weelet.

for my niece. cute kid. showed princess her pics a little while back, and she gushed over the kiddo. thats amazing because princess has no patience for kiddies, maybe time with her own niece has mellowed her down.

hmm... am thinking evil thoughts. maybe i could loan her from my sis as a babe magnet for a while... that is if i could stand carrying the weelet the way from home to the park. (closest place for chickadees)

considerable...

***

Baby-proofing

Weelet.
You are only eighteen months,
so be careful when you fly about this house
pointing out items of bourgeois pink
my father hid for your amusement.

Even here,
sharp corners exist.

They have reached the outer limits
of their baby-proofing efforts;
Entire walls you cursed with your hieroglyphics,
the dining table we never ever used properly,
my room with all its sex cordoned off
by a big black door
that held my parents at bay for years.

If they could,
they would carpet the world in felt,
hang baby photos over every ugly thing
and baby-proof you permanently
in velveteen cushions.

***
reading: gerald durrell's biography. princess's bday gift to me couple of years back. i like reading about the man.
listening: weelet uttering rubbish and amusing herself.

yearning recovery. + narcissism

i must have been obviously depressed over the last few weeks.

my 2 business partners have been tiptoeing nicely around me and being very sweet. suggesting i take a break and stuff like that. last week's very fufilling meeting involved more of wtf i am to do in vietnam and i got to thinking maybe i'm being bumped off to viet for negotiations (both of them know that me and negotiations dun go very well, given my temperment) is more of light duties, r and r and to get over being burnt out, than real work...

scheming buggers, but... hey, no complaints here! :)

this week, with both of them out of action (reservist, shanghai) i am to control the guys alone. oh shit. despite what the industry thinks, i know i'm pretty bad at this business thing. i blame any progress on luck, and the general naivety of our competition. 'nuff said.

am feeling so drained by the end of the day (more like night). and still i can't cover the gaps. f- bunnies.

ah yes, at the bloody tender age of 28+++, i am admitting burnt-out status. tell me, in bold and underlined words; is there any hope of recovery for burning out?

writing wise, it's been fun. at least a few interesting projects. oh, am on narcissim eruption, am on lush 99.5fm, as in my poems, somewhere during the next 2 weeks or these 2 weeks, whatever. no money in it but the narcissistic allure of being read on air, even if it's some god forsaken time slot in the wee wee mornings is too much to ignore.

mind, i dunno, that confirm die die for sure for sure, that it'll be read out, but at least thats what the email from their pr/scripting firm (people) says so, so i guess so eh.

more importantly; sad to say, i'll like to know who's reading it. i've never even read them out myself.

tell if you hear. thks!

listening to: my brain clear itself of its clutter
reading: wikipedia - hopping.

film synopsis in fogginess.

woke early so i thought i get as confessional as i ever would be. i dun know why. dun ask, just humour me. this is about the later part of sunday. this isnt a poem, i just wanted the hazy feel. and b, if you ever read this. yes, u pretty much f-ed me up.

***

i watched it. that one show i should caught with you.
the last time i was here, your sister sat beside me in lieu
much later i learnt on that day, i was her inferior substitute
for the man she slipped her wedding ring off for.

both of you should see this. bring your mother.

we brought gaston in the same way i would have smuggled you through.
in loud nonchalance, hopeful
that the ticket man would not notice the quicken pace.
i followed it unconciously with that mischievous side grin
i always flashed when i won something.
the one you used your fingers to measure.
you have it too, but you accessorise better because of those eyes.

inside the black security-blankets everyone.
whilst silencing my phone, i wanted to text you:
“come back.”
this time i managed the entire line before deletion.
the coming attractions rolled.
i remembered you always had a comment for each,
which you wanted, (insisted) to see, with or without me.

cyril said that the leads mirrored sheo and him.
but at least they owned the happy ending.
who would feel for the poor man who had to watch
the woman he waited fifteen years for,
run from their wedding?

from a hazy scene, and some forgotten clever lines
between the mother and the daughter,
i finally realised what you meant
by missing and hating someone at the same time.
but to apply it so generously on me?
somewhere in that movie, i laughed in irony
and wanted you to see
8 years between us is nothing.

the show ends, it is good, and i have wasted it on you.
despite my best efforts, you stayed on. holding every available space
in my mind with your non-attendance.
in the car park, i remembered being grateful
for richard not bringing his cashcard because it meant that i could smoke.
lighting that cigarette, i remembered who i dropped it for
and why i am relighting it again.

home took a long time to arrive into view.
i go to sleep counting instances of you.
that next morning, the blunt knife my mother asked me to throw
nearly turned on me.

***
after that everything got clear again. haha. i realised i take a long time to heal from anything or anyone. despite everything.



___

decadence.

back from dinner with another bunch of guys. compared to them, i am a verifiable angel. one of them is complaining that his current love interest already has a bf, which has me remarking "as opposed to you already well-married with kiddies and all?" to which his answer was:

thats different.

how different, i have no idea.

the rest of the evening was spent with me listening attentively to them discussing the "quality" of chinese ktvs and their, eh... routine activities. i know this is not the idle boasting of pre-adulthood ns-boys, because, they are too old and because i've been "out" with them and their assorted "friends".

let me see; so far, i have been asked to take over as companion to one of their "friends" because i am a decent guy. (i cannot argue with that, comparatively, i am a bloody saint), to be interviewer to select the cutest english speaking chinese aspirant as an admin executive and having to defend the benefits of staying moderately moral. (i lost, naturally.)

i like to say only my reaction to overdose of alcohol (results in either me falling immediately into a deathly slumber or me getting violently sick) has saved me from waking up in the morning to a bad female decision. many many times.

however, i do wonder sometimes whether that, is a good or bad thing.

i have been invited to shanghai somewhere early next yr by this bunch. i've already survived 2 chinese trips eh...barely keeping to my odd notions of morality. we shall see with this one.

other than this, i should be heading out to vietnam, on a business mission, somewhere in jan or immediately after i complete the necessary research. i am childishly eager when it comes to vietnam. it has been years since i was there as a rothmans (read: dunhill cigarettes) intern. i have always missed it.

vietnam is not all about the war. and saigon has moved on. very much so.

this is the month of plans.

on another odd note, have been ordered to put up in mandarin hotel by oddly enough, my own parents on dec 3-5 in light in them going for a short holiday. apparently i am not to be trusted with keeping the house in order. so should anyone be looking for me, i shall be in either marina mandarin or meritus mandarin, counting coupons and expending my free-stay privileges.

in view of that, i must say, sometimes, work has its perks.

itunes on shuffles is playing keane. how very painful, not only musically, but because i bought this particular cd with b, on one of our so-called illict outings.

as a dedication to these decadent but delightful friends of mine, i wrote this awhile back:

***

Shanghai, a Morning Event

She lay there, a dead thing.
My source of heat
coiled between the sheets
reeking of vodka,

amongst the other things she took
to anaesthetise herself.
Was I even any good?

I contemplated
taking a knife
to that skin, dive into that heart
for checks.

She stirred, a thin moan escaped,
she surrendered
all her available options to me.
The small naked man,
sitting there, bent on decisions:
What's next?

I finally settled
on calling up for breakfast.
Today, I asked for an egg, soft-boiled
with its yolk heart
full, without cracks,
till I decided it was time.

***

listening to : the band - out of the blue. the guy who did the vocals for this track, rick danko, has passed away, so listening to him singing this is an odd feeling.
reading: an interesting email offer that is appealing to the narcissistic me, writing wise. cyril, i forgot to say this just now but thankyou you. :)

___

strength.

i need it.

i can't keep up with work and it's scaring the shit outof me. i made a list yesterday on the outstanding work to be done. and i ended up with a freaking long list. i was daunted just by making the list. sigh. clearing it seems impossible. and the damn list isn't staying static!

to liana: *wave* have u found me yet?

princess is off galavanting in europe. :(

so this popped into me, a funny one for her highness:

***

Your home, the here, the now,
made me ambassador to you.
I've been sent bearing memories
pre-tainted with sugar,
the fabricated paperwork and
all the red tape we could find to keep you
"otherwise occupied"
here.
Somehow, I keep doubting my re-election.

***

i will write more tonite. when i am stuck in the office clearing backlogs. woe is really me today.

***
listening to: my 2 ancient cuckoo clocks ticktocking out of tune. some funny superstition states that no 2 clocks in the house can show the exact same time.
re-reading: george mackay brown - ocean of time. another fav writer of me. member of dead white male club.

__

chauvinistic-O.

i know this will make me sound uber chauvinistic, but what the heck eh?

i rarely x33 buy female poets. in fact in my entire poetry collection, there was only one. plath's ariel. i just realised that. now, or as of yesterday night, there are 2.

ran out of the house yesterday evening at about 7ish due to early break from work and boredom. (yes, i work on sat, so loser rite?) no one was free and i mean no one; gaston was supposedly zzzing at home, cy had to go to sheo's friend bday party, damien i guess was putting in quality time with prospective ball and chain, becky's not in s'pore, no answer from mat for a while (schola i guess?) carl and kelly eh... lets not go there, etc etc

so i had to go out with self. which wasn't so bad. i popped down to borders to see whether i could pick up the others in the spiderwick series, but the field guide is still the only one they had out to date so went over to the poetry section to see what would catch my eye.

i get quite robotic when it comes to buying poetry books, so in a rough sense, this was how i conducted my search yesterday night:-

insert: eric's rules on buying poetry bookies:

rule no.1: go with the familiar
which means i arrow the familiar poets first; levine, langston hughes, ted hughes, donald hall etc, so yesterday, i did just that:
- levine rejected because levine always writes like levine, after owning 4 of his books, i want the next levine to break new grounds, do something different.
- langston hughes no because ancient fuddydaddy not my taste.
- ted hughes no because the last book i bought here was ted hughes's so i wanted something different.
- donald hall's one = not strong at all. disappointed.
- semus heaney's electric light (new one i think) caught my eye. plus i dun have a heaney so mental note taken, continued with search.

rule no. 2: no anthologies
i also very rarely buy anthologies. it's the same thing why best of's and anthologies cds are not preferrable. the flavour is lost. there's no proper flow. you will never get the feel of the collection or the themes the poet wanted to portray. of the lot of anthologies i surveyed, i am only moderately inclined towards the best american poetry series and only because in that one you get the feel of the guest editor’s taste in poetry. not always good and can be quite sala one.

rule no. 3: the little things
who really has the time to rife through everything? so the cover, spine, thickness, and price will all play a little part in selection. for e.g. unless it's payday, will i shell out 33++ for a thin say maybe 70 pages book or buy the more substantial 23++ 100 odd pages one with the pretty cover and the more appealing spine? of course, all other substances within being equal, meaning both being of equal poetic strength.

rule no.4: gender
like i said i rarely buy female poets. because of a no. of reasons actually.
a) as a rule, i prefer male poets because they generally exert more self control within a poem than a female counterpart. this isn’t a blanket rule, i have read male poets more whinny than your average manja queen. but as a general rule, i have been quite accurate on this point.
b) confessional – i like reading confessional style poems to a certain extent, but if the poem requires me to upload excessive amounts of sympathy, i get irritable. as an odd observation, i find women confessionals require more sympathy from the reader than a male one. not that there are many male confessionals around. off the top of my head, lowell, carver from the borders shelves and i think that’s it.
c) topic – women have different issues. not a bad thing, and actually a very good thing (provide variety) but those issues are difficult for me to fully “get into”. sampling a range of female poets, you will find abuse a pretty common topic, then the ever popular husband/bf’s an ass because he drinks/f-s around/gambles and doesn’t care about my feeling type poem is always a feature. men tend to surprise me more topic-wise. on the flipside, male poets have a higher tendency of being banal and boring, but i always sample before i buy so i’m pretty safe from that.

i had to eat these rules yesterday for supper.

i chose kimiko hahn’s mosquito and ant over semus heaney’s electric light! sorry mr. heaney-sir, i promise next trip i will get that one without consideration, promise. ok, kimiko hahn, she’s a half-jap half americano poetess whose book is “most rigorously women-centred work to date” as it says so on its back cover. so totally unlike me to choose this.

but her writing is strong. surprisingly, i am not immediately requested to surrender my sympathies. the topics are as i expected, but such control exercised in their execution. :)

i was intrigued from the 1st poem: entitled “the razor”.

(i hope she won’t mind if i reproduced it here)

The Razor

I want to return to the moment
father and I brought the canister of mother’s ashes
to the temple in some odd shopping bag.
We then dropped off the remains
to leave for a couple slices down the block
but the reverend pull a robe
over her jeans and blouse
picked up prayer bead
and suggested which was not a question
we say a sutra. Which one was it?
I only recalled I didn’t have a tissue;
that the incense I so dislike
felt sweet wafting into my sweater
and hair; that my whole body
shook without pause
though I did not make a sound
and tears and mucus covered my face and
sleeves because father did not know
I needed the handkerchief
mother had pressed a week earlier.
At times the loss felt like an organ
one could excise with a razor.

cool. and the rest of the book was more of this, sometimes even more brilliant but the thematic feel was consistent throughout.

which i find very attractive in a poetry collection.

btw, i am suppose to upload pics of my niece but my phone uplink is not working as it should so next post then. for now, just believe me when i say she's the cutest.

***
listening to: Yes - i've seen all good people.
reading: kimiko hahn's mosquito and ant

monster. in more ways than 1.

update: am so not feeling like i was a troll. certain events have transpired that assured me that prior response to sacking member of my crew was not warranted. he came back to haunt me with small crap. ok so now i am assured that i did the right thing in sacking said person.

on the flipside, if i was sacked, i guess i would make hell for past employer too. hmmm...

present (to second) mood: confusion.... :(

add multiple rerun of the banal depression ads that for some odd reason has been plaguing my tv screen. (f-ing me for paying scv late again, i guess)

equals me feeling that day was very oddly spent.

was trawling through me poems to prep for something fun i've been planning for these few days, checking for materials that could come in handy for a remix, or just checking for me crappy grammar and i found stuff that i haven't read for ages. namely:

this, which cy slipped to santa clara review (u are too sweet to a procrastinator)

Local Birds

Arrivals from the west,
a party of egrets strapped in white,
come to perch professionally in one perfect row
on the cold railings of the local canal.
They are early today, and the tide is still up.
Even the old men with their Tai-chi music
are not here yet.
So they check their feathers and rehearse their speeches.
On the opposite bank, a gang of crows
in gleaming black jackets and hungry looks,
gather with their loudhailer cries
to hurl vulgarities at the egrets,
intent on usurping their authority.
The egrets pretend not to hear;
they know with experience,
their beaks are no less sharp.
It was hard to tell in the early light,
with the tide not fully receded yet,
but already the guppies are herding
into separate shallow pools.
You can almost swear,
every single one has a ticket and a pencil
and everyone’s ready to decide
which sides they will die for.

and this (for first fruit's upcoming improbable heroes, which has been upcoming for a long x 2million too long time.)

The Daily Train Ensemble

Mat Rock
in his army No. 3
and nothing to do
on the daily train home
can’t resist showing off
taking his air guitar
out from under his sleeves.

A touch to test the strings
a glance left to right
then it starts
he strums it for all he’s worth
like he really knows how to play.
Maybe he does.

Then one by one
his backup band always arrives on time
a standard Joe to the left
drums an even beat
on his leather briefcase.

The Janes to the right and either sides
provide the backup vocals
as they pull in their individual jackets
eyes closed, quiet lips and faded lipstick
to complete the song.

Old man John Doe right to the back
watching the full ensemble
with the “been there, done that” look
taps his stick
to check if he can still hear
notes in a comfortably bitter voice
to check if he can still sing:

“One hit wonders”

mostly to himself.

***

haha, cute. but time to change my topics to something new, am so sick of always writing the same few themes. so boring. as if being stuck in my pressure cooker job and no hols in sight isn't enough. maybe write a few happy sesame street meet power puff girls type? eh...god i hope not.

oh, i just recently had an interesting idea, delirium from fever was useful afterall. am going take some time out soon to try it out. wish self luck. as in to find excuses to "chao" work.

on a totally unrelated note: went trawling blogs again, happened on this xanga site with this x100 very cute chickedee with a extremely addictive song on her blog, i happened to be playing r.e.m's the great beyond, and her site's song just took over. not that i minded. i so want the name of the song. but .. heehee, too shy to ask, because wait she think i big buaya. :)

gaston ur assistance here is hereby requested.

***

listening to: the verve - the drugs don't work. bummer, my sin poong "may cause drowsiness" pills don't do jack! so disappointed.

reading: a brunch of things: santa clara review vol 90 no. 2 (for narcissistic reasons), selected ted hughs' poems (because i am borrowing sylvia from the video shop tomo) and the lyrics to james blunt's dreary dreary songs (because of the multiple depression ads on the telly, i figure, if u got to go, might as well go all the way!)

ps. haha, my niece just called, my dad's cooing into the phone. she's so damn adorable. next post i will put her cute pics up. (shit, am getting that settledown yesyes committment good feeling again...)


__

ill.+high.t = delete$

f-. flu. why must i always fall ill on holidays?! it's not bleeding fair.

tues:

deliriously feverish and still insisted on going to sheo's place where cy once again took unflattering pictures of me. see his site for more hideous me. i swear that one's a doppelganger. maybe it's the rare holiday killer disease, where horrible and mysterious ailments inflict poor me during major holidays.

weds:

fever still raged within and i did the most horrible thing in my life. i sacked the guy. what is this job turning me into? of course, the professional thing is to say he deserved it. yes he does. but it doesn't lessen the guilt of turning out a guy who needs the money to feed his family. and i am the horrible horrible troll who must do it.

have been asked to speak to another potential to fill his position. nicer way to say pouching but we need men of caliber. otherwise, i might have to do the dirty work myself. hey, waaaait a minute... i am doing the dirty work myself... shit. ok, otherwise, i might have to do ALL the dirty work myself.

thurs:

today. woke up in coughing fits but was pleased to note that the fever has subsided. haha. but mother had to spoil it by nagging. shit thoughts of buying my own place again invade my mind.

d rescued me by asking me out for high tea. or that was the initial intention. went to suntec first to meet him where i bought this fantastic book:




















brilliantly drawn! i like. am so getting the entire series.

high tea was confusing. went round looking for a high tea place. marina mandarin - don't have. sheranton - also don't have (but we got talking about the sweet ms heather yamy, who used to stay there, heather if on the offchance of offchances x2 million should you be able to read this, email me. :) kay?) meritus negara had but was so puny we headed for marriott. marriott had and we gorged ourselves.

okay not really becoz we have become older men with smaller stomaches. i would say we have 3 medium plates and gave up, settling on coffee and light desserts. sad for buffet standards.

to work off the food (mainly carbo) we went shopping and i made first kill with my purchase of r.e.m's best of collection, notable thing is it has a side cd containing rarities and b-sides. i love b-sides! should be fun unravelling it. but truth be told, i bought the entire 28.++ cd for the sake of one song.

everybody hurts.

d wants to compile a list of these dreary songs for his driving periods. what's his problem? he's the one getting married in may, ohhhh... maybe thats why... haha. sorrie leonie, joke la.

after that, we scored consecutive kills with our purchases even managed (me la) to slot in a little flirting with some underaged salesgirl with cute peranakan accent. her shop sells lomos! must get me lomo up again. wanna shoot some pictures!

total money wasted: a lot. :(

interestingly enough my 2nd largest purchase was the fee for the doc's who i think gave me weird medicine for my flu, i count 2 nameless fill-me-ups drugs, one from 3m pharm (not known for medicines) and one from shin poong pharm which the newbie doc (coz i have never seen him before, my regular doc, dr belinda woodworth not around) said will kindof knock me off good.

i jump at any drug that says "warning: may cause drowsiness."

since this clinic is one of princess's clients, (she sells drugs, that why i love her.) she will not be pleased that i was not dispensed one of her company's drugs.

***

listening to: r.e.m: everybody hurts - d's talking about getting the pet shop boys' compilation next. now cy will be pleased. fag music what next? spandex?
reading: arthur spiderwick's field guide to the fantastic world around you. yes, yes, yes! am so getting the whole entire series! f- harry and his pimple problems (never a fan) this is the hands down winner.

__