strange

i spent some time reading some of the old entries from my older blog; back from 2005.. and i find (with horror) that i used to write better then. at least more fluidly, more expressively, even if it sounded dark or whiney or unnecessarily negative. maybe happiness just doesn’t come with depth in a literary sense, you know? like how there are SO few Happy Poems written in the entire world. Most artists/ poets either were depressed, or like Van Gogh, depraved. Art makes you mad, because it wallows in itself, expecting to find something, and doesn’t. but now that i am content with my family, my relationships and most of my friendships, i don’t have a gripe with the world. Prague is really beautiful, and restful! A real break from the breakneck routine i called ‘life’ back in Singapore. Somehow people here just learn to see work with a lighter eye; it does not consume their lives, it is not the standard from which they measure themselves; having fun and thoroughly enjoying themselves is their deal. I’m not saying either extreme is preferred, its just that its nice to come here and see the flip side of life, so i can discern between heads/tails, or somewhere in the rim between. Sometimes life takes you to the edge, so you can appreciate the equator. 😉

found some old rambles from 3 years ago that i pasted here. photos of prague in the next post!

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April26,2006 >> archive>>

the art of dreams

stretched out and thin,
stretched out and thin;
balloon skin of monotony

stretched taut over a mass of emptiness.

if i could be anything i wanted to be, i would be an artist sitting along bridges in europe, palletting the soft hues of sunset, the bustle of paved streets, the gray scent of rain, the naivete of colourful sweet shops, the scarlet red of Dorothy’s clackity-shoes. i would doodle abstractedly and dream dreams. dream day into night, and night into day.

snippet:
to the man slouching in the corner, warily eyeing people file out of the mrt gatesi saw him staring, him oblivious
to the discomfort produced in me,
by his drapery of distaste,
as they rushed out in haste.

he looked as though
there was something else to expect,
something other amiss.
as though the gates would be a fist,

or a fork, clamping-hard-jaws
banging down. hard. sudden.
on unsuspecting dancers whose long
fancy dress hem got stepped on, torn.

a falling backwards, in distrust of the gate,
a pushing forwards, in ignorance of the mate;
then in tandem with the millieu behind
and before, i rushed through as its perilous bait.

 

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i am strangely afraid that i have lost the will

and the ability

to write.