Recipoems

Procrastination, we meet again.
(GUACAMOLE/CONCLUSION RECIPE)
 
Walk with the dog to the market.
Head home and do some yoga.
Eventually take out two ripe avocados,
Scoop out the flesh,
Marvel at the perfectly popped seeds.
Roughly chop a tomato.
Extract less than half a lemon’s worth of juice.
Slice and dice a bit of red onion.
Remember to always remove the annoying
slippery outer skin from now on.
Chop two small cloves of garlic, finely.
Chop cilantro leaves and
one red hot chili pepper, sans most of the seeds.
Sprinkle a bit of cumin and a
a few grindings of salt and pepper.
Mix et voilà! Guacamole.
And a recipe for writing your conclusion.
 
February 9, 2020
Singapore

Nonya chicken curry from scratch as a labor of love

First you need to figure out where to get
exotic sounding ingredients like
candlenuts, kaffir lime leaves and galangal.
You must then realize you live in Singapore
and they are all easily obtained from the supermarket—
even in the middle of a global pandemic and
city-wide lockdown because
the body politic still needs its curry!
Rub the chicken down with a few grindings of salt
and the super authentic curry spice mix
that you ordered online from a local artisan
and excitedly checked the mailbox for
every day until it arrived
much later than normal because #coronavirus.
Then you finally get started on what’ll make this special:
the curry paste.
Seriously pound with a mortar and pestle:
a red hot chili pepper sans their seeds;
five shallots—and finally understand what shallots are
and how they’re different from red onions;
a couple of inches of ginger;
half a dozen candlenuts;
a few cloves of garlic;
a few curry leaves;
maybe some belachan or bagoong; and,
a couple of tablespoons of spice.
Figure out how to liberate lemongrass
from its unneeded sheath,
and set a few stalks aside.
Peel and chop some potatoes.
Wash and separate some lime leaves from their stems.
Stir fry the paste with oil so the paste absorbs the oil
and until the oil sort of sweats out of the paste
(but you won’t be really sure when that is).
Add the chicken, lemongrass, lime leaves, and potatoes,
coating them well in the paste.
Add a can of coconut milk,
and a bit more of the spice stirred in for good measure.
Let the whole thing simmer for thirty minutes,
and at the end add a tablespoon of lime juice
and a bit of salt.
Serve with some greens, love and baguettes.
Look at the empty chair next to you,
sigh away the heaviness from your heart,
and hope that next time
he’ll be there to labor with you.

April 16, 2020
Singapore


(Haiku)

Pine nuts, olive oil,
garlic, basil, salt, pepper,
parmesan—pesto!

April 18, 2020
Singapore

Those of us that were broken

Those of us that were broken,

those of us that are a little less than whole,

will one day smile amid the fissures.

There is still music to be sung,

the melody in and of itself,

the words weightless.

We will blink in the sunlight,

and wonder at how the world

had become that much brighter

while we hadn’t noticed.

Oceans will open and 

bear us under the stars,

indifferent to the past.

two poems about not love

i.

When love is absent, where is it else?

When love is absent, where is it else?

Does it like a soul reincarnate?

Is it like energy transferred?

Will it as a phrase find new object?

When is its eternal return?

If it was, once, is it now not or never?

From once being, now nihilate?

Does pain like a cuckoo make its nest, feather it with hatred and bits of all things lost. 

All things considered only one is certain.


ii.

the midnight scab i keep picking at

the midnight scab i keep picking at

finding the right words to convey in full force

outrage humiliation frustration fear

sadness sadness sadness sadness

anger sadness anger sadness

they chase each other from the fore and to the recesses of my tired mind

if i write this a million times will they go away?

but never love

not ever

the cartography of love and not love is

the cartography of love and not love is--
temporal not spatial.
plotted by contrasts not absolutes.

attend:

the bliss of fecundity, the anticipation of immortality.
the pain of disease, the gravity of dissolution.
a single space that lies along a fold of time.

peace and conflict, home and battleground.

love and not love.

a function of when. but when?

golden butterfly wings

golden butterfly wings
alight delicately on cheeks
unsmudged by tears.





fingers nimble--
minds at rest,
hearts quiet.





the loom snaps out and back,
the little mouse races across,
wheels whirr, bob comically, whirr once more.





a dark beast
casts its shadow
on the rainbown fabric.





a sad tale
is written in each thread
of each tapestry.





a hope shines in each candle,
each window opens to the sun.





Yangon, May 2012.

But silently. Silently.

This triptych is the first original story I've written in YEARS. I owe a lot to the writing clinic with my friend Ashara for pushing me to write again.

One.

I drove Miguel to the airport this morning.After an awkward silence, I decided to bite the bullet. 

'So, are you going to be ok?' I asked.

He half-shrugged and turned his face to the window. He still didn't want to talk about it. I tried not to sigh. Damn it, Ana.

As usual around this time of day, the cars inched forward like a race of unruly snails. The aircon was acting up a little, eking out only a thin and feeble relief from the afternoon sun that beat down on the car's roof. The heat from the asphalt radiated through the floor, bringing up a soporific of gasoline and exhaust.

Apace with the traffic, Miguel's head bobbed up and down before settling at a rude angle. It will be painful when he wakes up, I thought with some concern as I studied his sleeping face. All month long I observed Ana and him surreptitiously. 

Miguel, like my daughter Ana, was an only child. We lived next door to Miguel and it was just natural for them to fulfill their sibling fantasies with each other. As they got older, his parents and I started watching more carefully from the sidelines. Miguel's mother and I made the occasional phonecall to compare notes.

When the children turned fifteen, we were invited to Miguel's house for dinner one night. That's when his family told us about their plan to migrate to the US. They promised Miguel he could come home to Manila for a visit in maybe in two, three years.

That was six years ago. Miguel had spent almost a month with us. I knew from the first week or so that trouble was brewing. Ana grew more and more distant, toward the end she was almost hostile. Miguel became my responsibility soon enough. Nobody told me anything. Nobody needed to.

I finally pulled into NAIA. He shook himself awake and gathered his things. As we hugged goodbye, he gripped me as tightly as he contained the grief and anger within him. I looked into the wall of tears that glistened in his eyes. I stroked his hair like a mother would. Then I kissed him, as a woman.

He stumbled backward, confused. A thousand thoughts sifted through his face.

'Puta!' he decided, stumbling as he half-ran from me. He kept screaming and he pushed himself through the crowd. 'Puta! Puta! Puta!'

I walked away from the searching, shocked faces as quickly as I could to the safety of the car.

Two.

He poured her a cup of coffee. 'Thank you so much for being here' he told her.

'Of course, Jim.' She smiled at him. 'I know what Ella's going through. But she is strong. Stronger than most.'

'All of you at the women's clinic have just been so supportive. We've have been relying on you too much, maybe. It's just that… here in Manila, we're a little cut off from her family in Masbate and mine in Chicago.'

'Round-the-clock care is what she'll need for the first month or so. Just that and the people who love her.'

'I really appreciate you staying over last night. I don't know what I would have done without you.'

She patted his hand. 'You just focus on Ella and that beautiful boy of yours.'

He blinked back sudden tears.'While you were reading to her yesterday,' he said, 'I took Basti to the playground.' 

He stood up and walked to the counter that separated the kitchen from the family room. He watched the boy roll trucks, ambulances and police cars through a makeshift highway of assorted books. The TV lights flickered in staccato. 

'I ran into a neighbor.' Jim continued to watch Basti, who played without smiling.

'We were talking about Ella's condition for a long time while Basti played on the swing and on the slide. Then, we suddenly noticed he was crying. He said that his tummy hurt, but I think he was upset by what we were saying. Children are so sensitive…' He trailed off and seemed unable to speak any further. She finished her coffee and left soon after.

Later, when she got home and showered, she thought about Jim. How she had hoped that he would sneak into her bedroom last night. Kiss her awake with his scratchy face. Fuck her without undressing. He would slip in and they would just fit. She would be warm from slumber and so, so wet. He would be thick and not too long, and he would be strong, muscular, compact.

Maybe she wouldn't have let him fuck her all the way, she thought, as she lathered soap over her arms and legs. No, she would. But silently. Silently. At the end, he would touch her cheek, hoist up his pants and she would know by the subtle creaking of the floor and the bfft of the door that he would be gone.

Three.

When you sipped wine out of my glass, possessively, it startled me. You took a drag from my cigarette and gave it back. Damp, like before. 

The whole gang decided to play the silly games we used to play after work. We would strike up random conversations with unsuspecting people at the bar. We would lie blithely to their faces about being a doctor or an NBI agent or a call girl, whatever; then we would return to the group and report. 

'My turn,' I said, walking up to a red-faced guy. I kept my back turned to you while he slobbered and blabbered. He told me that he was from Australia and worked at a bank in Singapore. He was in the Philippines for a little surf, sun and sex. I just kept smiling and nodding, a little unsure of how to play anymore. Then the guy started to grab me, and I backed away. I fled to you and you took me in your arms. Possessively.

'We're having another baby,' you told us earlier. When we were still sober. And I made the right noises of surprise and happiness along with the chorus.

Well, actually, I have more than a few questions. And I want you to be honest. You were miserable with her before--how could that possibly change, four kids and 16 years down the line?

You told me  that you were never happier, never, than when we were together. When we turned to each other, away from her and away from Carlos. Away from our misery. 

We swam in the crystal blue waters of Boracay, in the bright summer sun. And we swam into each other under the cover of a million stars, and the moon. Was I so wrong to think that we could have gone on like that, day and night, month after month, for another 16, 20, 30 years?

The last time we saw each other, Boracay was a distant memory. You said it had to stop. And I said that I would excise you from my life. I sent you a letter with 100 pesos worth of stamps on it, so that there would be no doubt you would read what I wrote a hundred times: I don't ever want to see you again.

Years went by and so we let bygones be. And here we are again, in the midst of our good friends. The aging youth troops from the heyday of the Ramos administration, before Erap got elected to shit all over our social reform agenda. When Ana was just five. When Carlos and I had just begun to hate each other.

We all drink, eat, laugh. We recount our stories. We get up-to-date. As if nothing ever happened. 

Yet a separate track runs through my mind, playing on repeat:

Just say the word, and I'll be yours again. Possess me, possess me.

The Cat

He grimaces, reaches over and grabs the cigarette from between my lips. I just shrug.

'I should be fuming,' I tell him. 'Literally.'

'Why would you want to do such a thing at such a young age?'

'Precisely because I am fifteen,' I tell him evilly. 'I am beautiful and invincible; nothing can mar my perfection.'

'Be that as it may,' he drawls, 'but you stink of stale tobacco.'

I roll my eyes. Always the same routine. I arrive at his house. The maid brings us some coffee or tea. The books and sheets are on the table as props. After some banter, he will eventually ask her to leave us in silence for the hour of our lesson.

'My boyfriend doesn't mind you know...' I doodle with practiced casualness on the corner of my notebook.

'Your boyfriend is an imbecile.'

'To be fair, he is a moron.'

'I am sure that must be a relief to you.'

Today is math and I am bored, so I decide to play cat-and-mouse. And today I would be the cat.

I stand up and walk around the table, sit on his lap and wind my arms around his neck.

'Not much. That's why I enjoy my time with you.' 

He sits unmoved and methodically extricates me from his body, first one arm then the next before easing me off his lap to the chair beside him.

'Indeed,' he says, 'trying to get out of your geometry tutorial, I see?'

I would have pouted if it could have made a difference. 'I'd rather continue our last lesson on literature or film. Geometry is boring because there is no challenge. The way we're tested in school is just to see how we we memorize the formulas and how they are applied. Proof isn't about discovery--it's rote imitation of what the text book says.'

'Quite the contrary, my dear. The elegance of the proof is in the fewer steps it takes to reach your conclusion.' He smiled. 'Like chess.'

'Unless you were a slave, it must have been fascinating to have been in ancient Egypt around the time they discovered all these spatial relations and patterns et cetera. But in any case, I think I'll be able to pass without having to waste another hour of my life on it. 

'Especially when it's my one hour of the week with you.'

He relents and walks to the shelves. 'Fine,' he sighs, 'pick one that you wish to discuss.'

I slink over and pull out a copy of Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. It is about an inch thick, cloth-bound and features little more than the title and author on the cover. Almost imperceptibly, he raises an eyebrow but says nothing as he takes it from me. He gestures toward the sofa by the bay windows, a loveseat, and we sit. I snuggle against him and tuck my legs underneath as he flips through the book.

I stare at the pendant lamp hanging from the center of the ceiling and slowly curl a lock of hair around a finger as I speak: 'Let's start with the assumption that my interest doesn't merely stem from the profanity, vulgarity and sexuality of the text. While I do think that the literary value of Miller's early work is exaggerated, the only interest I see in it is what it means, but doesn't say, about the nature of art. 

'He talks about him being a writer in Paris, metaphorically and literally prostituting his talent for his next meal. The part with the Indian that defecates in the bidet summarizes the necessary ugliness of his writing: the book is at the same time about his being a writer but without explanation of the art of writing. Instead, he focuses on the painful and human hunger for food, sex, shelter.'

I feel him laugh, I hear that there is no mirth in it. 'Straight out of an online study guide' he comments to himself or to me.

I'm glad that he can't see hot tears immediately spring out of my humiliation and acute hatred for him. I struggle to breathe evenly while waiting for him to continue.

'The book is worth something simply because of the sex in it' he says. I turn halfway to see if he is joking. He's looking at me with some mix of arrogance and pity. I want to rip his face off and turn away, forcing myself to maintain our physical contact. 

I am the cat, I say silently to my body: stay still.

24 October, 2009. Singapore. Dusted off, proofread and published.

The flowers of my parents' garden

They were tenders,

having wandered far

collecting souvenirs of innocence

from Paris to Kathmandu,

they built a castle from the ground up.

They had four princesses,

pink and delicate,

petals close against their cheeks,

long necks stretched,

toward sky and sun.

Laughter bounced through

stairwells and corridors,

pillows were sown with tears and dreams

that glistened in the dark.

Each object had a story--

each child's walk through life

photographed on the walls.

The jewel of the crown was the garden:

lush, verdant and

prettily dotted with baubles

yellow, purple, red framed by green.

The garden was nurtured,

buds and saplings gently,

more sternly as they grew,

by the two caretakers.

Until there was only one.

A cloud passed

like a hand across the face of the earth.

The garden turned a shade of gray.

For a moment.

For ever.

Pillows still recall

the fresh scent of tears.

Each object has its history.

Images of childhood adorn the walls,

porcelain dolls smile and dance,

frozen in time.

Four thrones stand empty.

The Dowager Queen takes wing and flits,

like her subject butterflies,

to the daughters who have

scattered in the wind.

She returns each time

to the highest tower of the castle

and to her lonely vigil.

The flowers in my parents' garden

still bloom and wither with the seasons,

stretching their slender,

infinitely graceful necks

toward sun and sky.

Manila, 20 October 2009

Copyright Sol Iglesias

All rights reserved.

Images photographed on an iPhone & doctored in iPhoto.

Made on a Mac.

Last Night in Three Acts

Act 1. Exposition
....................

In an open vehicle,
dusty roads
winding down a mountain
toward Athens.

It is daylight--
long road, bumpy ride
bright sun.

Sudden night.
Manila.
The house is full of people.
Party.

I try to figure out how much to pay driver,
write it on a piece of paper.
I don't have enough cash,
go to my room on the ground floor.

Mom has done something,
the walls are now of different texture.

Where are my notes?
I find a scrap of paper again at the bottom of the trash.
It's sludgy from party offal,
just drawings.
Where are the numbers?

Look at my watch.
With all the searching
an hour has passed, maybe two.

Poor man, still waiting.
I never even got him a glass of water.
Party noise starts to fade.

Act II. Revelation
....................

I go up to the indoor garden,
give him some water
and realize that I forgot the cash.

He starts speaking in a booming, strenuous voice
I don't understand what he says.
I don't understand his language.

First I'm scared, he's clearly insane.
I just want to give him his money--
finally, he seems to appreciate the gesture.

I go back to my room.
I find the money
but I realize I should put the money in an envelope.

I find an envelope but lose the money again
and I'm searching
through my bed, my table and things.
Someone is behind me in my room.

It's the driver.
He starts speaking in tongues again.

Here is your money, I tell him.
I'm sorry you waited so long.

Sudden silence
and the camera pans to his face.

He is Javier Bardem
and speaks in english.

That was a month ago in Athens, he tells me gently.
And I stagger.

In my heart,
I know that this is truth
and everything clicks into place in my head.

I've lost a month of my life.
He is someone I love or who loves me,
someone I care about
but I don't know why--
can't remember.

The wall in my room has changed again.
He shows me these beautiful carvings that he's made
for me.
A gift.

We lie in bed together,
him only in his underwear.
He talks to me qiuetly in an attempt
to restore the life that I lost.

Act 3. This is Where it Gets David Lynched
....................

Two women, my mother and the housekeeper,
are watching us on some closed circuit camera.
My mother is incensed.
Has he touched her, she bellows.
Has he?
The housekeeper silently shows her the footage in affirmation.
My mother says: he has to be killed.

Johnny Hallyday
swaggers in,
joins the unholy chorus on how
Javier Bardem must die.

I fly out of the room, enraged.
How dare you?
If you lay a finger on him
(I find a weapon, a fireplace poker)
I will kill YOU,
I will KILL you.

I'm weeping, I'm dead serious.
I want to scream louder,
make myself more believable,
more dangerous.

I am aghast, mocked by Johnny Hallyday.
I ask my mother who he was.
She admits that he has shacked up with her,
he's someone that she settled for
after my dad had died.

The loser taunts me
by showing off how he's comfortably esconced
and he has his own den in our house:
black and white floor,
outsized, primary colored furniture,
and a Phoca Groenlandica lounge sofa.
A what?!? I ask.
A baby seal, he says smugly.

That makes me angry again.
I brandish the poker and tell him:
I can't believe you have a baby seal
as a sofa.
You're a horror
and I will end you.
This time it's not an empty threat.

But then I see the thing.
This giant, soft-eyed baby seal.
I lie in its fur
and all my hatred dissipates.

Scene cuts to
darkness all around.
Velvet red curtains.
Spotlight on empty green stage.

THE END


Sometimes I have these vivid dreams.

Bearably Lonely

Drink from the bitter cup
of my imperfect love.

I have held you fast to my chest
and will let go even faster.

I am more honest in hate;
with enemies there is no pretense.
Them I could kill,
you I will hurt.

People search all their life for love;
my quest is indifference.
I will cast my heart in iron
and seek a cold harbor.


I'm in a foul mood.

The Citadel Chapter 3. Hunted

Twenty steps. Thirty steps. Fifty. Third lamppost. Seventeenth Why-Wait?-Let's-Procreate poster. Two blocks until the next food rationing outpost.

Pili Gazan kept walking, counting out the distractions.

Eight broken walkways. Two black cats. Five bus stops.

She had spotted a pack, almost full, under a park bench.

A pack! She'd been lucky some times before with a half-smoked butt, surreptitiously hidden in one of a few uncartographed places in The Citadel for secret smokers who cared to share.

She was always ready with a small box of matches in a pocket or handbag for times like this. But a pack was worth its weight in gold.

Three streets to cross. Two. One. Finally at the park. Public and open, it was safer to find a secluded bench or corner for the smell to dissipate and where no one would notice. Safer than home or any building.

With the slim cigarette between her lips, she fumbled with the matches, hands shaking. The flame burst yellow in the dark, burned the cig orange at the end before dying out.

She dragged slowly as she tried to unclench herself and savor the flavor. It was a little bitter, probably old. She inhaled, letting the smoke escape a little from her mouth before drawing it back in; the nicotine spiked her mind. The intangible caress of exhalation was a slow goodbye. She tried not to be greedy. To let it last. It might be another week before she could score.

Pili was suddenly on the ground, sprawled and uncomprehending. The quiet space was suddenly a whirl of guns being cocked in her direction.

She was pinned down by the full weight of a cop, she realized, and her left arm behind her back shot a searing pain up to her shoulder.

A shiny boot appeared in front of her, stubbing out her cigarette and grinding her fingers into the ground. Pili whimpered and craned her neck to see a woman in uniform. Dark glasses obscured the officer's visage. Weak chin, dark red lipstick.

"Filthy habit", the officer said. "You're under arrest."

The boot then flew at Pili's head and everything went black.



The fog was heavy, thick and gray inside the room. Sweet and tenacious. The silverware and wineglasses clinked discordantly as people argued, laughed, murmured and ate with gusto. These people were falling in love with each other, marveling at having found common cause and kindred in these dark days. But among them were also the cautious whispererers, unaccustomed and unwilling to raise their voices. Outcasts, rebels, hunted. But in this moment found, saved and protected--even if briefly--to savor a moment of freedom.

The conversation slowed and halted as the bald, tall man at the head of the table stood and waited, lighting a cigarette and drawing in the first drag deeply.

"A woman was arrested and executed today in Grid A20-34 for violating Proclamation 1081."

A babble of anger, terror, confusion and shock immediately rose from the table. Two people fainted, a quarter of the audience fled the house. A man was flattened by an over-excited obese woman who tripped.

At the head of the table, the bald man surveyed the mayhem with his sunken, unfathomable eyes and calmly turned to a petite woman with ruler-straight black hair cut diagonally across her face and framed at her jaw, whose lips were set tightly in consternation.

"Imagine what would have happened had I announced that the FP bombed the nicotine shipment from India before it reached the harbor" he said drily, as he took another drag.

The man was Xaris Noz, the last scion of The Citadel's capitalist past. The woman of the angular lines was Mina Chiresh, his right hand woman from time immemorial (the ageless quality of her unchanging demeanor and fashion sparked speculation that she was the 6th or 7th model in a line of Mina Chireshes over the decades) and rumored paramour.

Xaris was also known in more esoteric circles as Frankenstein's monster. Ravaged by cancer and other diseases, 30% of his body had been replaced by extremely expensive stem cell repair and cloned organs. Xaris had been a notorious chain-smoker for 40 years. Xaris was, by reputation, a zealot and megalomaniac with a penchant for wearing flamboyant neck-ties.

"Perhaps you might have waited until after dessert before dropping that bombshell", Mina observed in an even tone, ducking briefly as a rack of lamb, medium-rare, flew above her head.

Xaris laughed, bemused at the mayhem. "Look at them. Terrified. I'm sure Yesu will blow his brains out before dealing with the prospect of living without his nicotine fix. Bolan is probably on the Net now, denouncing our nightly soirées and everyone he can identify that's ever been to one."

"And you, sir? Will you go into hiding?"

"No, my dear Mina. I have a plan."



The ashen-faced prisoner faced his captor, trembling. Various thoughts raced through his confused mind. Rumors of secretly-installed smoke detector alarms in every housing unit throughout The Citadel were true. How else would they have known?

Before he knew what was happening, an electric jolt coursed through his body.

"Do I have your attention now, Mr. Corgan?"

Yesu Corgan was still reeling from the shock, literally, before another jolt was administered.

"You are a self-confessed smoker, Mr. Corgan. There couldn't be a baser crime. With a wife and children at home?" Jolt. "And a dog, too?" Jolt.

"Yes, yes", he stammered. "I was wrong. I'll tell you anything you want." His chest heaved. "Please! Don't hurt me!"

His captor smiled, teeth glinting like a shark's fangs.

"Tell me then", she said dangerously, in silken tones of artifice, "Who's your dealer?"

Corgan's eyes grew wide then blank as a spot of crimson suddenly appeared on his forehead. He slumped forward.

The interrogator whirled around in time only to see the red laser line disappear. She raised the alarm, barked terse instructions to her subordinates, cursed well beyond anyone else's vocabulary.

But she didn't find the assassin. Mina was far too good to be caught.



The rain came heavy, hard and fast.

When it rained in the city, the streets were emptied of people. Acid-proof coats didn't come cheap and were suffocating, the smell of sulfur stultifying.

Reev loved the rain. He prayed for it every day. He rejoiced in the monsoon months, despaired in the summer.

For the storms that engulfed the city, while feared by most everyone else, were his shelter. Not even the Freedom Patrol would present themselves in great numbers.

Under a roof in a narrow alley, Reev carefully unwrapped a cigarette that he'd been saving for weeks. He lit up and closed his eyes.

"Smoker!" A shout roused Reev from his reverie. Without waiting to see what it was, Reev began to run in the direction opposite.

"Stop!" A gunshot rang out and Reev felt the heat of the bullet streak past his face.

Reev ran, ran hard. He saw other police officers running toward him from different directions.

With an anguished scream, he slipped on the street and plunged forward. Tears streamed down his face, snot dribbled down his nose. His life was over. He thought of the women that he never got to fuck. He sobbed and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

Gunfire. Shouts. Screams.

Silence.

The rain beat in staccato on the ground. He knew nothing but the pounding in his ears and the ceaseless downpour. Acrid steam filled his nose and mouth.

When he finally had the courage to open his eyes, what he saw made his brain stall.

Four dead police men. Blood bloomed redly throughout their pristine white uniforms.

A bald man and a tiny woman stepped out of the shadows.

"A war has begun," the man said. "A new nation born. Spread the word."

Reev gaped wordlessly as the two disappeared into the deluge.




Singapore, July 2008

synecdoche

there was this girl
this really fucked up girl

she put her mind into a box
stuck a handle on the thing
cranked it and, hey presto,
it started chugging.

she put her hands to labor
to create a certain form;
re-ball, re-mold, re-ball, re-mold
a swan, maybe an ashtray.

her feet walked the miles
between then and now
across never, again and always
among other extremes.

she let her heart float like a bubble
upwards until high
where it silently burst
into a thousand words.

she stands at the close,
watching thoughts as they fall
unshaped.


gabby's art material comes in handy at 5:17am