fire.fire.

i love playing with fire.

yesterday morning had to drag myself down to office to prep the projectiondesign (read: bloody ex. projector) for ranjit, who true to his nature played me out. again. the only cool thing about this is that i learned from ranjit (aka p.i. or pitiful idiot), that me kopitiam kaki, ranjit's trusted crony, gul is back from programming almost all of reliance india.

about damn time. must drag gul out for kopi.

having been played out, which i actually anticipated, i called mr. cyril wong yit mun, premier love-poet (they realli don't know what they were getting themselves into by calling him that) of his generation and singapore (who has requested that i not shorten his beautiful name to just cy.) for brunch.

lounged at his place with him and beng liang while we waited for gaston, sheo to come for tea. by then, had kinda figured that it would be a food-oriented sunday. i think it was when beng liang asked me straight up when i went in whether i was interested in peanut pancakes.

yada yada yada, bitch bitch bitch (actually just cyril wong yit mun) wrote something (see previous post), insult others. the drill.

beng liang took out his boots for polishing and i cringed at the sound of the kiwi tin dropping on the floor. the memories the memories!

gaston came, the topic shifted to women. cyril wong yit mun naturally wilted and turned bored.

so we went for tea and intestinals joined us. after that, i had to split to meet current applicant for dinner, she wanted to pierce her ears so i tagged along for some moral support, so cute to see her cringe in pain, expectations, expectations. literally haha.

anyway she looked kinda cute yesterday.

then she asked me "do u have a blog?" with the accusing eyes.

i was going like damn, did i write anything incriminating which she read? then answered a hesitant yes... (stretched) to which she replied that she also has a blog. (sigh of relief)

hers is on running so i told her mine is primarily focused on poetry, whilst "forgetting" to tell her there's quite a large chunk of personal info on board too.

it's not that i wanna lie to her, but i wanna keep my outlets. i did a little test yesterday so am pretty sure that based on the info she has on me it will be next to impossible for her to get the location of this blog.

i haven't figured her out yet.

give a little time.

oh, a serious subject poem which i did some work on few days back:

***

The Men I Worked With

I couldn'’t mask my fascination
at getting my first hard hat.
Despite twenty-four years of being me
I worked childishly at fitting it, right
there, in front of everybody.
He found it amusing;
one of my men, Ah Keng,
my last real roughneck. A steal
because he was too old to command his price.
Twenty years of construction,
You could see it in the man;
all rock bones and built, a gut
made of beer, polished by a combination of
sand and economic rice.
Shake his hand,
cop a feel of his sandpaper hands,
and run your fingers through his map of hidden cuts
that will never heal right.
If you want to watch him work,
keep your eyes on his boots
and how he will wear
even these new ones out,
walking on too much steel and concrete.
He'’d come to me every morning
a packet of black coffee hanging from his fingers,
a smile through teeth stained by nicotine
and roadside tar,
from a face cemented with that look
like I was the son
he raised building other people'’s houses,
on other people's wood and stone
and took through secondary school, RJC, University,
America
in that coarse accent and talk
that everyone had to learn to love.
The son that married the English girl,
The son who lives in London now.
He writes me a letter about once a month,
Ah Keng said in his defence
but they don'’t talk about women
or the money he keeps promising to send.
Anyway, you should see Ah Keng go at it.
He'’d be up a scaffold
before you can don your goggles
and cut through metal like how he eats.
You wonder what keeps him going like that
anymore.
I offered my help once
but all he wanted, was for me
to hold his hat for a little while.

***

listening to : dickie chicks - landslide: am a covert dickie chicks fan, run, the american country madness is contagious.
reading: billy colin's picnic, lighting.


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