Inconclusively

What could be more pointless than… wait, no, I should take that back. Perhaps instead I can lay claim by saying that the only point of going to Geylang in this bright month of Ramadhan is to find the latest album by Hujan, and yes, I did. As if the disc is not obscure enough to begin with, the shop owner veiled them underneath his stacks of cash. There must be some agreement between the band and the distributors: “Only sell to those who asked for it.” Discrete selling must be a new marketing term.

On the album, the title track impels with jazzy chord progression, and no lesser, an anime inspired chorus. Avid music listeners have been comparing the tune to Innocent Sorrow by Abingdon Boys School. In a single audio test they stood in parallel, but they are sonorously two different melodies with contra distinct set of musical semblance. Such would be the norms in the creative field. Originality is of the essence but who can control our simultaneous thought processes? I might be thinking about what you are thinking right now, and I do think that I actually think about it first, but we could go on arguing until the cows come home and there is still no conclusion to this. So flag it out, shake it off. Mencari Konklusi – cryptic lyrics for the fuzzy minds, if you get their drifts. Heavy, typical indie, but cute synths in the mix, too.

On the other side of stuffs, wafting between the corporeal and abstract, here’s an incomplete list of things you will never find in Geylang’s Bazaar:

Gigantic umbrellas with ketupat repeated-patterns imprints, Hang Tuah and Gang's limited edition LEGO® set (Taming Sari sold separately), mooncakes with durian fillings, dodols in the shape of Mickey Mouse, festive lights adjusted for the colour blind, electronic feather dusters, Michael Jackson’s afro hairpiece, pineapple-scented Virginia Slims, bestial facemasks for adults to be used as scare tactics in chasing away kids who asked for green packets twice, Sahiba Box Set (2009 Edition), a compilation CD containing medleys of forgotten oldies sung by runner-ups from various Community Centre Singing Contest, handcrafted sepak takraw balls made from optical fibres, Pantone™-inspired Kueh Lapis, chrome tinted Tupperware®, eight lines pantun sold in bubblewraps by artistic buskers, jagong flavoured Chupa Chups®, agar-agar manggustans, hairless rambutans, orang-utans, special DVD of your favourite Western pop artistes singing familiar festive tunes entirely in English (and some in Portugese), water guns that spurt out Iced Bandong, greeting cards that self-destruct into quad-coloured whistling sparklers after you're done reading them, rice paper curtains, Javanese blangkon that can be transformed into a trucker cap with only a single pull of a hidden tab, hand carved deer-antler ear rings, mini vacuum cleaners with enhanced nozzle and Suck-up™ technology powerful enough to swallow tiny debris of homemade cookies stuck in between the fibres of your newly bought carpet, Sari-like textiles that change colours with the weather, authentic tribal regalia, brooches made of Tago nuts, Arabic movable types, miniature proas made of rattan, Persian cats, Minangkabau dolls, portraits of Parameswara, sepia-toned chess boards, jars of unfolded cocoa-filled love letters, an immigrant's guidebook on Rojak Language, songbooks on selected ghazals, beginner's books on proper phonology for Malays and non-Malays, books on Surabaya dialects, fakebooks on traditional Balinese polyphonies, recipes for singing praises, gravy-proof and glows-in-the-dark vests, transparent scarves, wolf-skin bongos, cutleries made from jelutong, batik prints nightgowns, boomerang-shaped glutenous rice, silver-plated mortars and pestles, ornamented hawksbill shells, real flowers with artificial one-drop fragrance and The Afghan War toy soldiers with actual machine guns audio effects (suitable for 18 years and above, batteries not included).

You might find clay models of Persian cats in an approximate 1/7 scale.

You might even find love, but honey if you shrink your balls, there goes. Pump up your man-voice. It helps.

Exercises For 11 Rhymers

Movement 1 -

He crossed his eyes, dotted his tees,
Read the italics by your heavy zzzs,
Led his lines, kerned his space,
Pathed the curves of your serif face,
Flushed his words, hanged his puncts,
Threaded thoughts with glyph of tongues,
Changed his case, wrapped his texts,
Hid his characters in zapf dingbats.



Movement 2 -

Bright green was the sea, calming the tempest of mood
that ensconced his true feelings deep in the blue.
What smells of egg-yolk yellow have slowly imbued
into a moisture of wrath stuck in the dying canoe
demanding a compass. Without light and in the nude
he jumped, indigo memories reeling as he withdrew
from the bureau of sorrow rouged with blood feud,
where flaming members larked in the the culture of zoo.
The sea was restless, he swam mightily against the rude
tides and dashed through the whitewashed shampoo
of waves and seawalls. The next hurdle was cruel, hued
in dirty yestergrey, unmasking thick noises he knew
nothing of. The lighthouse emerged like magic and stood
upright upon the violet horizon, of which the angle of view
were thwarted by his chromatic insecurities and accrued
interests. His mind, unfrozen no more, was the only clue
to this succubus of colours and replicas, to be unglued
from the body, the senses and the spectrums of deja vu.



Movement 3 -

P_ O _ _ E M S



Movement 4 -

if you chanced upon Coincidence, please
tell him that Fate is waiting.

if you happened to see Fate,
tell her there is such thing as Coincidences.

if you are fated to meet Chances,
good luck!



Movement 5 -

with loves, with hopes
with doves and dopes
with lives, with friends
with knives of fiends
with joys and grieves
with ploys of thieves
with words as tools
with flirts, with fools
with rights, with wrongs
with sights and songs
with one, with you
with who? with who?



Movement 6 -

She tames the gamers and renames disclaimers
before the famous framers flamebursts.
He digs the chick who digs chick flicks
whose feet flic-flacs with flexi-chics.
She treats the dictionary like a kid's fiction story
or a street directory to that sweet confectionary.
He laughs at the humour crafted in the rumour
grafted with fervour enough to defluff her.
She'll fill the wills and seal the deals
then he'll be healed by He who shields.
He irons his ironies with syphons and symphonies
then tries on the sunnies of fast-dry acrimonies.
She follows the fellow with rainbow eyeshadows
who swallows marshmallows of snows and marrows.
He blooms with a boom but dooms by the fume
from whom he presumed still looms in his room.
She employs the boys to destroy the ploys
with soys, savoys and cloyless bok choys.
He lunges with plungers, expunges like thunders,
then wonders what's under the others' suspenders.
And he empties his trashes by trashing his emptiness
as she came to rescue him from his death.



Movement 7 -

Volumes of findings are done through
Advanced searches mostly used for
Raw footnotes with silly,
Irregular metrics, often cited in
Altered notions with timings of
Theatrical pauses that run
In shifts and switches, but somewhere else
Obiter dictums took charge when
Nimble stunners become
Suicide bombers.



Movement 8 -

I am not a poet lah,
who say?
I just write something flowerish,
you think I gay,
but I tell stories,
you see dear,
if I don't tell these,
they call me liar,
sometimes got meaning,
sometimes don't have,
sometimes got rhyme,
(what rhymes with have?),
but still I write,
use keyboard not pen,
people don't like,
nvm, bopian,
I don't write to please,
but please rate this,
one star also can,
not happy? comment,
and maybe if you care,
(got money must share),
send a donation,
so I can straighten,
my octavian
hair!



Movement 9 -

At the eleventh hour the painter had no idea
as to why he should try no further than here.
At the tenth hour the vengeful proprietor
planned a way to replay his stage-role better.
At the ninth hour the daughter and her mother
feared the sight of the lightning in the sphere.
At the eighth hour no one but her could hear
the sounds that abound the runty shelter.
At the seventh hour two men hit a mousedeer,
whereby one is the son of an animal lover.
At the sixth hour the MRT commuters were
eyeing for a spot so they could rot in one's corner.
At the fifth hour the lovers took cover by the pier
and found that drowning is a guiltless killer.
At the fourth hour a homey met a stopwatch dealer
who was sweet and neat as a timeless cheater.
At the third hour the poet sneered by the rear
with an austere face and traces of queer.
At the second hour we caught the suave riddler
failed to unveil his arts in the belvedere.
At the first hour the boy with the Irish sunflower
ran like a man to the man he called 'father'.

But what really happened at the twelfth,
I delved and discovered not a single hand,
Minutes or seconds, right or left,
whilst I shelved this ruined meter, uncomprehend.



Movement 10 -

Thrown in between Uxor & Vita, he dislodged himself
and spun a turn, out from a thresher's grace,
submerged into the quirky Escher's maze.

He shouted but no one greeted,
none of his loud words heed,
fallout sleets.

Landed, he saw a capricorn, a torn thorn,
and couple of sonnets belonging to a hornet
who died from Acid maltase deficiency,
two purple Leos, a Gemini who crippled the other,
and four Pisces smashed into pieces by otters.

He ventured further, into the scoria
of unknown naos, brown chaos,
of sirens and gyrons
pictures-mixtures exotica,
into the branches of pines that giggled whenever
a riddle is out of punches or lines.

The virgin and the water bearer, now soaked
with hocus birdlimes, sang folks schlepped along by
the chorus of mimes.

In the flooded hallways, where giants guarded
the orange gates, deranged kids of strange glees
pleaded in peace with baits.

He moved at haste, as
Aries dropped on it's feet and supplicated
for a crop of weed which he had duplicated.

Now in the Zone of Mors,
rich gargoyles orgled,
loud beasts on Scales toggled with Oh!,
threatening to blow fire through their olfactory
nerves engined by the multi-
versed Scorpio.

He mad-dashed to the next scenes,
like jumpcuts,
like flashes of images and texts marching
in the cocoon of ruts and sins,
done abruptly but in vein, a style
he adopted from years of writing
wild cinquains on mild sequins.

Here, no
one wants
a hero.

The humming was overwhelming,
Taurus grooved through the roofs, and neath the tappa
The Cancerian Band were controlling
the wind effects strolling from the intoxicated,
modulated talk box of Vangelis, Moroder,
Bowie and Zappa.

He finally found an end,
he saw the Moonlady descended.

She said:
In this abysmal constellation,
The Archer holds the key,
and the house of philosophy
is only next door.

Therefore?

You need to put on a disguise.
A siltstone would be wise.

Gleaming eyes, petite in size,
He apologized, thrice,
I do not dramatize.
I do not tell lies.
Nor am I wise to to know
if it's worth the price.

Then she reached her wings to him,
and they swam into the diminishing
phlegm of ink, where sinking
poets and ~ notepads
are indivisible.

Invincible.



Movement 11 -

Haiku For A Retired Poet on Diet:

Poet. Admired.
Hired. Sired. Desired.
Quiet. Dead tired.

And we all lived happily ever after............................ NOT! (But we must, no?)

One Passage Apart

Dear X,

You smiled an Argentine smile and then left me hanging like Babylon. Why is this happening? Such unkind acts will be declined even by those whose sanities are tainted by grieves. Haven’t you noticed by now that my heart is as fragile as a piece of China – once broken, hard to mend? Even in this situation I must make myself believe that beneath the abyssal Deep Creek of your concealed emotions, the feelings stay true to its form. You just didn’t realize it yet, since of late you have decided to put on the mental state of self-denial. Eventually, (this I rather lodge upfront), the Ethiopia of promises that we once laid in the open pith of Île de France will be nothing more that just a stain of Greece. I've decided to reside at the lowest district as of today. My Hungarian moodswing shall be the talk of the town, but I bet you don’t give a toot. Let me be like this. I will then surrender to higher calls, go the distance and be a recluse amongst the Ireland of tortured souls. Each of those warm praises and cool sycophancies that you have poured with loud amorous stature shall now be precipitated urgently in close vicinity of the Jordan River; I assumed that they are better off as anagram pickings for the Kyrgyzstan sea creatures lurking for a bite. I wish you could take the Lithuanian route and flee as far away from here as possible, for this nigrescent, Mozambique heart would uncautiously falter at the glimpse of your hair whenever seen in full view under the latitude of a brilliant crescent moon. If you ask me, the answer is no; I am not in a spot and not defeated. I am merely alone in a familiar place that has neither lands Norway. But we are officially here in the crux of Overtown, at the dead-end street of a Plainview relationship, in the Quebec of a sad, winding Romanian journey. And it’s also here where we chart our paths and repose, thus giving in to what we are meant to be: you - the Swede one (obviously), and me - a Turkey. The only question that must be forwarded via snail mail to all the pale residents of tomorrow shall be this: Will there ever be a United States of U.N.I.? Blinded by the Venetian blinds of my loosely fit consciousness, I can only conjure tiny, molecular images of possibilities, where none is partially true and all is but a topographic dream. And as I stand longitudinally in the enclosure of adjectives and conundrums, prep with nothing but a Stabilo liner 808, I pledge to Wright you off and mark you simply as terrain ‘X’ – the unexposed Yuma Desert buried in the deepest Zürich of a fractured mortal.

Yours Truly,
McKinley Wisconsin

There is no country for poor, lonely man. Nor is the story above a solid land of earthly facts. It might be a fiction born from the seed of a fertile soil, but it is definitely a fabricated plot based on firm grounds. And strangely, true love exists in the strangest of places. I’m worn out from all this searching. Love’s hiding makes me seek.