winding

i am frost-bitten upon realizing that
suddenly the diaphragm
refuses to cough out any more air:
(at least not this happy,
not this cold).
at least not now, not anymore.
with vapours on me,
i know that the winds were once here

the tide you are in

perhaps it is time to open your eyes
and watch the fishes
that are your lighthouses
go by;
and then you will know
that you haven't
really been dry, even when this
human tide arrests itself
in masks of
4-ply

living is about

living is about

being able to offer

everything in one second,

and nothing

the very next.

i love them still, though,

i am surrounded at times by
friends who make me feel alone.

How i found love

I found love
(illuminated) on a
bathroom wall, during
a blackout in Leh.

clouds i see, gods gone soft

the clouds
i see
mystifying the mosaic of
designer balconies
mean
the gods
gone soft
in blessing these working-class
storeys aloft

still life

if it makes
sense
is it still
life
?

all things are in love, for all joy wants - eternity!

Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love;

If you ever wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: "You please me, happiness, instant, moment!", then you wanted everything to return!

You wanted everything anew, everything eternal, everything chained, entwined together, everything in love, O that is how you loved the world.

You everlasting men, loved it eternally, and for all time: and you say even to woe: "Go, but return!" For all joy wants - eternity!

- Nietzsche (1969: 331-2)

Groundhog Day

What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything untterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"

Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine." If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?" would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more feverishly than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

- Nietzsche (1974: 273-4), The Gay Science

流年

有生之年 狹路相逢 終不能倖免
手心忽然長出糾纏的曲線
懂事之前 情動以後 長不過一天
留不住 算不出 流年

the world is an oyster!

i looked up and there is was:

the inside of an oyster shell, suspended, as if someone had accidentally torn off some of its mystery to auspiciously reveal beauty in awkward scraps of 7 colours.

i held (onto) my breath while breathing.

why i breathe

i only seem to
exhale so that our
breaths can
meet somewhere

sun in my mouth

i will wade out till my thighs
are steeped in burning flowers
i will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my body
i shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of seagulls
will i complete the mystery of my flesh

- from 'impressions' by ee cummings

you therefore i

you needed to rest your bones,
so i retired
you seldom wavered in your tones,
so i perspired
you somewhat mentioned tomorrow,
so i desired
you happened to choose to borrow,
so i misfired
you wanted to let me know again,
so i respired
you insisted on using the brain,
so i expired.

good night

a spanner in the words
will fold, lift,
and
submerge
the blueprint
maps of talk,

until they soar towards
a good night's
landing.

cold turkey

i will
tell myself
to
wait
until
saturday

all i hear at once

all i hear
if i would
is that you'd
date me
if you could
and all i
wonder is
if i should
hear you
all at once

questions about your face

how long ago did the crow land and step beside you,
when was the moon from underneath your cheeks due,
how are the wings of Peter Pan when the wind blew,
and where are the crooked lower walls i hardly ever knew?

paces

should our

faces meet

again,

should our

paces still

remain?

do tell me

do tell me
when you
realize that
you are
walking along
and
alone again:
i might just
walk with
you.

thread

it is a fine and mighty
thread that is either
borne out of unison
or spun out of
hope in masturbation;
still, a thread so fine,
one can only be tugged
by it and strive to
be blind

(been) moved

even as the bark peels, i peel it. as if

it needed the help. even as i sit perched,

i am shedding and exchanging breaths. even as

i look and stare, i dilate

with the changing lights. as if

i could fool myself into being exempt.

even as the locomotives encouraged each other, i could

only hope to cast a retrospective eye. as if

i had not (been) moved at all.

almost there

you said it felt like
we were almost there
and i asked
where is there?
you said it was
more of
what was there
so i asked
what?
and you finally said
to feel.
i stopped asking
and i found
there near:
it was already
here.

faye wong

-androgynously and
almost narf-like-
your gills
collect my breath while
only a brusque trail
is left even
without frills
(nor tail)

hunter(s)

when your heart hunts it injures more than its prey when my heart hunts it tends to itself not they when our hearts hunt they seldom recognize the fray when my heart hunts out yours there is bound to be blood either way

unravel

while you are away,
my heart comes undone,
slowly unravels,
like a ball of yarn,
the devil collects it,
with a grin,
our love, our love,
in a ball of yarn,
he’ll never return it
(so when you come back)
we’ll have to make new love

- bjork, homogenic (1997)

with or without you

sometimes, i’d turn to check
for your prints, your smell,
but whether it means a lack
it seems too early to tell

(with you, i managed access
to gardens of my city;
only to bury what was being blessed
at a hyper-velocity;
with you, i ate my greens
and wore extra vests;
framed everyday life on screen;
without feeling any less)

sometimes, i will still turn to check
for your prints, your smell,
but whether you have since turned your back
it’s all too late to dwell

7-9

for two hours, i was
the troll atop a hill,
basking under lunar-cy,
armed with sleeping pills;
for two hours, i sang
melodies to my fill,
at times straddling shadows
of my moat so still;
for two hours, i sought
my kick to the thrill,
only to shiver cowardly
in the wake of overkill

varicose alarm

when one ever gets
awoken by the
varicose alarm,
rescue is quite on its
way in the form
of a rhythmic charm:

of routine lip-
moving trances,
programmed within
sanity-inducing pulses

if wind could

if wind could displace
the moon-light cast upon your face,
then it must have been a tenderbreeze case,
since it remains a crease-less portrait
of all the contours i navigate,
cease-lessly, of late

once

once seed colonies, once parched,
suddenly crack open to spill forth
life!

once larvae colonies, once still,
burst into frivolous mobilities of
locust-death!

once just pods in her cradle,
once gestating, and
sharing the same milk; (same lives)

yet she continues to insist on
blinking her eyes

明.扬 (walking2)

“...does it matter whether it is the moon
that follows the sun, or night
that comes after day,
so long as there is light (明)
shone through each and every sway;

does it matter then, if this light is kept safe
or placed intentionally at bay, or
if its shadows are worthy only
of a heavens-high puppet’s play,
so long as this light has been scattered (扬)
and paved along this month-old
milky-way...”

walking1

love-making should be like walking
where the scenery keeps changing

i see that
your back’s dripping
and i just can’t quit thrusting.

the pace’s hastening
the distance’s inviting

i see your palm
out-reaching
and yes, i'm coming!

canopies3

filtered, and across
an ocean cavity, tones and
articulations (of the diaphragm)
arrive as murmurs
in the head,
that are heard
only through a silent heart.

canopies2

it can be utterly plastic

or glass-like, the way these shy sheets

of ceramic stars peek through

urban’s meso-layer

skirt;

it can also be completely wooded

canopies1

how long can these luscious canopies wade us over
before
the tide of time announces that felling season has come
and
start stroking grey beards out of these promised longevity
silver barks?

i miss you

i miss you
but i haven't met you yet
so special
but it hasn't happened yet
you are gorgeous
but i haven't met you yet
i remember
but it hasn't happened yet

and if you believe in dreams
or what is more important
that a dream can come true
i will meet you

i was peaking
but it hasn't happened yet
i haven't been given
my best souvenir
i miss you
but i haven't met you yet
i know your habits
but wouldn't recognize you yet

i'm so impatient
i can't stand the wait
when will i get my cuddle?
who are you?

i know by now that you'll arrive
by the time i stop waiting

i miss you

-bjork, "i miss you", in "Post"

Kerouac1

"The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death. But who wants to die? In the rush of events I kept thinking about this in the back of my mind. I told it to Dean and he instantly recognized it as the mere simple longing for pure death; and because we're all of us never in life again, he, rightly, would have nothing to do with it. I agreed with him then."

- J. Kerouac, On the Road, p.112

Pretty Faces

Faces were never meant to be heavy
Even in this puzzle of who-knows-who-chronologically
Or situations that were meant to be funny
Why do you always all of a sudden turn elderly?
Perhaps it wasn’t meant to be, or
Perhaps it has always been about the bird and the bee
But that doesn’t mean that every other scenery
Would have to be subject to your cruellest sympathy
For it is most unwise to neglect to stop and see
Even in your little game of endless far-car-dee

corridor2

when neon tubes line the

distributed drains of your corridor

love’s calendar has stopped

squarely on the 48th day

banishing my moistures

from the drought of your pores

i am the loiterer, blinded by the

signposts, and wetting your floor

with all our sands, now grey

corridor1

down the corridor, you realize that parking footwear effectively needs not just sketched-out lots or almost-sacred spaces to perform the ritual of flinging divine invitations to deities, but like in temples, it also requires the calibrated histories of detaching soles from slipper, or shoe, before entering to offer worn-off cells or hardened skin as sincere smoke and ashes to many of its heavenly fathers remaining firmly on earth

corridor1.2

sweeping flightpaths and corridors, footwear is effectively parked not just with shapely sketched lots or gesticulated sacred spaces to perform the ritual of flinging divine invitations to deities, but like in grand temples of jetsetting, it also requires the calibrated histories of detaching soles from slipper, or shoe, before entering to offer worn-off cells or hardened skin as sincere smoke and ashes to the heavenly fathers who remain firmly in the checked-in rooms on earth