I only want the smell of rain

Days like these
when things don't matter
when you don't matter
when
I only want the smell of rain

of cities & streets
& eyes dreary with sleep
indelible & sublime
swallowed dappled light &
leapt in air, soared

& curled up in love & silk scarves
This is where I belong
in liquid sound
I am going heady with grey
douse me in flowers & sweet tea


______________________________________________________

'So, we have now spent three & a half days in Paris. It's been such a long time since I've sat down & written in this journal, which is strange because I have gone to a great many places & many things have happened since the last entry but somehow nothing has warranted the action of picking up a pen to write. But Paris is something else altogether. 

Even as I write about it, I feel a smile forming & a strange tingling sensation under my skin - I can't help it. For many years I wondered if I loved Paris truly or simply the idea of it, the conglomeration of blurry images & romantic associations pieced together from books & films but when I finally arrived here two years earlier, I knew that I wasn't wrong at all about my intuitions. I remember being bleary-eyed & restless from the flight, but as we rode into the city late in the night, everything felt new because the landscape unfurled willingly at my feet, glowing & resplendent. The city in the day is magical, but at night & in light rain is when I love Paris the best. 

There have been moments before in my life where scenes & moments have stolen my breath & formed images in my mind that stay for a very long time, but Paris two years ago & Paris now are rare instances where the singular scene lengthens into long & beautiful films & last for days. It is a city that resonates deep, within & into my soul. All those beautiful scenes - walking along the love-lock bridge, browsing the tiny bric-a-brac shops by the river Seine, the curly French consonants, smooth like meringue & light as air rising like coffee swirls around us, & yes, all the ugly parts of it too - the dingy backstreets & dusty flea markets, the crummy cafes at St Michel. It is in those places where I can imagine Henry Miller carousing the streets with his ragtag bunch of newspaper men, the Lost Generation writers' bent heads in Sylvia Beach's antiquarian bookstore in the Latin Quarter, & Ezra Pound & Picasso discussing art in Gertrude Stein's house. Paris is all at once a culinary feast, a lovers' destination, an embodiment of art & culture, a sanctuary, a bastion of the finest literature ever written & I love it, I love it all. 

Tomorrow, we leave for Stockholm. After days of French pastries & glasses of wine & bookshops, the Swedish capital feels somewhat drab. But I'll be back soon, it's only a matter of time.'

14/11/2013

[sic]

So here we are,
curled up like a French sound
dreaming in twos or threes on
resplendent green
& realising that nothing is without meaning
Well, we are learning still
Looking at poems as people
people as poems
& that everything in between is song
I slipped into life,
suddenly

4 o'clock in sun's arms
& caught up in autumn's hair
so we twist an idea from air
where life & light intersect
Let the sun wash away all
our shame

Beginnings

'It's happening. I'm in the air. The past few days have been completely chaotic with packing hassles & panic attacks & things going awry at the last-minute but now we are 25 000 feet from the ground & I can finally collect my thoughts. Saying goodbye was difficult, but it's only now that I'm fully realising that it's time to let go of a lot of things, be it the comfort of family or friends or familiarity. I know I need this period of rest & finally there's peace in my heart to leave, & while there's so many thoughts & things spilling out onto this page, I'm mostly astounded & grateful that I get to be here at all. Thank you Jesus.'

(6th August)

'Finally unpacked the remaining dregs of my luggage. It's amazing how a person's life can be reduced to a few possessions if need be, a suitcase of things. Back home, everything I needed & wanted was at hand, but here, I still have to get used to the idea of owning nothing but a few books & two coffee cups. But this is now home & it's up to me to make it a sanctuary.'

(9th August)

'I don't know why I've always loved small towns. Many people love the cities, the bustling metropolises of concrete & glass where people are always immaculately dressed & ephemerally beautiful, where the heat & the rush & the buzz sweep you away faster than you can ever imagine. Some people like the quaintness of the countryside & the bucolic peace that nature brings. There are times for the two ends of this spectrum but somehow, I mostly find myself caught in between. A week ago, we explored downtown & stumbled upon Linköping's Antikvariat, the only secondhand bookshop in Linköping. Most of the books were in Swedish of course, but it was so lovely to just chat with the owner of the shop; an old lady who talked about culture & literature & how she had stayed in Linköping her whole life & loved it. It seems that the people here are friendlier, more relaxed, more at ease. I like just having lunch & reading on the lawn green, & having fika by myself & writing postcards to home at a charming street cafe. I love browsing through vinyls at the local record store & buying fresh strawberries at the farmer's market in the late afternoon. Already I can feel myself settling into that kind of lifestyle, so unlike the hectic one I was so accustomed to in Singapore & it's a good thing, a great thing. It's been way too long since I've had time to catch a breath, & wow, if it doesn't feel amazing... It's impossible to 'feel' so much, but I'm feeling joyful & apprehensive & excited all at once. Five months. I could get used to this.'

(15th August)

Poetry bites

Housewarming 
(As it might have been written by Sylvia Plath)

It is noon & I am already wilting

the landscape cringes &

unhinges

while the second-hand in my wrist ticks on

but only faintly.

I need quiet,

I need space
but all there is, is waiting
& more of falling apart
at the seams

Somewhere else, the real belltower rings.

If this goes on, I might

crack

like an egg

& slide across

the bottom

of a porcelain bowl.

____________________________________________________




Currently finishing up two poetry collections that I purchased earlier this year, the first being Wendy Cope's Two Cures for Love & the second being a Sylvia Plath anthology. I have always been crazy over Wendy Cope's work, which is always filled with witty social commentary & counter-balanced with bare-faced honesty about the lesser-known (or less-talked about), embarrassing experiences in life. Her poems, above all, are a celebration of simplicity & uninterrupted streams of emotion, which I like very much. My two favourite pieces from this particular collection were written in two famous poets' 'voice' & style. Here are the excerpts:





A Nursery Rhyme 
(As it might have been written by William Wordsworth)

The skylark & the jay sang loud & long
The sun was calm & bright, the air was sweet,
When all at once I heard above the throng
Of jocund birds a single plantitive bleat.'


&



A Nursery Rhyme 
(As it might have been written by T.S. Eliot)

Because time will not run backwards
Because time
Because time will not run
(Hickory Dickory)




When I say that the poem is written 'in Sylvia Plath's voice', I don't mean to completely copy & paste her style over into my poems because that would just be plain disrespectful. It's just that sometimes, when you have been reading the work of a particular poet over a long period of time like I have, their style automatically becomes familiar to you & sticks, & certain emotions you feel somehow translate themselves into lines that reflect the poet's language & voice greatly. & this isn't disrespectful, or plagiarism in the least, but quite a beautiful thing: a young novice writer paying homage to one of the literary greats by almost becoming one with him/her. I love that idea, that nothing is original, but everything can be authentic.

Well I definitely need to start writing again... & updating this space on everything that's been happening. More to come! 

Blue

Hello, San Francisco
City, not of dreams,
but little things
how blue one feels
without you

Hello, San Francisco
so spartan & in sync
a city that beats
I'm glad I caught you
with my teeth
& sank deep, sank deep

Don't you know
my sea-salt love
I would go
to north Sausalito
& beyond
to taste you on my tongue


Hello, San Francisco
A paperback dream
& the flush of spring
I will learn to love
all the unsavoury parts of you


Oh San Francisco
perhaps this is long overdue
but I hope you know
that I will learn to love
all the unsavoury parts of you

_________________________________________________________________

It's been about a year & I haven't written many songs or poems about my trip to San Francisco CA last summer, which is strange because I remember so much of it; the dreamy carousel fraught with fathers & their pink-frocked daughters, the tang of salt on my upper lip, sharp smells of clam chowder & seafood & freshly-baked sourdough on the pier at eight-thirty in the morning. I should though, before these tactile & sensory images turn to dust. It's how one preserves special memories, by turning it into song...

Roma

'We are in a painted room, rising from a new world. Here, there are no mirrors, only eyes. Only a trunkful of vinyl & the clicking of hearts in the insides of ears. In the course of the night the world has already changed remarkably & yet you & I have remained almost exactly the same which is sad but also very beautiful. You open your mouth & taste the edges of the day that is yet to come, so warm & so bare. This is the space we have come to inhabit or the space love inhabits or the space the idea of love inhabits. All around us, words settle like flecks of dark chocolate. I say, it's this part I enjoy most, the morning arguments about nothing at all. Is it only the conversation you like? Well no, but I like it best. Like the fizz that spills over a tall glass of root beer. You laugh. So stick out your tongue. Morning peeks through, & then floods. One cannot help but feel walled in, familiar as the shadows that lie on the floor may be, or however lovely the comfort offered by hollowed bed cocoons may be, because after all a room is a room is a room & a room must have walls. You are usually a person filled with light, very much of zeal but today you have gone to seed. Lie down and talk to me, you plead but already your eyes are like dark caves & once again you are alone in sleep. So I leave. Outside, the city throbs and I try very hard to be in the same vein, weaving through oceans of people & its smells; buildings sweating with toil & the crisp metallic tang of pavement stones. I ache for something else altogether. Nature, maybe. Anywhere away from here. In this crowd, I can't help thinking: If I cried out now, would anyone stop? Would anyone hear me? Perhaps I should have stayed with you. You, who are so young, not quite ripe, not a boy but certainly not a man yet. Now we will be children together, that is what you said when we met, when I was still not yet sewn into the fabric of this landscape. The tender flesh of the inside of a tomato, a song made out of milk & honey, racing profiles & patterns across a darkened room, intoxicated by liquor & the promises of a night forgotten before it can be created. Skin & a lock of hair... could you carry me off to an unfamiliar room? I wonder if I would ever again have the opportunity to fall in love with a stranger. Universes & fragments... Suddenly I want you here with me very, very badly. Mi amado, de alguna manera nuestras formas encajan...

Even when I walk the streets alone, I wear your love like a soft scarf.

The darkening sky will soon sweep the light away. Tonight we will go out & take in, inhale this territory still so foreign to me. Perhaps you will take me dancing after, or for a music show in a clandestine loft only we & a few know of, where the air is stale but the sound is fresh. When the bass kicks in, perhaps the crowd might surge with the exhilaration that lasts only for a span of a song. Perhaps, when we fall back onto the sheets together & ride the soft velvet waves back into dream, the city will feel more like home.'

Writing the City

'Prose is all well & good, but it seems to me that poetry is full of music...'

Julia Bell

Last week, our creative writing fiction class attended a short seminar entitled 'Writing the City' by Julia Bell & Jean McNeil from the British Council & that was a nice change from the lessons that we've been having. Creative writing classes have always been a beacon for me in the past two years of college, with the exposure to interesting literature & the rediscovering of an innate hunger to write, but somehow this semester's fiction course was a little... drab. Perhaps it was the way classes were conducted; three hours of sitting in a circle & workshopping other people's work, which sometimes tended to go in circles without answering any quintessential questions (What does it mean when one says that a novel has a voice? When does one draw the line between fiction & autobiography?). Talking about writing, to me, is always necessary but often dull. Perhaps it also had to do with the kind of fiction my coursemates & I were producing, a lot of it being self-absorbed & overly-personal biography, only with disguised characters & changed names. Most of all though, it was largely because fiction doesn't come naturally to me at all, like how poetry or songs (sometimes) do, & these thirteen weeks were spent feeling largely like a fish out of water. Last week's class however, felt a bit like a breakthrough.

It was more of a reading of their work & discussion than a direct teaching seminar. The pieces they read, both excerpts of work-in-progress-novels & poems, were impressive & on occasion, brilliant. Jean, a travel writer whose work encompasses both Antarctica & Africa, talked about how good writers never let their life experiences & people & current landscapes directly translate into their writing, but how they used these tools to provide a template, a vibrant background for the invented story they had to tell, & I could definitely see how that was the case in her stories. There's a certain richness & creativity & also a curious authenticity, when a writer infuses the surrounding culture & his/her own life into a story without allowing it to be a true reflection of their own lives.

Julia also addressed the issue of fiction vs. autobiography, where she talked about how writing fiction isn't equivalent to ranting on the author's part. Throwing up your emotions on a page is the least of any kinds of writing, which often happens to writers in their early stages. Adolescent angst & bitter romances & painful experiences are treasure troves because of the strong emotion it invokes in the writer & his/her readers, but truly magnificent writing pays attention to how all of it translates onto a page & transforms personal experiences into something powerful & sublime. That is why writing is above all an artform, where things like rhyme & form & style are utilized to craft stories to the best possible form.


It was a good hour. What a terribly awful rant that must have been to some of you, but it was an eye-opener for me... I enjoyed it tremendously! Anyway, I haven't been blogging nearly enough & I promise I will soon when the obligatory final exams are over & summer holidays kick in. Till then... au revoir!



P.S. You can read about Jean's work here, & read some of Julia's poetry & short stories here.

Summer camp

'Whitewashed minds. Delicate old men with nondescript faces. And all these people. So tired, you had to lie flat on your stomach & bury your face in grass but it was alright because you were young & beautiful. I was there too. I opened my eyes & saw only green & for a few minutes or hours or days, my world only existed in one magnificent colour, how I wished it was turquoise instead but then you said we are miles from the sea & the only blue I ever wanted was in eyes. Take me seriously, because the lights are fading & time is wasting away & it all comes down to this: I will love you if you let me. If you love me, let me know.'

(October 2012)

More Haiku

(I)
The cold begins to wane
& flowers wake from slumber
so new & alive

(II)
On a clear morning
A blade of grass battling heat
goes drowsy with sleep

(III)
Tea with the first drafts
& the town becomes vibrant
turning red with leaves

(IV)
Frost creeps in slowly
I am yearning for the day
when light meets darkness

Everything looks different in rain

Like life, I am unhinged, as large
In an apartment high above
with streaked windows like doors
This dream becomes solid as
the ground I stand on
Lick my fingers clean of an unconscious song


Shadows lengthen & shorten
till stars are punched out in the sky
hands against hands
and so we go
on ships that sail only across bedspreads
Maps.


Joyful,
so we are joyful together,
lovers will be the same forever.

Paris, 1899

A continuation from here. 

Take time & imagine

A landscape, like hands, warm

& a plane melting into clouds

silently & beautifully as we watch

from down below,

Rose.

Imagine

A scene, like a film, unfolding

enfolding, embracing

tasting like mulled wine, in my mouth

on an autumn day

Cold tongues licking cold ice-creams

A divot, in the glass, in the kaleidoscope, in eyes

Colours aflame

Don't look,

see.

People in graceful waves

These houses must be made of paper, I'm sure

Buildings transform into

shades,

& well

There are a hundred ways to look at the city

but I like my view the best of all.

By the river

the birds cry out,

& the river begins to sing.

________________________________________________

A lot of the time, for me, poetry comes out of a single moment of intense emotion & flows out as if it were seamless dialogue between people. The greatest instance of this happening was in Paris last year, on a three-week-long backpacking trip with two dear friends. I remember we were sitting on the left side of the River Seine, taking photographs & savouring salted caramel & vanilla ice-creams that we had bought with the last of our money. Paris, in all its romanticism & sepia tones & language with its elegant twists & turns, is an inspiration in itself. I remember that it was very cold & the wind was very harsh (even though it was summer) & we were all laughing at the irony of eating ice-cream in such freezing weather, & the very posh & reserved Parisians were looking crossly at us but we didn't care & laughed anyway, & it was all very beautiful & at that moment I started making leaps into my notebook & scribbled masses of words, lines, stanzas. It was just a pity, to not capture that single moment in time on paper, if you know what I mean. I sent it home on a postcard to my family the very next day.

There's a lot that goes into the process of writing poetry, the conscious or unconscious aspect of it all, that's become very interesting to me. Over the course of this semester, I've realised that writers basically fall into two groups: those who sit down & dedicate a portion of their day to writing & mulling over ideas, carefully constructing poems over a duration & creating masterpieces & inspired projects. While I respect these people very much, it's an attitude that I can never hope to emulate because as said before, most of the time, inspiration for me comes from an image or an atmosphere, & transforms itself into a poem or a song. To be honest, it sometimes feels like I'm cheating, like I have snatched the line from thin air & made it my own...

Haiku for Autumn

A lonely bird sings

the gaunt tree sheds red and gold

on a bare pavement

____________________________________________________

2012 is almost over. So here's a thought: If the earth is apparently coming to an end in less than two months, why are we wasting time writing terrible essays about things we don't care about, instead of travelling the world & going for all-you-can-eat-buffets? 

Alright, I know that's ridiculous. I'm just really keen on getting through the next three weeks. Godspeed, everyone. 

(I) If Comfort Were a Room

I like the look of my room.

It is what I imagine Comfort to look like,

If Comfort were a room.

Especially when it is raining outside.

When the sky is dark & weeping & heavy.

It’s a secret guilty pleasure I have,

enjoying the rain.

But there’s a certain melancholic sadness in watching rain fall

like watching a grown man cry…

Not that I would ever take pleasure from that.

(Who would anyway?)

I take pleasure in ordinary & simple things,

like Loneliness.

Loneliness is a wonderful thing,

if you let it be.

Most people haven’t really realized this,

Which is okay because we are all learning.

You’ll get there somehow,

But only if you want to.

(hashtag) Twitter

(25/10/2012. Spotted: John & Yoko on the MRT)

25th Sep

'Love, like art,comes from the moment.' 'Minor correction, love comes from a confluence of chemicals and hormones in the pineal gland' #bones

The backs of all stamps should taste like bacon

Dinner is a diet coke & a two-day old frozen chicken steak how sad is that

OK, I lied about the coke being diet. 


26th Sep

WHO ATE ALL MY PRETZELS

27th Sep

tried to wipe a speck off my screen for ten seconds before realizing it was a full-stop in the middle of the page #ibetrippin'

Why are Harry & Ron always complaining about studying for exams you're in a magic school doing magic homework for crying out loud

Just walked home in the pouring rain... Yeah I really carpe-d that diem. Take that, dead poet's society!


28th Sep

Just had my first slice of mooncake I FEEL SO CONNECTED TO MY CHAINESE CULTURE #notreallyno


29th Sep

When's the new Jonas Brothers record coming out?

Yeah anyway I'm apparently my mom's mooncake delivery assistant how did I get here what did I do in life


30th Sep


Ants in the bathroom. Who's been eating Reese pieces in the shower again?!

Oops yeah that was me.


1st October

For once in my life I want somebody to threaten me so I can say 'I don't respond well to threats.' in a cold, steely voice

My dad has the same waist size as me okthxbye

Oh right it's October. Time to get excited about Halloween.... TV specials.


2nd October

DON'T TALK IN THIRD PERSON UNLESS YOU'RE DOBBY THE ELF OK? ok

Likely death scenario: choking on a chocolate biscuit.





Yeah so, follow me @stacecake on twitter #irrelevanthashtag

Fade out

Imagine

A scene, like hands, warm.

& a plane melting into clouds

silently & beautifully as we watch

from below

cold tongues licking cold ice-creams

a divot, in the glass, in the kaleidoscope, in eyes

colours aflame

Buildings transform into

shades

& well,

there are a hundred ways to look at the city

but I like my view the best of all

Paris

July 2011

On art & poetry

Ever since coming back from the States, I've been writing a lot more. Jotted anecdotes, notebook doodles, song lyrics, short prose, etc. I miss the holidays because of the abundance of time where one can write. Because of the poetry module I'm taking this semester, I've been thinking a lot about the creative process & the mixing of poetry with different kinds of mediums... It's interesting, really. 

Before my mom became a housewife, she was a graphic designer specializing in font design & layout. Sometime in the 1980s, her company was commissioned by the American furniture company, Herman Miller, to create something; a designed product to be sent out as corporate gifts. This was what they came up with. She gave me this unframed piece two years ago, & it's been hanging on my bedroom wall since then. 

I can't pronounce half the words on the handkerchief, but I love how art & words were fused together to make the final product, which is more than the sum total of its parts. The way I see it, it's no different from writing Haiku, or a sonnet, or sticking to any kind of poetic convention (like following a certain rhyme scheme, or creating a kind of form). The only thing that's different is that with graphic art, you're working with space, & colour, & the shape of words, while maintaining the flow of the poetry or prose. I've tried it before, & well, it isn't in the least bit easy... That's not to say I'm giving up. I'm trying, trying harder. It's a process. A work in progress.

Where people are casually lovely

Bare light
Circles around your shoulder blades
And as the coffee grows cold,
I escape

To a place where people are casually lovely

where travellers & lovers thrive

To a place where people live vibrantly,

die tragically,
but yet are still alive

There,
my heart brings me to places
my mind never brought me
There,
time will leave me alone

Then there is always the coming back.



To walls slick with years of touch and dust
Splintered rosewood & rubbed lavender
Shards of daylight dancing across the floor,
extravagant in its moves.
Somehow
it feels like, at home,
I am more away than ever


But then I see you,
the pillow ridges that lines your face,
And miles of skin & hair & dips & plateaus
& violet breath,
rising like steam

And I think, well,
He looks like someone I could learn to love
Someone that I could love
Someone that I would love

Perhaps here isn't so bad after all.
Here, we will flourish in broken places & still love
Ground our words to ashes & dust,
inhale...
There are always other days

Maybe I'll take you there someday

Typography

A GARDEN OF PEOPLE. 

Who do I choose?

How.

Of MEN

(or boys)

with scraggly beards 

& REVOLUTIONARY minds

Of WOMEN

with Ochre breath 

& (unimportant) things

Let's not forget the rest of us,

still here,

still dancing,

Waltzing, with a heavy step.

BREATHE

BREATHE

INK INK.

Somehow I can only think of roses.