paint splatters Wednesday, February 11, 2004 09:47 p.m.
to the world
though i have never loved you

When I fly up to heaven
though it might never happen
I might look back
And remember perhaps
Each line and why it
nestled snugly
between vein and arm

How each time produced
a different coloured brown
Mostly ochre but yet different
in magnitude and depth

Sometimes
it would be long
lateral
or simply parallel

to the black watch band

But always
there had to be blood
never in torrents because
i was too afraid
and yet also
knowing just where to
stop

So
it would trickle
pearl and shine
and the lips open
to reveal beneath
sallow pale



I always said that
i had scratched myself
carelessly

paint splatters Wednesday, February 4, 2004 10:38 p.m.

During CT session in the Auditorium today
Mere lines, sparse and spare, scribbled self-consciously

Sylvia Plath's Ariel. And the blue spectacle case on the black lacquered top, spare and simple.
A pair of glasses resting, neatly folded, upon the book, and hair, grey-flecked among waves of russet and gold.
A fringe of lashes, long and beautiful. Framing the blue green eye in the curve of the face.
A kink in the slope of your Anglo-Saxon nose.
Nodding gently to the rhyme and cadence, your eyelids droop and start, and the chin travels in a never-ending arc.
Looking up, turning around, you meet our eyes. Eyes bright with the knowledge of that one transgression.
With sheepish laughter and a bemused smile.

Just some observations during that one hour and twenty minutes, on the hard plastic chair and hawk eyed teachers roving around at every corner. It was the spectacles that did it. The gold frames on Ariel and earth red plastic lying atop Mr Burge's book. And the side profiles, admittedly aged and marked by time(oh how cliched), of our two English tutors.

paint splatters Friday, January 23, 2004 09:58 p.m.

Singapore Theatre Reviews on Lim Tzay Chuen

Happened to chance upon it this afternoon. Is theatre an experience to be shared by many? What defines an actor? Is it merely the audience? Or the experience, in Stanislavsky terms, to portray the "believable truth". Is an actor's main responsibility to be believed (rather than recognized or understood) then?

The "entertainer" can constantly maintain a very strong sense of the Self but the "actor" needs to integrate the Self into the Other which is the character.

The question is never about whether the audience is ready for classics, but rather, if they can be blown away by the power of theatre, be it an experimental, conventional or classical piece.The practitioner has to answer that, not the audience.

Should all actors aspire to be 'autonomous performers', and not merely actors(the director's marionette)?

paint splatters Wednesday, January 14, 2004 10:16 p.m.
For a brief moment I thought we had it right. Then I realised, after a while, that we had reached a plateau. Stuck, and getting nowhere. You did not understand me. And I, simply impossible. Like the cat curling on the red brick wall in the morning sun. Desire of freedom from this incarceration. Of time and space to sort out pieces. And I was always selfish. Too tired to handle such complicated issues and entangling of knots. Will we part, go our separate ways.

paint splatters Wednesday, January 14, 2004 09:17 p.m.
Forty-eight years ago to this day you were born. A squalling child, a jewel inlaid with strange markings, the first male to be held suckling to those well-kneaded breasts. Wrapped in a sarong, you were cradled into these arms. Cooed and laughed to, cuddled and kissed in adoration, the little raja.

Now there is only memory left.

How one day your eyes were bright with wisdom while faint etchings of age carved gently into skin, then suddenly dull with the shadow of death. How the skull was split open and offending matter removed, only to emerge gowned and pale, a living corpse spread upon the trolley with tubes snaking pathways around your bed, dripping blood from head to tube. When you woke up you were no longer my son. Then followed days of garbled vowels and sounds, each attempt at a word a knife through the heart. Your eyes, huge and beautiful, now took on the brightness of a little child, mumbling and stumbling. A child newly reborn.

You lived, not three months, but a year and a month. Midnight. The day awoke to see your glazed pallor, we gathered around the bed, watching and counting the rise and fall of your adam's apple, noticing each breath to be more laboured, more far apart, than the next. Then a pale hush and a stifled cry. You were taken. With bowed heads we whispered prayers, but I never really bid you goodbye.

======
Happy Birthday Papa.

paint splatters Saturday, January 10, 2004 11:53 a.m.


Chinatown.
The first glimpse I had of you last evening was yellow and red hung across the sky, sitting on my mother's lap. Even through closed windows I heard the auctioneers calling out in loud and raucous tones, heavy Chinese stilted with shades of dialect. Calling out for buyers of strange jade items and enormous trinkets one had no use for, carved ivory and antique lampshades laid in neat rows along red carpeted shelves. We were across the road, before dinner, sitting crook-kneed among sweat and oil, dirt and wet.

Then we crossed the road, illegally, ignoring the safety signs and glaring headlamps.

Plunged. Plunged into the thick crowd of bemused people, of young, old and middle-aged. Husband and wife clasping hands threading their way through the river of people in gu chia juee, or niu che shui as the young children knew it by, words immortalised by printed text in schoolbooks. They trailed listlessly behind parents, or clung, limpid-like, with little arms around daddy's neck, perched on mummy's hip. Some sucked on thumbs, staring wide-eyed in wonder at the sea of heads. Coloured balloons tightly in one fist, heads turned in every direction, cherubic lips slightly parted in incomprehension. Old ladies in faded flowery blouses treaded water with jade bracelets and gold rings embedded in their aged worn fingers, feet in soft slippers, arms wielding plastic bags. They tap impatiently on our backs, telling us to move faster. gia, gia.

A crush of people, a plethora of goods. Red, red and yellow, gold gilt and orange. And the green and lime, juxtaposed with the wrinkled maroon and poppy red tassels. Round gourds of fruit and green voluptuous pomelos, row after row, block after block. Under the canopy of makeshift stalls, the fluorescent white tube turns green and the faces of the hawkers are illuminated by the colour of their fruit and the glistening of sweat upon their cheek. Samples are held out in plastic containers, willing people to taste their goods, to agree on the sweet ambrosia of peeled fruit and juice squirting as succulent chunks burst upon the tongue. There is smoke and noise and chatter, as the air is filled with incomprehensible rumble of the crowd. People converse in a mixture of English, Mandarin and Hokkien-Teochew, with the occasional interjection in Cantonese, as they weave their way slowly hand upon shoulder, linked arm by arm, like a family of elephants, trunk to tail.

Haphazardly we past stall upon stall, and green snaking bamboo shoots in bright plastic buckets give way to slender pussy-willows not yet in bloom to little tangerine bushes heavy with fruit. The orange globes of lu-gan squat on red papered tables scattered with green leaves, while nearby rests plastic containers of pineapple tarts, peanut cakes and kueh-balu. Little flowers of pastry and yellow cake alongside signs ripped from cardboard flaps proclaiming slashed signs and promises of cheap. But we know, instinctively, that a white fur would grow upon them in time, and drift by slowly, shaking our heads with regretful smiles.

Green melts into brown red and maroon, and produce of the land changes to work of the hands. Not of bread and wine, but rather stringed up slabs of smoked and dried flesh. Strings of dried Chinese sausages in bunches of five form a garish wallpaper of maroon and brown, and somehow it brings to mind Zheng He (the Eunuch Admiral) telling the tale of the Empress' room in the palace with cut, fried and dried penises hanging from strings off the ceiling. Whole pig legs from thigh to trotter hang, yellow in the glare of light, on metal stakes holding up the red and white striped canvas forming the roof. Chinese characters are written in ash across the thigh but we struggle to read it, and marvel at the lard beneath the pimpled skin. Whole ducks gutted and split from breast to bum are spread and laid flat against the wall on metal spikes, identifiable only by the beak that hangs dejectedly on a graceful arc. Row upon row of sick yellow, like a columbarium where each slab of meat occupies their individual niche. The smell of salt and smoked meat is crisp and curls in our nostrils, deadened by the heat and moisture of human and sweat heavy in the air.

And still there is the noise. Buzz and chatter, rumble and growl of the crowd pressing on the ears. Candied fruits and preserved flour-covered persimmons are spread on tables, next to the eight treasures plate of dates and preserves. We identify carrot and lotus, but are clueless as to the other cubes of sticky sweets. Cans of drinks to quench the thirst, while people walk around with straws to their mouths and teardrop-shaped Thai coconuts cupped in their hands. The flesh is clean smooth and white, the water wooden in taste, but cooling to parched throats. Blue porcelain bowls of sweet paste tinkle on china plates as tired families collapse onto orange chairs. White almonds paste, bitter, or black sesame, smooth and hot? Creamy hot paste sticky and wet. People pause and chat, comparing prices and examining their plastic bags. Children flit by with malt candy on bamboo chopsticks, and uncle is pleased he remembers their name – "mai ya tang. We used to eat that when I was a boy." We watch, all eyes on the golden lump, as he twirls the candy till gold is streaked with white silken lines. The suck and pull, the battle of tongue against squishy lump.

Gazing upwards, the moon is round and perfect in the strip of sky.
Chinatown.

paint splatters Thursday, January 8, 2004 11:15 p.m.

PE Lesson

we ran till our shadows met, crossed, and drifted apart.

Azure skies and gold and pink flecked mornings. With spider webs glistening, wet and dewy, sprawling across green-tipped bush to wire fence. And spiders. Translucent and pale, yellow in the light. Feet together, then apart, a never-ending rhythm of lefts and rights and bent knees and flying hair, brown in the sun.

We labour up the slope in breathless-ness, feeling the sharp pain in the side and hard ground crawling slowly beneath our feet. Our breath comes in short spurts, mists up spectacles slipping wetly down the nose, loud and punctuated with a staccato rhythm, hah-hah-hah, an inhalation, then exhalation and inhalation yet again. When you inhale, you inspire, when you exhale, you expire. So the old joke went. We always laughed about it, but at the same time wondered at its near-truth.

paint splatters Friday, December 26, 2003 04:05 p.m.

Ignorance is bliss
In appreciation of the above statement. Argh... die SATs! I don't want to retake the damn thing! But if i don't, according to my sister there goes SAT II and also scholarships and overseas universities. Oh whatever. I'll be stuck here, stupid, despised by Mr Barnard (oh reputation, reputation, reputation) and wave goodbye to everybody flying off to diverse places. Farewell.

paint splatters Tuesday, December 16, 2003 10:43 p.m.

The first day of near-isolation is enough to drive one mad.
Penitential service this evening, but she could not confess her sins (and imminent sins) to the priest, simply because she was still part of the unborn, not yet risen from the dead without burial of water. baptizo.

The sixteenth of December. Death knocks at the door. Tonight is/was the night she was/would bid farewell to the world. To unscrew the white-capped amber plastic bottle and steadily, pill after pill. To gulp, swallow, gulp, swallow. Gulp, swallow. Gulp. Swallow.

Not for anything but to dull and numb and remove the pain. Not because things were bad, but rather because there was no point. In waiting. In breathing. Every breath of air, every beat of the heart, a step closer to decay, age and death.

paint splatters Thursday, December 11, 2003 10:57 p.m.

Look up and see how beautiful the sky is.
Washed by the rain, it is a deep deep blue, and the moon bright and radiant...
while the stars like sequins dot the heavens.

Cloud in Crimson. Do you see what I see? I see beauty in God’s canvas, not whitewashed on canvas cloth, but blue, deep delphinium blue, or dark cobalt mixed with white. The clouds are always there, glorious, beautiful. Jet streamed, cirrus wisps or cumulous tufts, they hang from the sky like great battleships. Flat, shear planes, dark and brooding grey at the bottom. In between the dazzly white cumulous mountains, light blue sky breaks through and faraway there is a glimmer of white, cotton-wooled and streaky. We see shapes and creatures, beautiful things in the clouds. An old man with cheeks blown up puffing a cloud of smoke from his lips. Mysterious huge winged birds that dissolve into meaninglessness. Bright crescents that travel in the wind, moving, moving, quietly, softly, gently. Yesterday night I looked up and saw halos around the wide-eyed moon. Fish scaled halos in a perfect circumference distanced from the moon, paying homage and whispering like the seraphim and cherubim in the smoke blue sky with little twinkles and bright lights. Dizzy but beautiful.

paint splatters Sunday, December 7, 2003 11:55p.m.

Flowers.

We paid a visit to the columbarium today, in the afternoon when the sky was melting into steely grey. Lunch time was almost over, and we drove, passing few people treading their way through the dead. "Christian Cemetary Path 4" dissolved into "Jewish Cemetary" and again into "Muslim Cemetary Path 3". There were countless tombstones dotting the grassy slope, squat and chinese, red bricked and red tarred, like headboards rising from the ground. Sometimes we would see white signboards driven into the soil: "reserved plots", we were told. A series of winding roads later, and we were there. Car doors slammed, and then the sounds of shoes tap-tapping their way across the tiled floor. Azalea, 02-04.

Even in death, the dead have a place of residence.

At eye level, the stone is marble and white streaked with faint touches of grey. The engraving is done in yellow-silvery-gold, and the words of Psalm 23 skate lightly across while the etching of the cross is simple, but heavy and deeply cut. Tenderly, hands stroke the stone, rub the smooth surface of the picture with the bemused smile on its face. Dust is caressed away, and memories cautiously re-visited. The plastic flowers have gathered dust, and are taken out while new ones, pale and cream coloured, are slotted into the metal holder. There is silence in that part of the block, faint voices travel from somewhere upstairs. Walking around, we read names and speculate, wonder about siblings and the young children. How a brother died at one year and the sister at one year and three months, how a child died at seven, and another just one year younger than me, is dead. His photograph smiles emptily out of the gold rimmed oval, his flowers bright and cheerful against the austere white concrete edge.
We tiptoe around, reading and remembering. We see the notes of love speaking of hope and life, stuck onto the panels or hanging from the flower holders. I turn a corner. A few months ago it had been his birthday, and Dad, Mum and Sis had bought speckled orchids fresh from the nursery. They had bloomed and withered when I saw them, but the birthday message and keychain hanging from its corner served as reminder of life and the living. Today the orchids have been taken away, and a small square of coloured paper is stuck to the stone, a note speaking of love and grief rolled into one. A twenty-year-old boy brimming with promise.

We left then.

Back at the church I wandered along the dim corridors, and chanced upon the niches. I had only seen the weather-eaten stone statues of angels guarding the stones in the church graveyard, and the little corner with the niches surprised me. Fresh flowers and incensed candles half burnt had been left at the foot of a block, and here and there I saw the rosaries hanging from stick-on hooks pressed onto stone. I saw two fifteen-year-olds, and many elderly faces. Then I saw it, a scrunched up face, wet from the womb, half hidden by the blankets. The photograph was reddish amber now, soaked and faded into the stone, but I read the etching clearly: 13.11.96 - 14.11.96

A visit to the columbarium to put in new flowers.
The fragility and chill of life.


grossly written. I will try to polish it somehow.

paint splatters Wednesday, December 3, 2003 11:54 p.m.

What do we say any more
to conjure the salt of our earth?
So much comes and is gone
that should be crystal and kept

-- Seamus Heaney, The Singer's House

So much comes and is gone/ that should be crystal and kept.
Do you remember the old rhyme about making friends? About how 'keep the old', for the 'new' are silver while those are gold...

The year melts once again into December, and the eternal cycle from January to January yet again continues noiselessly and stealthily. A year has passed since we said our goodbyes innocently. When I look back I still see you in the faded blue pinafore with the little hole near the hem (remember how Ms Ting asked if you needed a uniform-donor?) and your freckles and curling red-brown-black hair. And remember debates and the CLC and Mrs See, from twirling on the rolling chairs to imagining the horrors of a parang-wielding Adelina.

We parted then, and went our separate ways. Unknowingly. Regretfully. Sadly.

I shall continue this, when in a fitter state of mind.

paint splatters Wednesday, December 3, 2003 11:48 p.m.

"One of the first tasks of any ruler is to defend his state against foreign invasion. If every ruler simply made this his foreign policy there would never be any wars"
--Roger Symonds

An impossibility. Because of human nature and the inner conflict and turmoil within. The struggle for being better and best and even better than best. Or bigger and more beautiful.

paint splatters Wednesday, December 3, 2003 11:24 a.m.

Writing II
The word count stands at 753. Keong Saik Street has turned from one way street to dead end. So I think perhaps this means I put the pen down here, and call it end, though there was no conclusion. (Since I can't think of what else she can do apart from put her clothes on and vomit. haha.) once again... would welcome comments. (and pick your brains in the process. So sorry)
On a brighter note, Monologue has been edited. Many thanks to zk and zh. Hah. It still needs polishing. So the request still holds.

paint splatters Wednesday, December 3, 2003 01:19 a.m.

Writing.

Finally?
I concluded "Monologue", probably out of tiredness or sheer lack of brain juice/ideas. I need comments and critique... please! Or ideas. :) Request. on request.

paint splatters Monday, December 1, 2003 10:45 p.m.

Rachel Liew Siew Min, 8 years old
On the bus yesterday when morning was turning into noon. I saw the cortege leaving the church. The van carrying the casket was not strewn with flowers like father's, but instead decorated with beautiful bright balloons of all colours, bright and radiant as her smile in the photograph. the eight-year-old girl with twin ponytails and lopsided toothy grin. I wonder what happened to her, how she died. Whether it was an accident or illness that cut her off so prematurely. People would say, she was too good, an angel, to dwell on God's earth, taken so early to join her Father in Heaven as part of the chorus of cherubim joining in the singing of hymns and praises, so soon after her first Holy Communion. People bow their heads, keep a respectable distance, make the sign of the cross, "in nomine Patri..."

while her parents relatives and older sibling(s) weep silently consumed with their grief, while the younger children cannot comprehend the sudden zealouness for Mass and the silences and tears and fervent utterances of devout piety.

i see her smile, bright, radiant, eyes beautiful, smiling and laughing out of the yellow flowered frame. The little coffin is brown and solemn amidst the fluttering balloons.

paint splatters Tuesday, December 2, 2003 10:28 a.m.

Lim Tzay Chuen
That is/was the title of the play put up by the TTRP students that I watched last night. Maybe it's just me, but confessional theatre seems to be quite... the preferred vehicle for presentation these days.

In one word I can describe it: good
At the same time it was depressing however. Sad. And generally the feeling of hopelessness, despair almost. Yes, the "Creative Solution" (pronounced creatif so-lu-sion because of the Hong Kong accent) indeed. Or helplessness. Or self-imposed exile. I confess, that I was moved. To tears. Because one identifies with it. Questions. On Life, identity, the meaning of life. On one hand maybe I was affected because I know at least one of them personally. I cannot not cry when people I know cry. Whether inside or outside. It does not matter does it?

The actors are "feng zi".
The audiences are "sha zi" (or "gong", to put it in the original hokkien)
But actually we are all "feng zi", all mad men.

paint splatters Monday, December 1, 2003 02:09 a.m.


Musings

I think I shall change the way this site looks (and encounter more problems with the spastic tag board). Why am I telling anyone this I don't know.

Tales in a Box was quite good. I met lots of people, including those I hadn't met for a long time, and really missed. Talked to Caleb and met Ms Sergeant who didn't recognise me so I kept silent. The world works strangely. I discover new tastes and new aspects everyday.

I just wish the growing up part was done and over with and I could just get on with life and live. Yes, mundane, married with 2.1 children and living in a three-room HDB flat with half a car. A time warp that I can jump into and wake one day realising suddenly it's ten years later and I'm no longer in limbo.

paint splatters Sunday, November 30, 2003 04:08 p.m.

Talk rubbish
Sweltering heat this Sunday afternoon. The house is largely quiet, because of the solitude. The ice-skating rink was closed so they decided to go off to West Coast Park for a cycle. I decline the offer, not because I am anti-social, as you say, but rather because I know I take away rather than add enjoyment to anybody's day. Not that I haven't tried. Just that it's too tiring most times. Plus I need to get organised, and sort out this week's schedule. SAT is frightening the life out of me... And everyone is spouting SAT words from their word list while I just listen in growing horror... Oh help me, I say.

paint splatters Saturday, November 22, 2003 11:39 p.m.
I shall break from the 'norm', just this once, and pen down my thoughts. For how many eyes to see, it will not matter.

CAP 2003 is unfortunately over and i hate to say this but i think i'm currently suffering from post-CAP depression. I think it's more of post-production blues rather than anything else. Which is odd, given the mere five days that have passed, crafting the piece together, with much help. To be absolutely truthful the only thing i truly, really enjoyed was the JC Drama workshop. (And Suchen Christine Lim's writing workshop came in close too. Thank you so much)

I have looked at the world through a telescope this week, marvelling at the ignorant arrogant innocence of fifteen and wondering if I see any bit of myself in there. I would like to think I do not. Or perhaps it has come now, three years overdue, where anger and discontent is readily written, unabashedly, on my face. Three years ago I was too quiet, like a fading wallflower. Now I am too inconspicuous and yet too recklessly anti-social. I apologise, should I have offended anyone, but yet at the same time it was liberating… a discovery of me. (Yes. Engaging Ourselves)

JC Drama is great.
Thank you so much, Natalie, for everything. I never imagined that we would meet again, after that chance greeting so long ago during Artsfest-kidsfest at the very same spot (uncannily) where we sat for dinner yesterday, the round table and red chair at Olio Dome in the giganticus lobby of UCC. But I'm glad we did, and I've had this precious opportunity to work together.

The arts community is small, sadly perhaps, but it has its merits. People know each other. It is like an intricate web of loosely connected human beings, where each name seems to mean so much, weighted in measure. Like Chong Tze Chien and Christina Sergeant, who I've met before or somehow seem to know… it is weird, and highly presumptuous, but it seems like I know both of you, albeit impersonally, from little things such as the office sign proclaiming 'Mime Unlimited' and Caleb popping around to say hello; even if it is just the autographed fluorescent pink anthology of plays borrowed off the shelf of The Finger Players. [From PIE to Spoilt was an interesting collection to read, nevertheless.]

I have The Finger Players to thank too, for allowing me to enter this world, the little circle, where I am happy, truly. A world where my thoughts do not stray perpetually into the darker arenas of death and suicide. But instead a world where I can immerse myself in art, the art of creating, of exploring, of learning. A world where people are brutally honest and natural, where everything is tight but can be lived with, without much complaint.

I thank You too, sweet Jesus. For the people I know. For people I've come to know. For the little things, the little parcels in life.

A poem now sits on my desktop. It doesn't matter whether there are iambs or alexandrines. It is still beautiful all the same. And i thank the poet, for its beauty. It has made life a little more bearable.

paint splatters Saturday, November 22, 2003 12:55 p.m.
I watched the half moons and crescents of dark hair float softly to the ground, as the scissors continued its journey, snip-snip, quietly, steadily, rhythmically.
Squinting through glass-less eyes at the wide mirror spanning across the wall before me, I watched. Watermarks left tough stains on the now off-yellow cream formica counter, aged and worn through the years. Ancient bottles of shampoos with unknowns stood matriarchally, with the lesser soap basin and skinny hair mousse canisters in attendance. It mattered not whether the bottles read Wella, Organics or Vidal Sassoon; each pump of the bottle yielded a palmful of semi-solid pink gel-like smooth smelling sweet sticky puddle of air bubbles and shampoo. Account books lay in their battered covers, wearily leaning against the table slat. Today's accounts would be tallied on the page where the huge metallic blue bull-clip clamps greedily into the feint-ruled paper, accompanied by the click-clack of abacus beads bullied into place.the spray-nozzled plastic container was svelte, hissing slightly with each spray of cold water issued from its mouth. It sent tingles down my spine each time, tingles from the hairs on the nape to the bottom, shivering deliciously.
The calendar made from rice paper hung dejectedly on the all, amongst the lines of plastic sheeting and hair curling cotton grey with chemicals and constant use. It was the second of the month, the calendar proclaimed in jade green, residues of yesterdays stuck stubbornly in shredded jagged triangular ends to the bright plastic binder. The rediffusion hummed softly in the corner, with its long forgotten songs and operas of yesteryear. Beneath it sat the sink where men haunched over uncomfortably to get their hair washed, pot bellies bearing down on the wooden topped chair with its four spindly rusted legs.
I watch the hair go, first from the right, then the left, and right again, the floor is littered with fruity-flavoured half moons and crescents. It forms a heap on the floor, shining by the light of the white fluorescent tube. It´s almost six in the evening, and outside, the koel begins its mournful cry.
My vanity stays heaped on the green, coarse tiles.

2nd September 2003


Written after I cut my tresses (haha)and hence slightly 'exclusive' in a sense -> not everyone feels sad cutting hair. But in this instance a fit of madness that resulted in long hair cut to abominable length (or rather lack of), is rather... weird.