Lamentations in the wind

Had 3 out of my 4 papers this week. As always, they could really have been better. I felt much was wanting as I handed up my 19th Century Lit script (Especially since I had written much more for a 10 mark qn compared to a 40 mark qn). My "How Tech Works" paper was surprisingly easier than I expected...no calculations involved. Just a load of qualitative application of Physical concepts (i.e. "Your friend Ross says an engine with high compression ratio is more efficient than one with a low compression ratio. Do you agree with his statement and why?"). Yup.
Yeah, there're definitely my friends who have finished their exams already. An SMU buddy of mine, Jonathan, called me two days ago asking for my address, cos he's applying for an internship of sorts and needs "referees of character". If I was done...I'd be doing something more meaningful with my life too. Like try to get together a 100 word biography, select eight interesting poems - and send them in for a poetry competition I've been eyeing. There's other things too. Like searching for a respectable publisher to consider publishing my works. Idealistic? We gotta start SOMEWHERE.
Didn't join Rach, Shiyang and Ricky last night for dinner. Felt I had to stay back...get some mugging in...cos I'm already going out today for a good deal of the day (and night). Yeah, I'm really immersed in this sad lifestyle of books and notes. This perverse desire for the final letters of my modules, rather than the content of my studies. Life, it seems, is more than what Tom Hanks said in "Forrest Gump". Life in our world today can be so diverse - with a good deal more scientists, lawyers, writers, engineers - and yet, it can be so simple at the same time. Life.
Perhaps you all who are reading this should take a look at "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life". I've admired that bunch of actors (John Cleese and gang) for their ability to portray life's nuances and stumbling blocks, the huge mysteries which are actually simply-solved crossword puzzles; all in a manner that the common-folk like you and me would find funny, and yet hauntingly true.
As a student, I say definitely my priorities lie in my studies. NO two hoots about that. But still, I would say that some sociological akinness bears upon all students around the world, upon their completion of exams. They seem to burst out of the school into the yard, and into the world beyond with new-found energy, like butterflies from their chrysalis'. Perhaps its an inate desire for one to rebel and break free like Queen sang. I wouldn't be surprised. I want to break free.
Will try to break free and disappear as soon as my last paper ends on Tuesday. Yes, I will have my Special Semester modules to deal with. Yes, I will have to come back on Wednesday and Friday to meet some friends to get our BBQ stuff in order for Friday's cluster BBQ. But other than that, I'll disappear. Into the wind.

 

Of Dogfood and Indiscriminate Trash disposal...

Was talking to Shaun today after our lunch in the kitchen...when we'd both gotten really 'sian' of mugging (Him of Engine stuff, and I of Philo).
Talk centred around the prospect of finding an eligible mate. Neither of us could say what was it with people around us (though a faint glimmer in his eye sparkled, as we changed topics...Hope perhaps?). This time, we tried hovering to the explanation for such a phenomenon of not-having found 'the special someone'. Probably one thing that we could both agree on was that - we are both 'Sian' ("Bored" of our lives...bored of whatever that's happening in the world). Shaun suggested that, unless One has done something about the situation, and has been shown 'signs of negative progress going at a constant for a sustained period of time' - parallel to the situation of a perfectly sane person feeling really miserable, revving up his engine of his car, and driving it straight into a concrete wall at 100 km/h - then One should not have the reason to feel 'Sian'. He therefore thought my 'sianness' was unjustified.
Of course, I thought otherwise. How else could I explain this lousy feeling I've been getting the whole fortnight? Hah. Had to tell him, that 'sian' doesn't necessarily have to begotten from being outrightly rejected. It comes from other things. Like looking around you, in a crowded foodcourt, and seeing those same, bored faces, day-in-day-out - all tired, all asking the same unanswered Question. All being left unanswered. Shaun could rightly agree with me on that.
Well, moving on...some dark humour was on its way, in the form of my analogy to dogfoods on the market. "Brand X dogfood had great packaging...but just may not appeal in the same way as Brands A, B, or even, C from other countries", Shaun said. I had to add, "Well, Brand X, with all its fancy trimmings and stuff on the labels - is probably contrived. Coercive methods to make us believe its 'good' for the dog. I mean, just LOOK at some of the dogfood on the market. Even I WOULDN'T eat it." Yet on the OTHER hand, there's always stuff like "Pedigree" and who-knows-what (I don't have a dog by the way, it IS an analogy after all!). And the adverts always make the consumer who wants to buy for his dog look at the product, because it attracts the 'discerning dog-owner'. Maybe I'm discerning? Maybe I'm taken in by advertising? Maybe...I'm one who goes for the packaging. Whatever. The point is, that no matter how much good stuff (Vitamins, minerals, and other free doggy toys) that you can get out of a can of Brand X, its still going to be Brand X - Even if something is done to spice up its image. Yeah, like maybe, "Cheongsam-clad dogfood" as Shaun agreed with me. *all sarcasm INTENDED* haha.
Ah great. I've just managed to rave on...about another totally seemingly pointless conversation. But then again, don't we all?

 

Oh, BTW, I've posted a variety of pictures...mostly of my time in Sandhurst. Expect more to come. Cheers! =) 

Another Wkend in Solitude

Sitting in my room, with the fan spinning high,staring into an unfeeling computer screen. Its really unnerving sometimes. Stuffy here too...especially when the lousy driers and washers in PGP don't bl**dy work properly, resulting in you having to wear damp clothes half rinsed of detergent!!
I'm quite disgruntled. Tried doing a practice paper for my Philo exam on Monday...but ended up just concussing on the table. Not good. Must be the loads of food I had for lunch. Well, at least Nicola enjoyed the Birthday lunch we treated her to at Brewerkz. =P Had a Parrot-fish sandwich...just had to eat it...vengeful ol' me needing to destress, remembered parrotfish bugging me during my divetrips previously. heh. Chelsea had a Portabello mushroom sandwich (eating the mushroom, the cheese, some fries...and hardly any bread!!). Nic ate one piece of fish (Out of two)...and left the rest...chips and all. So there I was...watching stark-eyed, as food was left sorrily on the table. Couldn't waste it, could I? Besides, I am still not feeling very happy. So yeah. Ate most of the lot. Was good. Nic was happy. So we're happy...its her Bday after all.
For Nic's sake I'll try to smile. =) HAPPY Birthday Nic!!

 

DISCLAIMER: The poetry you see below is my original work. If you like it, you are welcome to quote it. Just cite properly - is all I ask of you. Cheers! =) 

Reminiscing a forgotten past

Reminiscing a forgotten past

"De Profundis clamo ad te, Domine”
- Psalm 130:1


How easy it is,
To allow the sands of time
To be washed by…
Washed by the floods of eternity,
And carried forth onto another beach.
In another place and time.

As Agamemnon feasted on Troy,
I awoke:
Senses numbed, no fresher than they were
When the Century began.
Plastic squares onto plastic bowl.
Dogfood;
In a Word.
In Silence, I consume,
My bread of death.
My breakfast of champions.

Sitting on the beach,
You said an astounding thing.
I was astounded at least.
What did you say?
Say.
What?
I don’t know.
Nevermind. Here come the waves.
Silence.

Aloofness.
That’s an interesting thought.
“Hello, pleased to meet you.”
No, I’ll have none of that.
“My name is…”, with a grin to boot.
Ah, there’s the trick.
I will try that, perhaps.
Maybe.

In Fetid sleep,
I wake in dreams;
Constantly thrashing, yelling –
In silence, I cry out to you.
I awoke once, to a lapping sea,
Upon a shore of finely ground sand
Beneath my body.

Lying there, the sands shifted, and the tides washed in,
Seeing the dark side of the moon as it sucked the waters,
Raising, churning, engulfing.

Still I lay, as the flood of 40 days rushed in,
Coming; Going.
Animals birthed their offspring, died.
Their offspring birthed more, which died too.

And still I lay, covered.
In multitudinous current.


“Friends never last, memories do”.
I remember now.
But you’re not here.
Mere memories, forever lasting,
Which linger
– as a shadow does, in the dim of dusk–
Till the light of memory fades.
And remember I shall,
no more. 

The Shepherd

The Shepherd
--------------------------------------------
For XJ:
"Away in a manger,
No crib for his bed…"
--------------------------------------------

What do you know:
Knowing one to have already gone.
A fleeting shadow.
A memory of your past.
A flicker of candlelight in the dark.

"Turn Left, Turn Right"
You laughed at the triviality.
The naivety; the simplicity.
How could I make you understand
It was much more than that?

--------------------------------------------
I sit upon a ledge,
Teertering on the great beyond:
Beyond my world and yours.
What is this I seek to conquer?
What do I seem to find?

A lost cause?

An unjust hand, holding you from
Holding me;
Once, a long time ago,
Which seems only yesterday past,
You said we'd see the hot gates together.
Or perhaps, it was I
Who suggested it.
And placed it in your mind?

"Hot gates. Hot cakes.
What's the difference?"
I see only the similarity in the two.
The two, heated in the radiance
Of some infinitely crying,
Some infinitely inexplicable thing.

I sit on shifting sands.
My hands grow cold, my fingers numb:
As I clasp yours.
"Those were pearls that were his eyes".
And those I grasped, coral.

Ancient horns signify a second coming.
Tell me what you are thinking now.
And I’ll do the same.
--------------------------------------------

The little boy alone tended to his sheep,
Saw a star flash across the heavens.

I saw that too.

A Flash.
But you don't say.
Hardened heart, cast in stone:

I hear only what you say.
And what you say,
Is what I don't hear.
--------------------------------------------

Look up now, into the sky,
Look out now, into the sea;
For within the clouds,
Casting their silken image
Onto a mirror-like seascape:
Therein I reside.

Do not tell me,
I have waited too long.
The sun is almost at its zenith.
Don't mention what I have known;
That your tethers create mocked puppetry.

Don't.

The past be the past.
Or the forever is the future.
What You hear, shall ever be
In the annals of glory,
In the fortress of the sanctified.
--------------------------------------------

I sit here now,
On the edge of uncertainty.
A tide of change rushes in.
Seeing the hands, the arms, the faces,
I’ve known them all.

So tell me this only,
So I may lie to rest:
In the vaults,
Of your mind 

"That's my MacDonald's" *to a sing-song tune*...RIGHT...moving on now... 

Ardent Fans of "Supersize Me"...doing a very perplexed Ronald in... =P 

The magic cupboard in Chun's Kitchen...where mysteries never ceased to amaze us =P 

Sunlight coming through an opening in the kitchen of Chun's (our host) house in Thailand 

I call this...Optimism in a Flower 

During my YEP to Thailand last Dec...the Rainwater pots for the water in the Summer when it gets really dry. 

The Broken Rock

This is the poem I was working on earlier on this evening...Appreciate, and reflect.

The Broken Rock

Here, I stand before you,
Split in half.
A crack drawn through me, from top to toe.
Four quarters make what was once my being.
Four quarters - is all I have,
Quartz, Amethyst, Jadeite, Topaz:
In my body - I lift up to you.
-------------------------------------------

Before the Word, came the mouth.
The Mouth, to eat a toast and tea;
Of contrivances and insecurities.
The mouth, to speak a thousand holy verses,
In reverberating echoes of their former.

Once, I walked over many a street,
Passed many a shopfront, religious house;
Over the land of half-empty rubbish bins,
Not quite full - yet filling themselves magically.
And I was amazed, in a word.

Oh! How the enchantment of the world, brings
Many to their fame, glory, fortune, success.
Oh! Enchanted heap of stony fossils,
Which lie and crumble;
Crackling before my feet -
Pray, do tell me this:
How do I attain that wealth and greatness,
Others have to hold?

The stones and rocks muttered,
The stones and rocks creaked,
The stones and rocks uttered:
That we were once like you is true.
We served a high - no, higher - purpose.
One thousand and two-hundred times,
We bowed to the Virgin, to her Child.
Beneath a pillar we prostrated -
Awaiting divine edicts and commandments.
Iron collars, coarse hemp - all have we worn.
More than a day too many; yet all in a day.

Frankincense, Myrrh, Gold:
We brought these before the cross.
Wood nailed together, stained with
The blood of an infinity of lambs.
And we worshipped it.

Here, I stood before them,
Not believing mine eyes, or ears,
As the rubble continued speaking,
Muttering its stony rubbish in
Unintelligible intelligence.

The stones and rocks creaked
They creaked, some jeered,
The stones and rocks sputtered:
Yes, we worshipped the wood,
And also the metal which bound those two planks together.
Hailing it the “Saviour”; deeming it “King”.
Flowers, garlands upon garlands, derived from the Africas,
Honey - of the purest hive in the Kingdom of China,
Milk - of the Sacred cows in India;
These - and many more spoils,
We lifted up to the wood.
For the wood - stained with
The blood of a million lambs, had to be the answer,
To our infinitesimal sufferance.
------------------------------------------------

Here, the stones and rocks drew a pause,
Shifting uneasy - as if wary of having spoken
Some undeniable truth - as a child ponders over
Claim to the missing cookie from the jar.

Sizing me up, the largest lump of topaz pronounced:
So, traveler - you who have seen the many lands of the Orient,
You who have witnessed dawn rise, and dusk set
Upon tropical islands, home to the jujube.
Speak, pray, tell - what hast thou to offer to the wooden monument?

I looked, stark-eyed, into the murmuring cluster,
Its sparkling brilliance, blinding in the almost-noon sun.
The rubble, though eyeless, seemed intent on searching my soul for a sacrifice.
An ingot? A diamond? A million-dollar note, perhaps?
I had none.

My hands opened, palms up to the heavens,
As I faced the scuttling coals, their brilliance no more.
Dulled had they turned - A matt-black, some raging into little bonfires;
Others simmered quietly, glowing a faint orange.

Then, as if an apocalypse had begun,
(Though I daren’t say I am worth such)
The burning stones and heaps of rubbish
Began hurling themselves at me.

Oh! How it stung! How it did burn!
The feeling of stone cutting flesh,
Then injecting molten brimstone into one’s veins.
As poison courses through a condemned convict,
Guilty for an armed robbery that was never his to commit.

As the blood drained its last from my body;
As my being was engulfed in the fiery molten lava:
A flash shone into my eyes, brighter and more brilliant
Than the sun’s reflection on the Lake Avalon…

And then I awoke.
------------------------------------------------

Whether it was NDS, or divine intervention,
Only time will tell.
Was it a dream, was it real? You ask,
Half-expectant of an answer, which I am reluctant to say.

Only this I show, drawing out from my pocket,
A peculiar stone - partially dulled, yet with a faint
Glimmer of yellow, beneath a charred surface.
 

Preparing for exams lately... the photos you see posted were taken over a span of 2 years...some of my time in Sandhurst, others in Singapore (diving, chilling, etc). Meanwhile, I've been getting quite depressed over the stuff that's been happening around me. It being exam-period doesn't help any - and especially not, since I am studying Tennyson, who THOUGH is a GREAT poet, is a BL**DY depressing Bloke!
Yes. I AM feeling depressed. For those of you who knew me in CJ, and rem a VAGUE semblance of the drama we put up for Drama Competition 2000, I was Zach - "maniac depressive". As Sharen said, "you fit the character perfectly". AH well.
Feeling REALLY bad...I dropped my stuff on Tennyson, and left my kitchen where I was studying with Julia, and Alvin...and headed out to one of the barbeque pits behind PGP. Sat there alone for 4 hours...stopping only for dinner. And worked on my longest poem yet. Not epic. Just a long poem, by my standards. WIll post it soon...when I get it typed out.
Anyway, I'll be off to bed now...day's not been particularly appealing. Hopefully tmr will have something better to offer. Ciao...

 

A school of mackerel flow past...Silver on blue...a shifting painting. 

*Somewhere...In the Mediterranean*

Guess where I watched the 2003 Rugby WC Finals? 

A Broken Constantine...Clearing the Land of Stony Rubbish 

Through the Looking Glass, Everything is Clear... 

happily under Le Tour Eiffel =P 

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Captain's Log, The Pequod...Entry #02-1324Z
I've been writing lately - surprisingly it flows well. And fluidly. It must be the exams. It must be the certain welling up of emotions, as an something of such great significance in life as society sees it approaches. Knocking on one's door - you either shut the door, and ignore it, or you open it, letting your soul be ravaged.
It flows. Till only dregs are left, of me. "To sleep, perchance to dream" there's a thought we all entertain once in our little lives. Till then, I bid you a good night, and study hard - till your "lives be capped with a little sleep", and study you shall no more. 

#01-142, Captain's Log...The Nautilus.
Its been seven score since I saw the surface...and I say, its not a pretty sight. Been buried in the sea of confusion and hectic lifestyle for oh-too-long. I dive soon.
Before I go, I bid farewell to those who have known me; I greet those who may.
For once I leave, there may be no telling when one may see a semblance of the one who went by the nickname..."ignisfatalis".