A New Person Every Day

A New Person Every Day

I made a picture composed of six clocks,
installed it above my bed with the help of a friend.
This friend and I, we're not speaking anymore
but his effort continues to hold up the timepieces,
representing six zones. I've confiscated their batteries.
Connections keep miscarrying anyway.
Until I figure out why, I won't start new ones,
busy as I am with all the stuff
from overseas:  my mother in Singapore
confides that third brother has been checked
into an institution. Apparently there had been a fuss.
Don't tell father I told you, she adds. I won't,
I say into the phone, wondering with whom
I'm being more complicit. My Hunanese friend
didn't reply to my IM for one whole night,
and only the next day tells me the news
that he didn't get into grad school in Shanghai.
Had it not been for my encouragement in the first place,
would his disappointment have been less strong?
A Taiwanese friend complains that the wrong president
has been elected. I wonder what Xiaogang thinks,
with whom I severed contact.
I had said unretractable things to him in KL,
which he unfairly would not let me retract, crying
"There's no use forcing friendship after the fact."
New in Beijing, my Hong Kong friend
sends an Email mistakenly identifying Aristotle
as the originator of Aristophanes's  "two halves" story
in the header. In the body, she announces
her engagement with Colm,
a new person she just met 28 days ago.
I undeceive her about Aristophanes.
Jean-Michel deletes me from his messenger —
first from his Médecins Sans Frontières account,
then from his U.K. home.
I wonder if this is a function of
too many new people clogging up his Skype,
though I then remember that he did lose grandmaman
shortly before I said "Peut-être" to his "A bientôt,"
and then over his "Arrête!"
drew the lips of my laptop shut.
In San Francisco, B. whom I love
is making a film I won't ever see.
The memory is still fresh in my mind,
of our knees knocking under the table
as above, he takes my hand in his.

posted by SHALINE (potato)

Homecoming

Homecoming

          I

Being told to love you
only breeds resentment
that I learn to bury.
What should be natural
is now nurtured into
docile sterility,
cultivated and pruned
till it relents and dies.
Every August, what love
that remains for you grows
out of its grave, summoned
by on-air pageantry.
For one night, it flowers
forth and you are worth it,
persuading me I would
regret not being part
of you. Each time, I pray
for that feeling to last,
knowing it will be gone
after the fireworks fade.

          II

Here at the exchange point,
boys file off the ferries
dressed in every colour
of the spectrum, scheduled
for a transformation:
grooming into green gear.
When asked to, I will swear
fealty with forked tongue,
using words forgotten
soon as they are spoken,
handing over body
so love and devotion
can be hammered down deep,
invisible lessons
intended to take root.
Whenever my heart tries
to bleed, treading the mud
of the island will serve
to cauterise its stump,
to teach it self-control.

          III

I yearn to be able
to love you so deeply
that it hurts and informs
my words against my will,
but my flesh is too weak
and you are not ready.
Instead, I sow distance
between us, to reap and
negotiate with love
strictly on my own terms.
There is no need for guilt
where how I feel for you
(or do not) is concerned.
I have the patience of
a horticulturist:
tending my affection
in a guarded corner,
until you have ripened
enough to love me back,
or I to compromise.


posted by SHALINE(potato)

Love Is Not Enough - Leong Liew Geok

Not that I don’t want to be
A loving wife, a good mother.
Not that I can’t sacrifice
Like all women before or after.
Not that I don’t love.
Not that I can’t cook.
Not that I won’t please.
Not that I shan’t care.

Love is not enough

At home, husband
And children lodge,
Biting, munching, gnawing
Bone, bloody and bare.

Dream-monsters trip me
At work, smirking of home;
Past midnight, in a kitchen
Emptied of sound and smell,
Tangled in knots,
I see him upstairs,
Asleep, alone.

Must bearer-wearers always ache?

Hard and white, I grate
Like half-cooked rice.

Joanne Leow - Watching My Grandmother Eat Fish

like a cat

her once slim fingers
tear each morsel off
the bones
deliberately

Crouched, intent
between mouthfuls of rice
she informs me
that I used to snap off their tails
and with great care remove their skins
declaring the flesh boring

And I think how I know no other
like her really
living in her house of strangers
in a race where blood is most prized.