Sunday, December 26, 2004

The problem is that there’s none
Life is imperfect say some
People are imperfect say all
Yet my prejudice must fall
Think about the possibilities !
Rushing through life like a breeze
Think about the impossible dreams
Suddenly possible, it seems

I’m thrilled to the bone
Smiling over the phone
Feeling constantly enthralled
Mind, soul, senses, and all
The slightest gesture could please
As we playfully tease...

Leaving an afterglow of hope
Dangling on a teasing rope
That time will not withhold
as thoughts reveal, emotions unfold
That time would seemingly freeze
leaving us in a puddle of dreams, up to our knees

A rare perfection, rather like home
A cozy, tempting comfort zone
Where details however trivial
Turn into pleasure, pure and inspirational

And answers to millions of queries
Shall be resolved with whatever life carries
Exciting, unpredictable scenes
Where I end and every thought begins

with you.


Sunday, December 12, 2004

coffee, cranes and cookies

...and if the night, and the atmosphere, and the conversation could be described i would call it... effervescent ;)
In a comfortable, cozy sort of way.

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

On rainy days like these the mind wanders, turning pale-like and translucent. Thin, filmy and shimmering like a mysterious, see-through shroud. Is it obvious when my eyes stare out the window, seemingly oblivious to the world? Is it obvious when I smile, for it is an honest smile marred with a tinge of aching hope, unsure yet whether it has occasion to smile so honestly, so betrayingly. So in between an undecided smile and unseeing eyes, the details become vivid and beautiful. The way the air is suffused with rain and excitement, like little pellets of anticipation dominating every particle I breathe. It’s like a secret sense, forming yet another layer deep inside, hidden and unknown to others and driving you mad with hesitant pleasure…

Monday, November 22, 2004

Amused to report that this blog is the proud winner of a hardrock fm quiz! Vitri was listening to the station, they were checking out people's blogs for best blogs and she urged me to send them my address, which i did. Then i completely forgot the whole thing. Two weeks later, got an sms and well, apparently we won! (we = the blog and i)
So i got two tickets to the movies, premier of wicker park, pretty good movie for a freebie :) Well done !

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

The euphoria has dwindled down and left me with the shapeless residue you find at the bottom of the cup.
The shades have shifted from confusion to dejection, and finally indifference. I never was one to stay in stagnant conditions. But the next time it comes, I’ll be so easy. So very easy I’ll wonder if it’s cheap. But being true to yourself is rare… and immaterially expensive. Life will flow and curve gently around bends… and I will yieldingly follow… flowing and gushing and rushing and sparkling and, letting it awaken me or kill me. Just for this special occasion, allow me to be irrational. Allow me to harbour impossible dreams. Allow me to go against the grain. Allow me to fall in love, if that’s what it is.
Mediocrity is a crime, don’t you think ?

Sunday, November 07, 2004

dinner (main course), talk, and a coupla drinks...
so it was, and so it turned out to be one of those rare conversations you don't really want to end, sipping wine and talking of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings, err.. unliterally speaking.

He had a lovely smile.

Sunday, October 31, 2004

exhale

*stretch*
oh, this is such a luxurious feeling, waking up, feeling fresh, and thinking, "now what do i do?" Absolutely sublime ! i've decided to watch a dvd, about five of them are piling up untouched since... last semester or something. I'm waiting for the results, meanwhile planning to make the most of this void space in time before judgement day.
And preparing myself for the worst.

so now i write. i have nothing more to lose.
Nothing more to fight for, nothing more to keep me in constant suspense and agitation.
did i do my best, did i try my best? I think i did.
Was i the best? i doubt it. I can't figure anything out, i can't measure my chances. There's nothing to do but wait.
And if i don't make it, I'll be ready. ---> i made it !! :) Jessup team 2005 !


jazznite Posted by Hello

by the way... ini foto waktu manggung perdana di Zoom... hehe
It was one of those kamikaze things you need to do every now and then :D


Monday, October 18, 2004

like a reel my mind flashes back
dropping memories into my pool of thought
with an icy cold splash awakening
with a bottomless sound echoing
but i close my eyes and cling to you
and the world shrinks, wrapping itself tightly around us
shredding its cold debris, dispersing like dust
warming, breathing, and releasing...
you didn't let me lose you
you didn't let me feel the pain...
is this fair ?

Sunday, October 10, 2004

a torpor came over me and i was left in the dark
i might have slept, who knows?
through the open window the cold dawn
shrouded my pain with a blanket of rain

hope, you died too soon
longing, so soon you arrived
when one leaves, the other's not far behind
to cry?.... if i have no tears
heart, why don't you stop?

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

last one standing

now. it's late and i just got back. hellishly tired, not enough sleep. but good. busy. challenging.
do i care ? i do. but i don't have time to care. i push it down, deep... and focus on issues at hand. Concrete, solvable issues. things you can answer. things you can actually explain. and at the end of the day, it doesn't even haunt my dreams... sleep is too precious and short to provoke dreams.

she wants to go to her little corner and cry
she doesn't know why...
they thought she was intimidatingly strong
that she'd prove everybody was wrong
she walked like she owned the earth
her constant smile is full of mirth
but deep inside her fragile heart
her soul is being torn apart...

Monday, September 13, 2004

Mais uma luz
Uma luz a mais na cidade
Penso em voce
Sonho maior da realidade
Se vivo sozinho
E pra seguir meu proprio caminho
Tente entender quem sou
Tao desigual em tudo
Que voce quer que eu seja
Mais uma luz.


One more light
One light more in the city
I think about you
A dream greater than reality
If I live alone
It’s to follow my ways
Try to understand who I am
I’m always the opposite of your expectations

One more light.

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Life is a coagulation of complex strategies. It becomes that way after a while, after about.. say, twenty years. When choices are no longer limited to doing or not doing, saying or not saying. It’s always too late to turn back and too early for drastic changes. There’s always a cause for the cause and a consequence for the consequence.
Hit me and I’ll bruise, stab me and I’ll bleed, but perhaps I won’t die.
Perhaps she would love the pain that spreads and exaggerates itself like a venom,
stinging her and awakening her to the fact that she is still alive.
She picks herself up, dusts herself off and starts all over again.
And in between she feels, FEELS ! the splendour and pleasure of feeling,
if only to feel pain, rather than become a numb white futuristic doll,
perfect beyond sanity.
She digs her own graves, cries her own drowning pools,
and laughs at the funny irony of life, and love,
and laughter itself.
Kiss me, and I will bloom for you, glow for you.
Slowly unravel, and reveal layers.. and layers.. and layers of coagulated complexities, individually simple, and absurdly frail.
She would challenge you, knowing you would not dare.
She would not challenge you, knowing you may not be worth it if you do not dare.
She would scorn you, and hate you, and love you.
Then she would laugh, brokenly, at the funny irony of life, and love.

And she would go to sleep with you on her mind, acting as if she cared about the world

Sunday, September 05, 2004

Saturday night clubhopping. I mean literally.
We started from Centro, moved to Embassy after making a pitstop at Banana Café, and finished off at Club Monaco.
Only because my sophisticated friends managed to get freepasses to all 3 clubs. Only because it was a girls night out.
A month ago I wouldn’t have imagined myself clubhopping. But there you go, life is strange.
All places are identical, really. They may boast different atmospeheres, different music, different dj’s, but when you’re in a club, you’re in a club. You’re in a place that’s dark with blinking laser lights that allow you to see in blinks, with cigarette smoke densely formulating in the atmosphere. With music that thumps and sends vibrations to your chest until you can no longer distinguish your heart beat and the beat of the music. With people, moving and doing their thing in their respective narrow spaces in the crowd, some oblivious to all except the music, some rather awkward and self-consciously. The dancing, the drinking, the release from inhibition. The occasional guy who gives you 'the look' and starts dancing his way towards you, moving along to your rhythm and finally leaning over to shout a pick-up line in your ear.

Left the club at 3, slept late into the morning. Washed out, unsuccessfully, the smell of smoke out of my hair. Sat in the morning sunlight eating peanut butter toast, listening to the brazillian jazz sounds of Eliane Elias.
I’d trade all the freepasses in the world for a moment like this.

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

New habit this semester, every subject dealing with international law gives us tasks in which we are to translate and summarize given english articles on international law, every time we have class. My main concern is I won’t be able to skip class at all. Tragic!
It’s the new Dean, supportive and visionary proffessor who feels students majoring in international law should know what they’re getting themselves into, they say daunting books if you’re lucky, written in the most unpractical english if you’re unlucky. So should students think ‘shit I can’t do this’, they’d best think it at the very beginning of the semester so that they could still bail out. The new system has successfully driven away a few people from int’l law, in the course of two days. Not surprised, after the single page article we had to summarize today took more than an hour to complete, half an hour spent in privately discussing what it actually meant. Personally, I’d rather blame the intelligent scholar who wrote the damn thing for not using plain english. On a more serious note, it is rather fun and challenging... god I’m going to regret saying that.

Friday, August 27, 2004

Wrote this in highschool, 5 years ago

It’s the effort that makes you cringe away from its inconstant beauty.
You wake up and find it staring, glowering at you like a deadline,
telling you to wake up and appreciate it
(and get snappy coz it doesn’t last forever)
And if it’s a game, why should I appreciate it?
And if it’s a dream, why should I be living in it?
And if it’s a process to get “there”, why should I go there?
If I surpassed its bounds, a sinner I would be.
And yet I am a free soul.
Boundless. Relentless.
Sinless?
Look but don’t touch.
Touch, but don’t taste
Taste, but don’t feel
Feel, but don’t enjoy
Enjoy, but not too much
Because we are free sinners.

I’ve come a long way since then, finding answers along the way.
Important to refresh my mind on that because… I’m twenty and a hell of a lot of challenges are coming my way.
Musn’t get carried away.
(hey, that rhymes..)

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

He said..
"...I dont know Teez... sometimes I feel that You're just too good to be true! I even think that I'm not worthed at all... I mean, there you are... so high, and so PERFECT! while here I am.., moaning.. cryin' my life, disgusted to look on my own reflection!I love thee, Teez... but I dont know if I deserve someone like you... I dont know if I could level you.. I'm not running away, I'm just scared... that's all..."

I've been thinking about it for a while and... there just really is no response to that.
I mean.... Fine.

Nobody's perfect.... shirimasen deshyoka

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Pimps & Prostitutes

Tory’s being assigned to East Timor next month, and the crazy bule, along with a few of her friends at UN who were also leaving, threw a farewell party last night with a fabulous dresscode: pimps and prostitutes! She promised jazz bands and strippers, but we found a dangdut orchestra instead. Still, highly amusing, and anything goes coz the drinks were freeflowing, the rooftop venue was breezy, the crowd was merry, and shit the margheritas were excellent. I look at the pictures this morning and I think, god I need to get rid of these pictures. Decency doesn’t come to mind. Tory gathered us around her just before it all started, and made this beautiful, emotional farewell speech, which almost ruined most of our mascara. It would never work to have it written down, it would lose it’s charm. But I look at her and I’m just simply inspired. Wherever she would go, whatever country she would be assigned to next, for the rest of her life, she will leave a trail of young and dreaming people like us, enlightened and ready to break barriers.
Then we clinked our wineglasses to the merry chorus of “WE FUCKING LOVE YOU TORY !!”. And the night began.

Posted by Hello

Monday, August 16, 2004

Kagumilah ini…

Ketika kau berbicara aku tidak berharap
Tapi harapan itu kau timbulkan dengan sendirinya
Dengan sejuta tanda-tanda kecil

Ketika aku tertawa aku tidak jujur
Menyimpan harapan yang membandel
Mengubah tawa menjadi pecahan kaca

Ketika aku merasa bodoh, akupun berpaling
Menarik diri dari pusaran gravitasi

Meninggalkanmu dengannya.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Again, distracted.
Sometimes I wonder whether I should just quit everything and spend my lifetime writing and playing jazz. This has been a perfect day, really, except now I can’t do my speech drafting because I want to write about other things besides how destroying civilian objects violates international law. So today I:
05.00-07.00: Finished as much as I could finish my speech drafting.
07.00-09.00 : Exercised. Skipping and stuff accompanied by Bill Evans Live at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. Not exactly adrenalin rushing music but it adds quality to mornings!
09.00-12.00: breakfast, long shower, played piano. Currently working on that blasted and beautiful Time Remembered by none other than (you’d never guess!) Bill Evans, which has the weirdest, hardest, most beautiful chord progressions I’ve yet encountered, and simply not making much progress. Haven’t even started improvising :(
12.00-13.00: Took a nap. Ate muesli with yoghurt for lunch, sadiss… ceritanya mau hidup sehat.
13.00-17.00: Went shopping with ex-boyfriend who is an excellent critique hence perfect shopping companion. Something about shopping always makes a girl feel good, unfortunately.
17.00-19.00: Took a lightning nap, lounged about restlessly, had an early dinner.
19.00-22.00: Off to Tory’s place to have my speech draft scrutinized, found out that mine was the most “minimalist” compared to the others hence needed to be significantly repaired, supposedly TONIGHT. We did 6 minute speeches and she said I had good structure but it was “fluffy”. Can you believe the way she just makes words up like that ? I mean, what can you say if somebody tells you your speech was “fluffy” ?? Teddy bears and pillows come to mind for God’s sake.
22.00-23.00: Met up with Dad and Kane at Izzi Pizza in time for dessert, melting chocolate cake with a dollop of ice cream accompanied with a cup of Illy black coffee. So much for the muesli.

23.00- now: Rooted in front of this screen, mustering up strong resolve to finish my speech draft. *sigh*.
Alright, bring on the civilian objects.

Monday, August 09, 2004

I’m in love with a gentleman with whom I feel unladylike in comparison.
It’s not that he’s articulate, dashing, dresses well and has a dark, brooding smile. It’s not that we spend hours talking about politics and social culture over wine or an exquisite blend of coffee.
It’s that he’s loyal, unlike me. And he sticks to the rules, unlike me.
And by the way, he doesn’t care how he dresses, has a shy sort of smile and we spend hours talking of nothing and everything over the phone. And ice cream, once.
And he’s in love, unlike me, to someone else.
Did I say I love him? I take that back. I haven’t a single clue what love is.
Much too abstract.
There are people who love you and feel it as a justification for owning you and tying you down.
There are people who love you and say they would go to the ends of the earth to be with you but cannot even spend time with you.
There are people who love you, yet love someone else a month later...
No, love is a vague and fuzzy word.

But I broke the rules for him.
And I’m inspired by him.
And I laugh with him, liberatingly, at times when I’m determined not to laugh.
And I’m not bothered about how different we are
And he lingers on my mind, stubbornly,
like a secret yearning to be revealed.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

I’ve been waiting.

So where art thou now ?
Elusive as a dark mist
Every word remains a word
And nothing else, as I had feared
And I barely know you, still.

And life keeps flowing.

[This insomnia has to be unhealthy.]

What’s going on in the corner of her mind?
There’s a man with a gun trying to be kind
There’s a girl with a smile that looks tired
There’s a woman, her third eye’s almost blind
Then there’s herself, she knows she’s lied
And they all sat back and they just sighed.

They say rules are just a guide
The rest is an effort not to follow the tide.

[And I didn’t even have caffeine, damn it.]

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Sleepless night. Too much caffeine. I keep coming back to this screen with thoughts coming out like a tangled mess. Whatever it is I’ll find out here as I type. Hopefully. Doesn’t really matter either way. Dropped by at Starbucks on the way home, savoured a lovely Sumatra black coffee, a sinful blueberry cheesecake, and a relaxed, girlie conversation with Indie.
Deserved it.
I'm single and happy, and waiting. For things to happen. Doesn't make sense really, when things should really be sought for instead of waited for. I'm thinking too much. The very fact that i'm here in this ungodly hour when i could be having some decent sleep or doing my research indicates something's up. Life is not perfect and i love it, i love the way every comfort as simple as coffee can become precious in stark comparison to every pain as complicated as emptiness. As simple as a phonecall in comparison to confusion. As simple as writing in comparison to crying. As simple as girlie conversations in comparison to legal jargons. Everything has new life breathed into it and fresh pain closely following, everything a perfect balance of imperfection.
This is what life should be, throwing shit at you for you to evade the next pile of shit.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Yesterday was a million years ago
in all my past lives i played an asshole
now i found you, it's almost too late
and this earth seems obliviating
high and dead our skin is glass
i'm so empty here without you
i crack and split my xerox hands
i know it's the last day on earth
we'll be together while the planet dies
the dogs slaughter each other softly
love burns it's casualties
we are damaged provider modules
spill the seeds at our children's feet
i'm so empty here without you
i know it's the last day on earth
we'll never say goodbye

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

There are these blinking moments
Where ideas just rush into my head
Like worms to a corpse
my head tingles and vibrates
chaos happens, there are so many voices
I can’t leave anything out.
Words are written down and I
feel the gush of release
But tunes and rythms have no vent
I sit on my piano and shit happens...

I can never play the song in my head

Monday, August 02, 2004

ignorant, confirmed !

Rome, June 4.
President George W. Bush was in town, and anti-American sentiment was running riotously high. More than 10.000 policemen were on the streets. Security experts had secured manholes, removed trash dumpsters and flushed out sewer systems – the better to safeguard against bombs and snipers.
None of that deterred the 250.000 demonstrators who poured into the streets and squares, upending trash cans and setting up barbed-wire barricades of their own. They burned tires and American flags, threatened patrons at McDonald’s, smashed car windows and threw smoke bombs at police.
Amid the chaos, two blond college-age American girls wearing sneakers and low-rider denim shorts happened upon the Piazza della Republica, the epicenter of it all. After a moment of surprise, enlightment dawned.
“Hey,” one said to the other. “This must be where George Clooney and Brad Pitt are filming!”
(“Innocents Abroad”, Newsweek June 28, 2004)

Java Blue


Posted by Hello
Just got back from Semarang, attending my cousin’s wedding. We had all been thrown into turmoil weeks before the wedding, preparing every little detail. I’d been sent on endless errands to the dressmaker, as Mom wanted her Kebaya to be perfect. I made two, she made three. There were the sarungs. The shoes. The hairpieces. The accessories to think of.
When we gathered in Semarang the ladies would then compare the results of their toil, complimenting each other’s choice of colour and fabric, and bragging about their dressmakers. In the hotel room, Mom would meticulously fit, plait, and fold the sarung in a very expertly javanese way, while complaining on how impractical the whole tradition was. Dad would pester Mom on how to wear his sarung, finally proclaiming that the gold belt he was supposed to wear on top of his red belt, was absolutely useless.
“The Dutch must have invented this so that the Javanese would have difficulty walking!”, he finally said, which was the silliest thing I’ve heard from him for a long time.
I was forced to squeeze myself into a corsette, which caused me agony of pain for two days. Men must have invented the corsette so that women would look slim, won’t eat much, and won’t breathe much. See, now I’m a narrow-minded feminist, that’s what corsettes do to you.
My hair was tossed and turned, the hairpiece fastened with a multitude of what felt like pins and needles, tons of hairspray went on. Tons of makeup went on, scary looking pieces of fake eyelashes, eyelash glue, eyebrow shavers, and lurid lipstick were forced upon me. The makeup artist would hear none of my pleas, allowing only for me to choose my own lipstick, thank god, in which I chose a pinkish-nude colour. The end result was surprisingly rather elegant, I’ve heard my uncle say that makeup artists usually put in a little bit of black magic in their work to bring out the beauty in people.
Anyway.
I began to wonder what my job was for the siraman, as that was my main purpose of going through all the fuss. My aunt at this point bustled in, apparently in panic because the claypot they had for the bride’s-parents-break-claypot ritual was not the right javanese-wedding kind of claypot. She then handed me a 13-page booklet of the ceremony, bidding me memorize all my parts and what I was to do. So, amidst a vapour of hairspray, I squinted at the book, eagerly trying to locate my name. I found it on one page, it said:
Pemasangan bleketepe dan tuwuhan dengan urutan:
Pemangku gati sekalian membawa bleketepe ke bukit candra dekat pohon cemara. Pemasangan bleketepe dan cengkir gading oleh ayah pengantin (cengkir dibawa dalam nampan oleh Sdri. Tiza)
There was nothing else. And I didn’t even know what the Javanese words meant.

Looking at my elegant, suffocating, hungry self in the mirror, I began to think about what my Dad had said about the Dutch.

I’m not going to Japan.
So I re-read a poem my friend Mova once sent me via sms in the middle of the night.
I had a hunch it would be useful someday.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not look for allies in life’s battlefield but to my own’s strength.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
Grant me that I may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand, in my failure...

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Japan on my mind

Next Saturday will be the announcement for who gets to go to the mooting competition in Japan. I’m feeling sick and nervous just thinking about it. Plus I don’t feel like I’ll be selected. My last session was atrocious, I couldn’t remember article 36 of the UN Charter and I stood there looking like I wanted to cry. I so want to go. But I’m not sure I’ve proved myself worthy enough. After the session Tory rounded up on me and told me not to take it so hard. That mistakes happen and they make you stronger, so I should just pick myself up and do better next time. Except in my mind that was my last chance before the selection and I screwed it.
But anyway, Tory is an exceptional Irish lady and I’ve learnt a lot these past few weeks. There was this one weird session. I had gotten up for a one-minute speech, begun a few sentences, then I got interrupted.
Tory goes: “Have you ever been pissed? What do you do when you’re pissed?”
“Umm…. I… write?”
“Have you ever been pissed at someone and told them to fuck off?”
“Umm… yes…”
“I want you to do that to me now. I want you to tell me to fuck off.”
“Literally ??”
“Yes. Come on, I’ve been a bitch. I’ve given you countless assignments, I’ve kept you up till late at night. This is your chance to get pissed at me and tell me to just fuck off Tory.”

I laughed. This was unbelievable.

“Fuck off”, I said.
“With feeling !”
“Fuck off !”
“Say it like you mean it !”
“Fuck off !”
“Don’t smile while you’re saying it !”
“Fuck you !”
“Come on woman ! You can do better than that !!”
“Fuck you ! FUCK OFF !!”
Then she goes: “I want the rest of you to keep pissing her off a lot when you’re together. You’re a smart, intelligent lady, so why are you standing there looking apologetic? I want you to wipe out that sweet and gentle manner. You’re good but you lack a certain edge. Once you get that edge, you’ll move from good to excellent.”
She nods her head in the direction of my seat and I just leave the podium and sit.
Stunned. And curiously exhausted.

Monday, July 26, 2004


He used to say, Posted by Hello
"When an angel spreads her wings, behold it will stretch as far as the east and west.
Which reminds me... i cannot see things behind you"

I always thought that was sweet.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

middle class

There is an uprising of the middle class.
The new generation visibly appear more fashionable and more financially capable, as is evident in my campus for example.  In the class of 2002, 2003, and onwards a particular group -evidently not all people rise to this heightened lifestyle- can always be detected and distinguished.  The men have bald or spiky, wax infused hair, own a pair of white shoes or more, dress very fashionably and actually care a lot about how they appear in public, although they would deny this and claim they are only “being themselves”.   Most of them have cars, which did not seem intriguing at all until Kane asked me, “how many of your friends don’t have cars?” and I spent quite some time thinking about it, finally naming one person. Evidently when he was in university in the year 1995, a similar answer would be had if I had asked him how many of his friends have cars.  They can openly discuss brand names and share product information, purchase a new wardrobe every now and then, while remaining completely, sexually straight.  As this is not what many people would think as conventional, traditional male behaviour, it is more evident in the male sex.  The ladies, they are just doing their thing in a more capable way.  They bequeath themselves with pretty things and cute things, in an unconscious effort to look “fresh” as is the apparent underlying teenage / tweenage trend these days.  Ethnic doesn’t work, gothic for some, but the majority go for fresh and pretty. 
I was at a birthday party recently in Kemang, attended by my dear old high school friends who I haven’t met for quite a while, being busy with campus work, and looking forward indeed to meeting them.  They say high school friends are the only real friends you will have your whole life, because campus friends will inevitably end up being professional rivals.  I don’t believe this by the way, not yet anyway.  I had known them since we were 15, and now we are all in our twenties. They had a habit of meeting up much more often than I do, so I must admit I was a bit lost in the sea of information coming to greet me, both verbally and visibly.  Each girlfriend I greeted was prettier than I remembered, having prettier hair, perfect makeup, shorter skirts, more visible skin, fashionable clothes out of a glossy magazine, and pretty accessories to complete the picture.  And I had thought my silver hoop earrings were a bit lavish.  And I thought, “Who are all these fashionable people?  How come I know them?”   We had all grown up, but the most significant thing was that they had a new liberal lifestyle, more so than I had remembered, and they were liberal in many ways, such as the way they dress and how capable they are of dressing that way, and how they had the time to frequent occasions in which they could dress that way.  I didn’t think I belonged there at all, to tell you the truth.  Well besides the fact that fashion has always been an unfortunate mystery to me, and the fact that they looked so glamorous, there was a lot of conversation going on that I didn’t relate to, resorting to giggling and gossiping my way through.  Nevertheless I survived, and it was a fun, colourful night. 

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

introduction

At my feet lie the broken shards that dreams are made of
they glimmer and shine like unicorn blood
On the grass they look like jigsaw puzzles
never meant to be put together
Road ribbons twist and tangle before me
some lay crumpled in my grasp, in my hands
just waiting to be thrown away, or recycled, or decided
In the daylight fear i sometimes find
hidden in the waking hours of consciousness
The light of the sun, the noise of the city
So loud that i can hardly hear myself think
Multi-coloured vibrations disperse and intermingle
And i am alone in the crowd, dazed.
Just me: the poet, the pianist, the confused.