Birthday with Al
This was going to be her first birthday with Al. She smiled and her fingers lifted involuntarily to the potted ferns in front of her. The leaves were immaculate but she had to check them for caterpillars everyday. Just in case. Her stomach was in knots, fearing she had missed anything out in the excitement. For a long time now, her commitment had been to something far more addictive than Al. Less dependable, destructive even. It was something her friends couldn’t understand and she didn’t want them to. Al had come along at a bad time when she was at the peak of her dependency with it. The more she tried to hide it from him, the more it showed itself. But she didn’t have to go through all that trouble, really. Al didn’t want her to hide anything from him.She jumped back in dismay. Many of the leaves of the fern lay crushed at her feet and she quickly picked every fragment up from the balcony to throw away.“Hey, where’s my pretty lady?” Al shouted from downstairs.Going past the balcony door into the interior, she counted, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine” as she twisted the lock close behind her.

The Picture in his wallet
We were sitting in the bus when it happened:
The metal clasp snaps open
And therein beams the sweetest smile
That ever is,
Exists the only thought can ever think.
Where models stain their lips so red,
Hers is all natural pink.
Black is the all- new black,
No more peeking roots and tinted fringes-
Like a-fraying spaghetti strap,
She wears a pure white t-shirt
that calls no whim, no frantic fancy.
But trusts that beauty is her own
Her eyes speak ‘human’ who would know
Says the guy who loves her so.
Before I could draw a longer gaze
He snapped it shut and so no more.
But on the bus as people came
All I saw each had her face.

BOREDOM
Boredom! Go read yourself a poem.

Why, write you a rhyme, you tell me.

Something about monotony-

Talk about tedium, encourage ennui,

refine the dullness you struggle to denounce.

Boredom!

Go catch yourself a buzzy bee.

When sitting down is such a crime,

the electric chair of languor it must seem.

Your hunched back nests much- a-flittering thoughts

Quiescent, they appear to be.

Boredom!

Go get a manicure.

Your nails are all bitten down.

Even Victorian ladies sit on their hands

As they watch the motions of the clock.

Till tea time drags them by their locks.

Boredom!

Go watch a person sleep in concert.

Nothing like being a voyeur works-

Memorize the features of normality,

Till you recognize what insanity

Fits the restless mind of a dormant body.

Boredom!

“Let me entertain you”The artistes chime in unison-

“There’s no such feeling, no such word,

Only if you let me entertain you”.

Till your resilience snaps.

And you resolve:

“There’s no such feeling, no such word”

Because the restless mind in the dormant body

Still fights for purpose, task and focus

For more than the sound of slight normality.

Just A Bit More Thought
Yesterday the black rose laughed stark tears,

As dominoes are dealt a turn.

Someone cries, " Fly in soup!"as intricately as beading in a pendant.

One more student stands in class-His teacher is stern.

At three the tsunami is brewing

Like panadol effervescence.

The nearby concert hall fills,but no one claps it right.

But all these is salvaged, by one more thought at night.

But don't you get it wrong!

Those shoes don't really match the eyes and swirls on butterfly wings

watch the news. good things, bad things.

Just a bit more thought and they come alive.

Menthol Pecans
It was night
Winsome Winnie walked into the kitchen stealthily, careful not to wake the rat sleeping behind the cans of baked beans. As she opened the fridge door and peered in, the kitchen became softly aglow. Her back hunched in secrecy, the sweeping glance of Winsome W told her what she already knew. The food was kept in the fridge and cabinets, but their wispy arms and fingers had like many nights before grown long and extended up the stairs, past the other bedrooms and into hers. There was the half of the pumpkin cake, bag of apples, two blocks of chocolates from her recent trip to Switzerland (for cousin Christine), cans of coke, a container of condiments and some left over dinner. The freezer held more frozen dinners and vanilla chocolate chip ice-cream. As she reached for the tray of cake, she took a long breath of it, daring it to disappear and leave her starving. Her first few bites were ravenous but timid. But as the second hand of the clock moved its round, all reverence for the cake, chocolate, ice-cream and microwave meals melted and she only concentrated on filling her stomach to bursting point.

Winsome Winnie crept back upstairs, past the other bedrooms and into her own where under a blanket she didn’t need, she slept, full of troubling resolves.


It was after lunch
At last lunch hour was over. The workers packed the leftover cake and chocolate into the fridge and yawned back to their seats. Fantastic Fiona said she could clean up a little. She had turned down the pumpkin cake her colleagues were passing around. Also the block of Swiss chocolate Christine had brought. It was an apple for lunch for Fantastic Fiona. She had eyed the cake and chocolate hungrily as she bit into it. Her colleagues asked if she was “on a diet”. “Why! no, of course not! It’s just that I get sleepy if I eat too much. Especially in the heat these days. A cold apple would satisfy.” And so it did.
Peering into the passageway leading back into the office, it was found empty. Would there be footsteps coming up that precise minute? No they were hard at work. As Fantastic Fiona wiped the table and washed the dishes (she needed only to rinse her own with water), it only kept her sufficiently from opening the fridge door to where the pleasing items were. For as soon as she dried her hands on the hand towel, it happened.

Fantastic Fiona ambled back to her seat where she hunched just a little lower, the beads of sweat on her forehead like the condensation on her cold apple before. For the rest of the day, her smile and lighthearted banter masked some heavier thought.


It was stressful time
Able Amber looked at the stack of papers on her table and bit her lips. The stack wasn’t an overflowing mountain as often portrayed in pictures or described in writing. It was a neat file of readings waiting to be read. Able Amber herself had tidied the file up, that’s how she knew. Each reading was categorized and tagged. Yet when it came to the actual reading and the report due strictly at 3p.m. tomorrow, she was stuck. Her physical body showed otherwise. She paced, she ran down to the library to print yet more readings she knew she wouldn’t be able to read. She made trips to the bathroom and sat there apparently awaiting inspiration but the only inspiration that came was a sore bottom. As she looked at the clock now showing 9.15p.m, she felt the familiar sensation of dismay and helplessness. Her heart frantic, she ran to the student pantry and surreptitiously opened cabinet doors. There were the bread and cookies she could help herself to. The fridge held a few frozen pies and a family-sized tub of vanilla chocolate chip ice-cream. It was of inferior brand and cast aside by her hostel mates. But as she dipped into it with a huge metal spoon, she was filled with a sense of wellbeing. It soon happened
Able Amber was back at her desk, her file still as neat, her Microsoft Words white and blank. She would call in ill tomorrow and ask for an extension. But for now she needed to talk to someone. She called her best friend, Winsome Winnie.

----

Square All-Rounder
In Crimson High it was the “in” thing to be square. But Chester wasn’t a nerd. He was a jock, a rugby captain and a smart dresser. Chester was too cool to be true and he hated it. He desired to be square, to fit in with the rest. But no matter how hard he tried he simply couldn’t match up. One day as he sat in a milk bar looking sad, geeky, but still very handsome in his oversized t-shirt tucked into jeans, and wearing dark-framed spectacles which he didn’t need, he was approached by a talent scout looking for a star in his new movie.Since the movie “Revenge of the Nerds” came out, the hip-to-be-square craze died down to a hush. Everyone was talking about Chester, the now most desirable guy in Crimson High. In the movie, Chester played the jock, a rugby captain and a smart dresser.

ONE ROTTEN ORANGE
(ode to the goblin market)

Beginning with one small infirmity, others call a dent.
"Should be sweet!" he told us, who sold it to us.
A dollar for an orange, a rotten one.
We didn't see it, its goodness displayed-
Its sadness strategically hid.
Like the influence of comrades is strong,
We had to toss it out.
"Show it to him", who sold it to us-
May he return a - new
An orange which isn't blue

But all the same its fur fazes me!
No such fibre in its peel, nor
vita C or is still there?
as it stills, in solitary despair.
awaiting judgment and exchange,
I'd have tasted before to spew it out.
One such orange, one such exchange
One such chance, one such purchase.

THE SILENT WORLD
One of my favorite Paul Auster's stories is about a comedy actor in the black and white film era. The story not only paints so much the fascination surrounding this actor- if the actor does exist in the first place. It tells about the beauty of silent observation that concentrates on small, slight features and carefully orchestrated movements. Where the bigger plot is only sideline to the every minute the actor is on the screen.

Or how about the segment in the recent Singapore gaga? The toy pianist sits at her instrument for 4 mins 33 seconds without touching a key to produce sound. And those 4 mins 33 seconds, as proclaimed by her are moments in the environment that cannot be relived. These moments are marked by sounds that are varied and passing.

So as we build up our memories in life, how many of them are preciously snatched moments? How many of them, can we say, are appreciated processes, so that the end results do not matter as much?