Strings of words have come into my head
that are almost like psalms about you.
If you knew, you'd probably laugh.
It's funny isn't it?
If the people who made decrees were wise,
you would be canonised -
Saint Toni;
In my dyslexia, i wrote Satin Toni -
maybe you would have preferred that more.

I keep bumping into moments when I wished you were around
There are so many questions still;
So many moments when I am shaky, and lazy,
and I knew that if only I could have 5 minutes
with your voice on the telephone
pressed close to my ears,
or a quick chat next to the photocopy machine,
or the time that it takes for rings from sweaty glass mugs
to stain the table
as you weave your stories into parables;
Everything will make sense again,
the fire will have new light, my small feet
ready for fight, for flight,
It might even be called hope.

There are so many things that you
would have been proud of;
So many changes that maybe,
you wouldn't be surprised at,
since you always knew the might of seeds.
I keep bumping into moments when I wished you were around.

Today there is a meeting that you would have gone for,
where I would go, with two-thirds of the reason
being just to catch up with you, have a huge hug with you.
But I will still be there. And so will you.
In so many ways.
Every single person you have spent time with,
have you in them.
Like magic. Or witchcraft.
Or common sense.
It's been a year, and I still keep bumping into you.
It makes me smile.
And it makes me sad.
It makes me write weird psalms about you in my head.
It makes me breakdance with hope and ache.

Miss you Toni. Miss you a lot.

It's been awhile since I wrote. It's been awhile since I heard the sound of my own voice. I'm sure it has been speaking. I'm sure it has been commenting on the insensibility and ludicrousness of the world. I'm sure it has been writing epic poetry to match the dirty yellow thunderstorms that meet the daily aching sun of late.

But I have been struggling to hear its words. They are inarticulate, like middle of the night speech bubbles. The only shapes they have are of emotive intonations. Sometimes a stream of question marks, sometimes abrupt strings of full stops, sometimes rising into exclamation marks, sometimes merely commas unending...

I've been listening to Cohen a lot recently. It makes me think of old comic books, like The Preacher and Sandman. Struggles with the mythology and morals of an angry, suffering, beautifully arrogant and mysterious God.

I recently said my only religion is feminism. It doesn't make sense actually. I used to believe in God. I used to believe in mercy and kindness and retribution. Sin and light. I used to pray so much I would fall asleep curved, with my forehead touching my knees. I don't think I muttered my sleep then. My nights were quiet conversations worthy of chapters in a holy book. Flaming swords, exorcism, words that shine with the fire of its own soul. I don't have those kinds of dreams anymore.

It's raining right now. The whole world has a grey, rusty watery skin, and the uneven tarred roads are pocked with millions of angry silver craters. Their footsteps are almost drowning out the sentences that are swarming all around me. I saw a spike of lightning on my way here, white and ultraviolet, slicing the indeterminate sky with its sudden clarity. For a moment, I wondered if it touched anything. A singular tree in an open field invades my mind. I live in a world of cinematic cliches.

And so quickly, the storm is losing its fervour. The thunder is beginning to sound like grumbles rather than apocalyptic statements. The wind has changed direction and my laptop is getting wet. Time to go.

"Closet Victim"

Nobody knows, somebody knows,
Sometimes it seems like everyone knows

My closet is made out of love
Twisted from inheritance of a see-saw -
I'm on the heavy end and you are light
If I walk away, you will fly in fear before you fall

My closet was made out of shame
Threaded from ideas of a price tag on my vagina
I'm on the cheap side and you are expensive
Even if I never chose the sale at all

My closet is being made out of words
Strung from ballooned buffoons blathering their might
I'm on the poster and you are eyes
When I start to speak -

Nobody knows, somebody knows,
Sometimes it seems like everyone knows

Then it happens

Great overview on the state of media this year by CIJ:

---

Freedom of Expression: 2007 a year of persecutions
By the Centre for Independent Journalism
16 December 2007

Overall, the state of freedom of expression in 2007 marks a further
deterioration compared to 2006. While 2006 was highlighted by the
suspension of newspapers due to the Muhammad caricature, the closure
of public discussion on race and religion initiated by the Article 11
coalition, and the censorship on books and film, 2007 was the year of
persecution and clampdown on people who use alternative platforms for
expression, such as bloggers and street assemblies, and increasing
media interference to tighten the flow of information.

These three trends are distinct in 2007. Editorial interference by the
government were prevalent throughout the year, while harassment of
bloggers increased both in frequency and severity during the second
half of the year. The last two months of 2007 witnessed a surge of
crackdown on public assemblies, culminating in the invocation of the
Internal Security Act (ISA) against five leaders of the Hindus Rights
Action Force (HINDRAF)

Interference in media reporting by official directives, warnings,
"advice" and harassment continued to be one the biggest trends in
Malaysia. The principal givers of directives were the Ministry of
Internal Security, headed by the Prime Minister himself and the
Ministry of Information, headed by Minister Zainuddin Maidin. However,
the year also saw a number of other state actors exerting control over
media content. They ranged from the police and the Law Minister, Nazri
Aziz who tried to bar media coverage on crime, to the Chairman of the
Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Halim Shafie who
ordered broadcasters against giving airtime for speeches by the
opposition political parties. This was however reversed by the
Minister of Energy, Water and Communication, Lim Keng Yaik.

The "no coverage" orders by the Internal Security Ministry and
Information Ministry to the media were prompted by various issues of
the day, ranging from what was being discussed in the political blogs
to the assemblies by BERSIH (a coalition of political parties and
non-governmental groups on free and fair elections) and HINDRAF. The
bans were sometimes selective. For example, the media was barred from
reporting responses and outcry over the Deputy Prime Minister's
proclamation that Malaysia is an Islamic state despite its secular
constitution. In a letter, it was stated that only the views of the
Prime Minister and his deputy on this issue should prevail in the
print media. This was at the expense of other Barisan Nasional
component parties, which also felt strongly against the DPM's
statement. In the HINDRAF issue, statements by UMNO leaders continued
to receive coverage despite an order by the authorities to play the
issue down. This demonstrates that the level of dominance over the
media is certainly not uniform across the ruling parties. In the
meantime, the Information Ministry has been vocal in attacking bolder
or independent media, despite it having no power to censure the media.
The Minister has twice attacked theSun, an English daily known for
pushing the boundaries. It also attacked international new agency, Al
Jazeera for its live report on police violence during the BERSIH rally.

Editorial interference is also part of the underlying factor for the
general practices of self-censorship among editors. It should be noted
that the list of interference is not exhaustive as there could be many
unreported cases especially the more subtle ones. This could be the
reason for the termination of columnists Amir Muhammad and Zainah
Anwar in the pro-government New Straits Times. The former is an
independent filmmaker while the latter is a women rights activist.
Self-censorship also leads to unethical reporting when certain stories
were slanted heavily towards the government. One example of such bias
is the reporting of public rallies by BERSIH in Batu Burok, Terengganu
and Kuala Lumpur and the one organised by HINDRAF, also in the city.
HINDRAF and BERSIH were subject to severe criticism for using violent
ways, while the reports were silent on the violence by the police and
security forces. Casualties from the civilians' side were severely
underreported. In another case, the media remained silent on RSF Press
Freedom Index, which showed a huge drop in Malaysia's ranking. The
only reports were of the dismissal of the ranking, accusing it of
being a western agenda. Interestingly, state-run Radio 24 (a newly
launched 24-hours news stations) ran an interview with the Centre for
Independent Journalism Executive Director and National Union of
Journalists President, while all private-owned newspapers steered away
from the issue.

The second trend is the intimidation, which shifted from rhetoric in
2006 to actual persecution against bloggers who write about social and
political issues. Two such bloggers were slapped with defamation suits
(Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Atan, aka Rocky Bru) by New Straits Times and
its top officials; one (Nathaniel Tan) was detained for four days
because of a link posted by an anonymous commentator; another (Raja
Petra Kamarudin) and his wife, not a blogger, were grilled by the
police after UMNO, the largest ruling party lodged a report under the
Sedition Act; and another (Tian Chua) was questioned under the
Communications and Multimedia Act for posting a photo-montage. Two
other bloggers received threats, one a member of the government
backbenchers club, (Ruhanie Ahmad) and a California-based Malaysian
(M.Bakri Musa). These bloggers were targeted amidst developments that
were threatening the government. Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan were
sued amidst the feud between Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and
former PM Mahathir Mohammad. Actions against Raja Petra and Nathaniel
came at the time of a rift between the Deputy Minister of Internal
Security and the police force, as allegation of serious corruption in
the police force was gaining momentum. Tian Chua was questioned during
the trial of the murder of Altantuya Sharibuu, a Mongolian. His
photo-montage suggested a link between the Deputy Prime Minister, his
aide Abdul Razak and Altantuya herself, who was purportedly murdered
by Abdul Razak. It is clear from the actions that they were intended
to silence the bloggers from discussing those issues.

Another related case is of a Malaysian student in Taiwan, Wee Meng
Chee, who was under fire for his music video on YouTube, of the
national anthem with rap lyrics, mainly about his feelings concerning
corruption, discrimination and race relations. The government
threatened action under the Sedition Act and the National Anthem Act.
The police however conceded that it was unable to charge Wee for
posting the video abroad. Wee was subsequently compelled to issue an
apology. This incident also brought the issue of ethical reporting to
attention as the story first appeared, in the language of
condemnation, in Harian Metro, a tabloid under the government-link
media conglomerate Media Prima.

The momentum of crackdown on public assemblies gathered since the
rally organized by BERSIH, the coalition for clean and fair election,
at Batu Burok. Live bullets were shot at the crowd resulting in the
injury of two. It is unprecedented in terms of police violence in
controlling the crowd. At the BERSIH and HINDARF rallies, police
instituted elaborate measures to break them by mounting roadblocks,
stopping buses, cars and arresting passengers, firing chemical laced
water and tear gas at the crowd, and arresting participants. In the
BERSIH-organised rally in Kuala Lumpur on 10 November, 34 people were
known to be arrested, while 136 people were arrested during the
HINDRAF rally on 25 November. HINDRAF leader P Uthayakumar, his
brother P. Waythamoorthy and V. Ganabatirau, were arrested under the
Sedition Act two days before the rally. Two more assemblies were held
after that - the lawyers' walk on Human Rights Day and a gathering of
people to support the submission of a memorandum to Members of
Parliament organised by BERSIH. In a new trend, police obtained
restraining orders against participants to the HINDRAF rally and the
Parliament group. These gatherings resulted in six lawyers arrested in
the Human Rights Day celebrations and 26 members of the BERSIH who
tried to go to Parliament to submit a memorandum to protest the
constitutional amendment on the tenure of the Chairman of Election
Commission. Police also started hunting down leaders and re-arresting
participants of the assemblies. Tian Chua from Parti Keadilan Rakyat
(PKR) and Mohamad Sabu from PAS, both part of BERSIH, were arrested on
9 December. Three days earlier, 31 people from the HINDRAF rally were
re-arrested and charged fro attempted murder and attending an illegal
assembly. Uthayakumar himself were arrested, released and re-arrested
on 11 December under the Sedition Act. He and four others were
eventually detained under the Internal Security Act on 13 December.

Another worrying trend that has surfaced is the attacks on journalists
and photographers by state actors or those with suspected links with
state actors. Four such cases were reported in the media. The more
serious is a journalist from the Malaysia Nanban, a Tamil language
daily, who was assaulted by unknown assailants. He has come out of a
coma and has vowed to continue his writings, some of which are
critical of the administration and the leading Indian political party,
the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC). His colleague in the northern
territory has also lodged a police report after receiving a death
threat from an unknown person. He was warned to stop writing about the
problem of the Tamil schools or faced the same consequences as his
colleague in coma.

Underlying these problems are the growing concentration of media
ownership, where in this year alone, four Chinese-language dailies –
Sin Chew Daily, Guang Ming Daily, China Press and Nanyang Siang Pau –
were consolidated under one company owned by a timber tycoon, Tiong
Hiew King, known for his close relations with the ruling party.
Ownership of the private media by big corporate companies, and with
close ties to the government, have further impacted on the diversity
and plurality of information in an already controlled environment.

The real danger of little freedom of expression is the risk of
increasing polarization along ethnicities among Malaysians. The gap is
also poised to widen between those who subscribe mostly to the
mainstream media, which often misinform according to the interest of
the powers-that be, and those who access wider source of information
from the internet and foreign media. On the clampdown of assemblies,
those who read mainstream media are only presented with the picture of
harmony under siege and the provocation of one race against the
others. It seriously calls into question the government's wisdom that
freedom of expression must play second to racial harmony. The opposite
proves to be true. Any widening of misunderstanding among races is
traceable to the limitation on freedom of expression, which prevents
issues to be solved.

In this regard, the Centre for Independent Journalism continued to
call for the abolition of repressive laws, the setting up of a
Parliamentary Select Committee on Media Reforms, and for greater
public scrutiny of and engagement with the media.

Prepared by CIJ Advocacy Officer, Yip Wai Fong.

For more information, please call CIJ at 03-40230772 or email waifong
[at} cijmalaysia [dot] org.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

yesterday i bumped into a really good friend, z, while i was about to take money out from an atm. she told me that another one of her close friends (i'll call her a) - we all went on a grrlie holiday together - just gave birth. strangely enough, a was thinking of z just before her contractions began, and that was one day before z's birthday. the next day, 17 july, on z's 30th birthday, a gave birth to her second child.

---

i first encountered the concept of synchronicity at a talk. c, who was really into combining psychoanalysis and feminism, asked me to join her. being curious about a field of knowledge i don't usually get into, i went along. the dude was american, and started speaking about his idea of jungian synchronicity. according to him, synchronicities can be recognised through a set of personal symbols that is accessible only to the self. looking at dreams in particular, he went on to talk about how synchronicities pepper throughout our dreamscapes. they appear when there is a need to counter subconscious emotions that are repressed in waking life. for example, feeling really resentful at a partner but not having the desire or energy or some other logical reason deal with it when awake. there is a need to balance out the psyche, and this is where dreams come in. the point is, to be able to recognise repressed emotions, one needs to delve into dreams in search of synchronicities. which can be detected through symbolic reverberations. doop dee doo. i remembered thinking it was all a little suspiciously 'self-healing' and 'oprah' to be taken too seriously.

but it was interesting. and i never really forgot about it. because coincidences are funny things. they make a person think about fate, destiny, the existence of gods and ultimate super computers called 'deep thought'.

---

it's fucking hot today. and i had to drive all over the place. with not enough sleep. the last time i didn't have enough sleep and had to drive around KL, i knocked into an old malay woman's right ankle. her sons were lawyers and either have been ignoring her for awhile, or dotes on her incessantly. i had to send her to gleneagles hospital to see if anything was broken. she initially appeared fine, and then got more and more vocal in her expressions of pain as she was on the phone to her sons in the car ride. when they got there, i was threatened with court suits and treated with the sudden display of filial love.

so today i made a note in my head to drive carefully. as i was waiting in a jammed que near the traffic lights, i saw a car bump into the car in front of it. a cloud of dust was freed from the scene of the accident and floated towards the toll booth. even though the damage wasn't great, they caused another jam behind them as hazard lights were bleeped on a minute later. before i had time to muse about this, my que started moving. not a minute later, there was a similar accident on my left lane. a mini 4WD bumped into the car in front of it, and its bumper is on the ground, freshly fallen. a minute later, hazard lights on, and another jam appears.

---

so that got me thinking about this whole concept again. i read up a little on wikipedia and another website from a phd student who examined synchronicity in relation to post-structuralism. in a nutshell, synchronicity is about meaningful coincidences that are not causally related. because it is laden with meaning - i suppose from a personal perspective - it is explainable if one accepts that mind, matter, past, present, future, spirit etc is somehow connected in a meta kind of way. kinda reminds me of kaku and his writing about higher dimensions. if there are only 4 dimensions - depth, width, height & time - then a lot of stuff in physics doesn't make sense. theories of quantum mechanics & general relativity contradict each other, and chasing einstein's dream of fusing the two, it becomes clearer if there is a higher dimension, or hyperspace, or parallel universes where things that don't make sense happen and make sense when they do happen (i don't claim to understand any of it, but it's interesting toilet reading!).

so again, looking for the meta equation, the one ring to rule them all. in other words, if you pull back far enough, you see more, and understand more. in kaku's analogy, if you're a carp in a pond, being caught doesn't make sense unless you perceive there is a world outside of the pond.

---

my roommate in uni, h, lost her twin brother in a car accident. her mother lives in a different continent to the both of them. at the night of the accident, h's mother dreamt that she was pregnant. her stomach started to hurt so much that she woke up. sensing something wrong, she rang them both. it's a very sad memory.

---

what is the point of believing in this concept enough to want to prove it? so that we can better understand the now, or so that we can predict the future, or to know how the now is entangled so meaningfully and purposefully to the future? but this is what we do anyway, every single day. making meaning. drawing patterns in human and social behaviour. creating tactics and making decisions every split second to carry on. if synchronicities are not causally related, then to seek the connection is to unravel the cause or the purpose no? or is it simply reassuring enough to know that things are somehow connected, no matter how obtusely for the moment? 

---

i am currently reading the may 13 book, as another theory is expounded on why this event happened. every explanation of history carries within its flesh a cartography of space, time, sequential events and people - a kind of pattern, prediction, with embedded messages of forewarning, prevention, recognition, articulation, something. as texts quiver with each story, the self morphs into another idea. another archetype to feed into another mass of contradicting collective consciousness-es.
m
a lot of what i do is spent on trying to change a certain course of reality. and this means paying careful attention to what's going on right now. what has happened before. what could possibly be a crack into the future. and concurrent futures swimming like small snakes, hissing for dominance. i don't know what thinking about wormholes, parallel universes, jungian synchronicity, post-structuralism and other new language can do.

maybe it's just good toilet musing.

i knew it was serious when i saw it scroll along my tv screen every 30 seconds
i knew it was serious when the american idol aspirers sent their thoughts before the votes
i knew it was serious when there were rumours about the 'asian' man
i knew it was serious when some friends put up a news link on their IM status bars
i knew it was serious when ad hoc poems were sent about the fragility of life
i knew it was serious when rough footage was looped over and over and over again over live witnesses interviews on CNN
i knew it was serious when AOL displayed his creative fantasies as proof of his monstrosity - post-mortem ingenuity
i knew it was serious when they told me it was so.

an "exact stereotype of what one would typically think of as a "school shooter" – a loner, obsessed with violence, and serious personal problems."

kek cawan ku yang begitu manja
marilah bersantai bersama-sama
ke hujung, ke akhir, riwayat kita
kek cawan, ku janji, ku bukan gila.

+++++

someone has opened a can of worms. it is crawling all over cyberspace. every corner i turn, i sight that wriggling creature making itself known. many learned people are trying to name it, but it's stubbornly slippery. all that's left behind is a slightly sticky trail of wetness. no one is claiming it yet, so it continues to squirm and tunnel through concrete layers of self-assurances built from years of back patting. the can opener has withdrawn to silence. smirking uncertainly for a job well done, or maybe done too well. i'm going to keep my eye on this worm.

orchestra

i saw monochromatic women and men
slowly take their seat
and place their instruments in varying
gestures of affection
on their laps;

with wind and strokes and pauses
the murmuring begins.

i closed my eyes and let
the keening colours swim inside me in
slipping streams of yearning;
a cup of silence lets the girl in gold
stride in
then her violin
sings.

the man in his coat gesticulates
as wildly as the flecks of sweat that
flies across the space between us
like a graceful ballerina
committing suicide.
or so i imagined.

how did the music know
when to bow
and when to show
a centre of attention?

what instinct do the leaves possess
to huddle when it's time to flower?

or is it merely a kind of wisdom
to adhere, sometimes,
to a manic stick that's wielded?

++++++++

rahmat harun stole the show on friday night when on top of his usual, magical grasp of the malay language in rhythm and taste, he lit up a self-confessed "balut" on stage. he recited 2 poems, read an open letter to benjamin zephaniah and even sang a leonard cohen song -- despite having being forbidden by the one who forbids forbidding. either way, he was in top form.

the first piece was about the multiple denial of identities that might be (have been?) labelled on himself. aku bukan... xyz. the only thing he confesses to being is a "bangsat", which he gleefully invites everyone present to name him as so. i've always thought bangsat was a bastard or asshole or something similar. but checking my little MPH dwibahasa dickie, apparently, it means "vagrant". i don't know if this is meant to be a cleaned up version for the populasi.

anyway.

his letter was on the spot. mocking the colonial traces of bejamin zephaniah's presence (a UK performance poet brought to KL by the british council), and stitching a relational version of malaysian reality through the various laws and surveillance practices when it comes to smoking ganja. afterwhich, he casually lights up what looks like a reefer (i sat right in front and sniffed like crazy, but couldn't smell the weed though) and read a poem about smoking up.

nice.

after the show, he literally left his mark by scrawling all over the walls in central market some rantings about forbidden to forbid and more love notes to benji.

i guess if you're looking for "artists", then don't expect them to take boundaries too seriously :)

then benjamin came on. and he surprised me by performing stuff that was almost all political in some way (and good on him, making lots of references to ganja along the way;)). i didn't think too much of his poems, but his performance was awesome. the beats and rhythm of his stuff was actually quite similar to rahmat's, which was odd, and got me thinking in various strange rasta directions. anyway, he was witty, his humour cheeky, his intentions earnest. one of the poems i liked most from that was was:

White Comedy
(from 'Propa Propaganda')

"I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.

People called me white jack
Some hailed me as a white wog,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don't worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.

really got my mind flipping like when i was watched babel. thinking about where i am positioned in that discourse. strangely, nowhere. which got me thinking about racism in general. and the kind of annoyance i sometimes feel when racism as a violation only seem to apply when it comes to black/white. actually, the epicentre still lies on the white.

++++++++

supernova

such brilliance, it pierces the heart
of my eye;
i feel myself pulled to your
Excellence.

how could i question
the bringer of light,
the breather of life,
the blessed anchor of relevance?

i find myself hoping
to be drawn to your edges
so my hues can shimmer
as your shadow.

at least if i am marked as
black
as middle eastern
as muslim
as oriental
as japanese
as russian
as a threat of terrorism
or nuclear weapon
or simply a victim of mass exploitation
that you could save,
then i can have a name
that will echo.
even if mispronounced.

i found malay taxi drivers in cape town,
chinese lesbians marching in london,
burmese organic celery sellers in bangsar;
they appear like a magic trick

and i am left breathless;
under-prepared by Hollywood, Bollywood and Al-Jazeera.

supernova.
when will you implode?
and will you take me with you?

++++++++

then it was poetry slam at sek san's impossibly beautiful space on jalan tempinis. singapore vs malaysia. gosh, however will it turn out? heh. there were a few awesome things: the space, the fact that lots of people came to watch/hear poetry, lots of people doing poetry, hearing some new decent stuff , and best of all, poetry hooliganism.

it basically works like this. after some individual and collective performances by a few people, the slam starts. and there's a pool of poets reading their stuff, and a panel of judges giving their score at the end of each recitation. poets get eliminated until there's 3 left standing for a final round to decide which comes first.

i think i might have expected something like chow sing chi's lawyer show, where there's lots of witty rhymes in response to each other spluttering spontaneously in the air. but it was prepared stuff, not really speaking to each other. so i've heard some of the local ones before.

there is a difference between poetry to be performed, and poetry to be chewed on at each reading. or maybe it's just a different texture of appreciation. i wouldn't know. i guess it might be a little like shakespeare's stuff, where it works differently when performed and read (or even filmed). anyway, it seems like doggerels and limmericks are good for performance, humour works like a charm, and sex, as usual, sells. but then sex also, as usual, has varying degrees of resonance.

thick stuff can't really be performed i think. it's going to be hard to perform emily dickinson's stuff no? but on the other hand, symzborska might work. maybe it depends on the performer, the space, the audience.

there was also a lot of suspicious singing or humming of tunes going on in this performance poetry thing, or at least at the slam. it worked for the travelogue thing done by the trio, but was ingratiatingly irritating by the solo-ists. i guess music and words crafted for tempo and rhyme is quite close to each other. i could see both benjamin's and rahmat's stuff work as spinal chords of songs.  but humming? hmm

part of the rules is that audiences get to snap their fingers if they get bored, and stamp their feet if it gets really boring. so we did. a herd of hooligans at the back, clicking our fingers, booing the judges, calling for mutiny... it was fun!  it was really good sport of the poets to not be ruffled by the crowd, and take it in stride. it must be awful, having your creations disrupted by an audibly unappreciative audience. it would kill any sense of self-confidence (for me at least). so i have deep respect for the bravado, the humour and the confidence it takes to go on stage and be assessed by a bunch of idiots.

heh.

i loved the fact that poetry hooliganism could happen. with so much vanilla and nursery school caution in the air, a jibe can do so much.

it's generally white. a kind of blindness that sits awkwardly. like groping towards death. the muscles around my eyes tauten to pull as much skin away from eyeballs as possible, meeting in folds on top of my forehead. i am only imagining this. i don't actually know. but memory sometimes serves as a mirror. fingers splayed, touching in hiccups at first, then with a kind of jabbing desperation to feel something, anything other than numbing white. i swallow dirty gulps of suffocation. there is nothing here.