Compilations

What happened to the serenades under the moon
and the compilation tapes recorded in nostalgia?

Where did the handwritten letters go,
filled with mundane updates that were
outdated by the time they arrived?

What about those international calling cards
dialed over the public pay phone,
those which beeped when time was up?
Our rush of good-byes and miss yous,
please write, so I could wait at the mailbox
for those handwritten letters with outdated news
which we caught up on over the phone.

And the compilation tapes
were for times when letters and phone calls
came far and few in between,
when they disappeared altogether.
When I could not hear the serenades
in my mind’s heart.
When the only voice I heard was my own,
singing sad songs of longing -
My own serenade to the memories.

We had a soundtrack.
We had an autograph.
We were not cloud space to dissipate in.
This was our tangible imprint.

what in the world…

There are no boundaries between his room and hers. It is psychotic, especially since their worlds are continents apart. I cannot speak the truth. The rawness will burn you. How can we hold polarities within one plane? There are split offs, only because they exist together side by side. There is no distance or dissociation between them. Both are interdependent. How can I reflect this disparity to you?

She writes these lines in silence. The candle flame flickers shadows on the wall, enlarging her petite figure. Tendrils of hair, loose from the tied ponytail, fall over her forehead and cheeks. They tease her lower lip. She seems unbothered by the distraction. Her fingers hang onto the pen as if for dear life, while her wrist wiggles and sways to the rhythm of her ferocity. Furrows between eyebrows bear shadows around her eyes.

The unreal is real and reality is pretense.

The room is receding into darkness. The last rays of light seep through the woven walls. The air has cooled. When the internal is brighter than the external, her presence is the hearth. Sounds of pen scratching on thin paper, shallow breaths, sniffles, and shifts of sarong on bamboo floor illuminate the tiny hut. Then the pen collapses onto the short round table. She leans back, palms and arms as supports. Her head is thrown back as sweat glistens on her neck, chin and temples. Her chest heaves. She closes her eyes and swallows. With lips dry, she lets out a sigh. It is both joy and pain to write. It is clearly madness. She is certain. But the madness feels alive and liberating.

She starts to giggle, then chuckles. Soon her laughter fills the room. She hugs her knees and rolls on the floor, consumed by humor. Another sigh, a long and loud one, releases. She smiles. She feels light as she lays with legs spread-eagle on her cool, hard, undulating floor. She looks up at the ceiling made of thatch roof. She can almost hear the whispers of the slender palm leaves caressing one another. She moans, as if to say, she likes the sensuality too. She falls asleep to the cooing of the breeze through the cracks in the floor.

In her dreams, they speak the language of hearts, unfettered by temporal, physical and civil distances.

middle of the night writings

a poem for X

X and Y
on linear planes
then Z came along
a trajectory

you are
my xyz
you were
first love
second hand
third frame

while i
hold mysteries
in derivatives

this curve has no tangent
how impossible

we have affinities

to write

I.
too grounded to be moved
my verses lack feet

so my pen halts its imprint
sits in situ

a pebble on dry river bed

II.
i am ocean
calm on surface
currents stream within

storms beneath depths
await

III.
i shall drink my fill
to write

i will drink oceans and seas
i will drink rivers and streams
i will drink tears and blood
i will drink my own concoction

and become dizzy
with vertigo

feet off the floor
i may purge

i rather be afflicted than sterile.

couple of new poems

Primal

tarped roadside shelters called “ain yar”
shopping centres with neon signs

cries of resistance holding placards
icons on screens and pop up hearts

flights of fancy to fill hungry pockets
poetry and thousand dollar canvases

we are primal
basic instincts worn on our sleeves
chest bared
stomachs gutted

free falling
schizophrenia

untamed, uncontained
our primal surges

mother

we are babies wailing
infancy in abyss
mother-less for so long
when we are held
we kick our heels and
stomp our fists on ground

to say
i still don’t feel you here
you are not real inside of me
there has been no history
written between you and i

we are all finding mother…
I, in it too.

Yet another untitled prose, written today.

The dogs were hungry. Scrawny and lethargic, they wondered aimlessly. Desperate, they maneuvered their way to my calves. I shifted my knees the opposite direction, and scooted my bottom slightly, closing the distance between him and I. This bench we sat on was shelter under the young tree that barely provided shade. It was a landmark. We sat there, quiet and solemn, aware of the animal instincts surrounding us.

Conversation was sparse yet the silence was not awkward.

He had shooed the dogs away. They were harmless with their pitiful eyes, but the uncertainty of animal impulses could never be counted upon, particularly in this region where impoverishment can drive the most basic urges to full gear. He must have understood this, and my fear of it. I had not said a word or exhaled a whimper, yet he knew to respond.

Instincts speak clearly in spaces between persons.

We let it sink in, this safety and shelter, though it was situated outside of ourselves, in that space between two bodies. There was no place to own it within each of us. It wasn’t ours to own by each alone. There was no meaning making. It was too primal for thought.

We may cross the bridge when we come to it – this bridge that connects between two places.

An Untitled Prose (written recently in Burma)

It is not even dawn. The color of the sky is gray but it is not overcast, because I can see the star from this window. Three multi-storey apartment towers stand as monuments to the godless sky. Lights from the windows of these buildings lit up specks by specks. The city is awakening.

There is a man in short pa soe throwing out a basin of water onto the unpaved alley. He too has awakened. His gray stubbly hair, stout square torso and bare feet are ready for the day. His thatched house on stilts is illuminated by the flourescent light hanging carelessly over the edge of his roof. It never flickered the past night. Meanwhile some leafy crawling vines make home on the electricity cable that extends from the pole to the old man’s humble abbot. Not much square footage is in that slum house but it is home to this man.

Only twenty footsteps from the old man’s home is a vendor cart sleeping under the shade of an unnamed tree. Several hours earlier, its orange incadescent light was on, serving the owner and perhaps one customer on a middle of the night snack run. Now the cart sits obediently, like a dog waiting for his master’s return.

One man walks out of the alley with a pair of dark pants and a black shirt with printed motif. He has really white sneakers. He waits, facing the gateway of the slum quarters. In a few minutes, a woman with a light blue shirt, dark pants and white shoes comes out to join him. Together they disappear into the dark.

The house at the edge of the quarters has its light on. The light brings forth the shadow of a cross that stands prominently against the screen of a chicken wired window. A man parks his bicycle in front of the house with the cross.

Life is stirring quietly. The air conditioning unit in this room hums relentlessly. Muffled voices from the hallway are heard. People are getting ready for work. I look at my watch under the mini LED flashlight. It is barely six o’clock. I have been awake for the past five hours. I’ve tossed and turned in bed, cried in self reflection, jotted down thoughts on note pad, went to the latrine twice, and ate two pieces of designer chocolate. I do not think I am any closer to an awakening. But my skin has just electrified to the walking vendor’s calls of “pae pyote” for breakfast.

Pone Yate

(in Burglish)
Lann bay ka tit pin out shi htine nay yar hmar
hkway kyi lite, kaung ma lay kyi lite
ying kyi lite, sa kar ta khoon hnit khoon pyaw lite
tu ah mhar sa kar tway pyaw lite
ngah ka “hote” lo pyaw lite
nyein nyein lay nay lite ne’.
tu nge chin, nga ye’ myat lone htair hmar myin yaung nay sair.
phone gyi kyaung shae mhar
tu hnit ngah ae di loh lay htine nay ge’ thar.
nga thoe ye’ pone yate.

(translated)
On the sitting bench under the tree on the side of the road
watching dogs, watching girls,
watching vehicles, speaking one or two words,
he said a few words of advice,
I then said “Yes”,
quietly we stayed.
Friend, I can see it in my eyes.
In front of the monastery,
he and I took our seats that way.
Our image.