were for, even that
I can't recall anymore—

Was it that many things

Which we shared?

Looking back I suspect that,

That which I left behind

Was something (or things)

Which helped me remember

The things I forgot,
Things I can't recall anymore.

Perhaps that's for the better,

and I'll just use what's left, 

To make right, what I can recall,
And leave together behind,
To the left, or the right—
It doesn't matter anymore.

Calcium

Hello wayfaring readers who wander here. I know I link this blog to a lot of places with public access but rarely ever update it. Legal life does that to you. You write so much at work you have little willpower to string more than two words into a sentence once you leave the office.

This is a bit of a cop-out, but it's better than nothing: I wrote this piece a long time ago and found it lying in one of my desktop folders a few days back. Rather tellingly it was my office desktop (I rarely use my home laptop anymore). 

It’s date mark is 29th November 2013 but I am fairly sure it was written sometime before and just edited in November.

It is obvious I was not in a good place. I’m not there anymore. I may not be on cloud nine right now but I'm glad I’m not there. That’s not to say I won’t end up there again. In fact sometime in the future I'm sure I will.

Reading it again, I find the piece (somewhat embarassingly) overworked and heavy handed, but I know that when you feel your body ache both literally and figuratively, when you struggle to find hope, you aren’t entirely sensitive to subtlety—you just want to pour it out rather than worry about poetic merit or quality.

I hope this helps someone out there who may feel the weight of the world on his/her shoulders. You are not alone. We all go through this. And for instant comfort, read the beautiful Psalm 121.

Calcium

by Joshua WK Chong

My bones are caving in

Sunken in morning drudgery

Sun oppressed

Trembling

Even under moonlight

Invisible burdens

Weigh my frame

Sag my shoulders

Hidden fractures

Corrupt my composure

Silent aches drain

Just as palpably

But where is the respite

To heal unseen cracks?

Will I withstand crumbling –

Not sudden demolition –

But fine dust ground daily

Gnawed away bit by bit?

Will the cage

Turn so brittle

It heaves under

A fearful whisper?

Who knows?

Who knows?

Who knows?

Return to Sender

Some years ago (yes, years) I discussed an idea with a friend, Justin Wong. That idea became a film script which we co-wrote, and Justin ultimately made that script into a short film.

The film has been out for a while; I honestly don't remember why I did not post it here but anyway, here it is.

It is admittedly a flawed end-product, but we (especially Justin) learnt a lot from the process of translating a script into film. Nabihan, who plays Vanessa, is a gem in this one.

It will be sent to some local screenings here and there.

Tell me what you think.

But

We should go but
You don't have to accept it but
I know it's sounds bad but

So small a word
Three tiny letters
Yet
So dangerous

Cunning as it is lethal
Easily used
Impossible to resist

We'd like to keep you but
I know it's wrong but
You make sense but

The blade planted in a cupcake
The bee hidding in a bed of roses
The string that triggers the trap

You did good but
We ought to stop but
I love you but

You are lulled, then tethered, then smashed
Like a boat cruising on a gentle stream
Which takes a sudden turn
To a waterfall

I'd write more but

Flags

So many mushrooms
Competing for space
Sudden tree-vines and
Props for the race

Loud coloured, mass produced
Full moon and clear star
Fast rocket and bright eye
Weaving new hope from afar

Old scales of justice
Tilting left and right
Rows and rows and rows
They came in the night

Marking territories
So many things to say
Poles that cut through flesh
Reminders of dues to pay

Screens splitting tables
New walls grown in-between
Friends and neighbours leave
Wounds felt but not seen

As flowers fade and vanish
They go, quick as they came
We saw the victor clinch the wreath
We know the familiar name

The flags will disappear
But scars take their time
Not too long they'll return again
Five years down the line

Monuments

I dreamed of spires

Pillars by a dome

Columns with Corinthian

Capitals in Rome

I dreamed of chimes

Built as a roof

Gilded with gold

On a tower aloof

I dreamed of a city

Carved out of stone

Its rivers glistened

As I crossed them alone

I dreamed of pyramids

A riddle was asked

Where is my answer?

The cipher is masked

I dreamed of a bridge

On which I sighed

And when it crumbled

I knew my dreams had lied

Pieces

I cut out a piece of the sky for you
To match your blue dress
To pin to your hair
So you can say as a joke
That your head is in the clouds.

I cut out a piece of the moon for you
To glow when it's dark
To hang in a frame
So you can look at it
And recall the shadow of my smile.

I cut out a piece of my heart for you
The part that still beats your name
To do as you please
To wear on a chain
Or bury in the ground.

(I wrote the above in September 2012.)

Jolt

I cannot even remember the last time my mental endurance was stretched that far.
I am now struggling to process and digest what has happened over the last week, and its ripple effect on my family and my psyche.

I am now forced to think, reflect and consider carefully what I want in life, both in the short and long term, as well as what I trully value. I hope to find the time to do so in the following weeks.

It was a challenging experience, but in midst of its mad haze I gained immense strength and profound new insights. It’s true what Nietzsche said: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. And perhaps a little wiser too.