Eulogy/Elegy

in memory of
simplylivedie.blogspot.com


shining solitude, the void of the sky, a deferred death: disaster.

- Blanchot,

the last phrase in The Writing of The Disaster.



And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
(Genesis 6:17)

It is because each photograph always contains this imperious sign of my future death that each one, however attached it seems to be to the excited world of the living, challenges each of us, one by one, outside of any generality.

(Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 97)


Friendship is not a gift, or a promise; it is not a form of generosity. Rather, this incommensurable relation of one to the other is the outside drawing near in its separateness and inaccessibility. Desire, pure impure desire, is the call to bridge the distance, to die in common through separation. Death suddenly powerless, if friendship is the response that one can hear and make heard only by dying ceaselessly.

(Blanchot, 29)


il n'y aura pas de deuil (there shall be no mourning)

Jean-Francois Lyotard

The man (he was the same one who had administered the poison) kept his hand upon Socrates, and after a little while examined his feet and legs; then pinched his foot hard and asked if he felt it. Socrates said no. Then he did the same to his legs; and moving gradually upwards in this way let us see that he was getting cold and numb. Presently he felt him again and said that when it reached the heart, Socrates would be gone.

Phaedo 117A-118

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal . But lay up yourselves in heave, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. For where treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6: 19-21


He spoke humbly, seeing it is his heart's desire; he spoke briefly, as if fitting; but he will never forget that you needed a hundred years to get the son of your old age, against every expectation, that you had to draw the knife before keeping Issac; he will never forget that in one hundred and thirty years you got no further than faith.

Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling


And she innocently showed her four thorns. Then she added:
'Don't hang about like that, it's irritating. You've decided to go. Now go!'

For she did not want him to see her tears. She was such a haughty flower.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince



With failing eyes K. could still see the two of them, cheek learning against cheek, immediately before his face, watching the final act. 'Like a dog!' he said: it was as if he meant the shame of it to outlive him.

Franz Kafka, The Trial


This gift of infinite love comes from someone and is addressed to someone; responsibility demands irreplaceable singularity. Yet only death or rather the apprehension of death can give this irreplaceability, and it is only on the basis of it that one can speak of a responsible subject, of the soul as conscience of self, of myself, etc.

(Derrida, The Gift of Death, 51)

"O King of the age, these are thy children and I crave that thou release me from the doom of death, as a dole to these infants;..."

Shahrazad in The Arabian Nights - Tales from A Thousand and One Nights



"Getrude, do not drink!" But the Queen is thirsty. It is too late! Too late, Hamlet's sword runs the king through, the fifth act is already ending.

Italo calvino, The Castle of Crossed Destinies


We are still-born, and for many years we have not been begotten by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall somehow contrive to be born from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "underground"...

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground


Death: a mortality as demanded by the duration of time.

Levinas, God, Death and Time.

Fetyukovich:

My client grew up under God's protection, like a wild beast, that is. Perhaps he had yearned to see his father after long years of being apart from him, perhaps a thousand times before, remembering his childhood as in slumber, he had driven away the repulsive spectres that had haunted his dreams as a child, and yeaned with all his soul to excuse his father and to throw his arms about him! And what happens? He is greeted by nothing but cynical sneers , suspicion and chicanery concerning the disputed money; he hears nothing but talk and worldly maxims that make his heart turn over, every day "over some cognac", and at last, beholds his own father trying to take away from him, his son, by means of his son's money, his mistress, - oh, gentlemen of the jury, that is repulsive and cruel!

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 947


Oh! on which side shall I be, when all these transitory things are done away with, when the dead have risen from their graves, when the great congregation shall stand upon the land, and upon the sea, when every valley, and every mountain, and every river, and every sea, shall be crowded with multitudes standing in thick array?

Charles Spurgeon,
"THE HIGH PRIEST STANDING BETWEEN THE DEAD AND THE LIVING." The New Park Street Pulpit


Vladimir: We'll hang ourselves tomorrow. [Pause.]
Unless Godot comes.
Estragon: And if he comes?
Vladimir: We'll be saved.
...

Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let's go.
[they do not move.]


Beckett - Waiting for Godot


He had only five minutes more to live. He told me that those five minutes seemed to him an infinite time, a vast wealth; he felt that he had so many lives left in those five minutes that there was no need yet to think of the last moment, so much so that he divided his time up.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot

MICHEL: C'est vraiment dégueulasse.
PATRICIA: Qu'est ce qu'il a dit?
VITAL: Il a dit que vous êtes "une dégueulasse".
PATRICIA: Qu'est ce que c'est "dégueulasse"?

MICHEL: That's really disgusting.
PATRICIA: What did he say?
VITAL: He said, "You are really a bitch."
PATRICIA: What is "déguelasse" [bitch]?

final dialogue in Breathless, when Michel is dying.

And now I was buried in the earth. They all went away, and I was left alone, entirely alone. I did not move. Whenever before I imagined how I should be buried in a grave, there was only one sensation I actually associated with the grave, namely, that of damp and cold. And so it was now. I felt that I was very cold, especially in the tips of my toes, but I felt nothing else.

I lay in my grave, strange to say, I did not expect anything, accepting the idea that a dead man had nothing to expect as an incontestable fact. But it was damp. I don’t know how long a time passed, whether an hour, or several days, or many days. But suddenly a drop of water, which had seeped through the lid of the coffin, fell on my closed left eye. It was followed by another drop a minute later, then after another minute by another drop, and so on. One drop every minute. All at once deep indignation blazed up in my heart, and I suddenly felt a twinge of physical pain in it.

“That’s my wound,” I thought. “It’s the shot I fired. There’s a bullet there…” And drop after drop still kept falling every minute on my closed eyelid. And suddenly I called (not with my voice, for I was motionless, but with the whole of my being) upon Him who was responsible for all that was happening to me:

“Whoever Thou art, and if anything more rational exists than what is happening here, let it, I pray Thee, come to pass here too. But if Thou art revenging Thyself for my senseless act of self-destruction by the infamy and absurdity of life after death, then know that no torture that may be inflicted upon me can ever equal the contempt which I shall go on feeling in silence, though my martyrdom last for aeons upon aeons!”

I made this appeal and was silent. The dead silence went on for almost a minute, and one more drop fell on my closed eyelid, but I knew, I knew and believed infinitely and unshakably that everything would without a doubt change immediately.

And then my grave was opened.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dreams of a Ridiculous Man

When it is really a question of death, the dream speaks another language.

Carl Jung, The Practical Use of Dream Analysis, 107

He is perfectly qualified to talk about destiny by virtue of the fact that no existence is as remarkable as his for its absence of destiny.
You have to be alive to talk about death.

Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories IV 1995-2000, 40

But when Zarathustra was alone, he spoke thus to his heart:
‘Could it be possible! This old saint has not yet heard in his forest that God is dead!’

Friedrich Nietszche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Albrecht Dürer, Knight, Death, and Devil

The death of one being is correlated with the birth of the other, heralding it and making possible. Life is always a product of the decomposition of life. Life first pays its tribute to death which disappears, then to corruption following on death and bringing back into the cycle of change the matter necessary for the ceaseless arrival of new beings into the world.

Georges Bataille, From p. 55-62 of Erotism: Death and Sensuality

Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal, Knight meets Death.

And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,

And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

The Book of Job, 1:19-22

The avenger of blood is stronger than the Angel of Death.

Levinas, Cities of Refuge

Gustav Klimt
Death and Life, 1916

The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.

Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author”

ALBANY

The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

Exeunt, with a dead march

Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3

(and the reader will die too.)

You were dead and now once again you find yourself alive – ONLY THIS TIME YOU ARE ALONE.

Antonin Artaud, From Art and Death (1925-27)

Then the tin soldier melted down into a lump, and when the servant-maid took the ashes out next day, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart.

Hans Christian Andersen, The Hardy Tin Soldier

Lastly our hearts, whether they be right or wrong,
We leave neither to scientists or doctors
But to those to whom they properly belong.

Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament

Char Boy

For Christmas, Char Boy received his usual lump of coal, which made him very happy.

For Christmas, Char Boy received a small present instead of his usual lump of coal, which confused him very much.

For Christmas, Char Boy was mistaken for a dirty fireplace and swept out into the street.

Tim Burton

Abraham:
I am, myself, ashes and dust.

Genesis 18:22ff.

"I am alive. No, you are dead."

Blanchot, The Instant of My Death

If only I knew if I’ve lived, if I live, if I’ll live, that would simplify everything, impossible to find out, that’s where you’re buggered, I haven’t stirred, that’s all I know, no, I know something else, it’s not I, I always forget that, I resume, you must resume…

Beckett, The Unnamable, 417.

Death is a mode of being, and it is on the basis of this mode of being that the not-yet arises.

Levinas, “Death and Totality of ‘Dasein’.

I die. I live. I died to live. I simply live to die; to live.

Alvin Lim, 06 April 2008

simplylivedie.blogspot.com is officially closed and dead.

It simply lived to die.

how it all ended.
how I now must trust that my disappearance will bless you.
as it had for many others.
i tried to speak to you.
i hope in some ways you have heard.
i apologise for my silences.
but that is how I express my inner most indescribable, unspoken feelings.

confidence comes from death.
nothing can be as certain as death.
before we can even talk about life.

Let us share eternity in order to make it transitory.
what remains to be said. - Blanchot

What remains of all that misery? A girl in a shabby (pink tee), on a railway-station platform? No?

Pause.

When I look--

Krapp switches off, broods, looks at his watch, gets up, goes backstage into darkness. Ten seconds. pop of cork. Ten seconds. Second cork. Ten seconds. Third cork. Ten seconds. Brief burst of quavering song.

KRAPP

(sings).

Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh-igh,
Shadows--

Fit of coughing. He comes back into light, sits down, wipes his mouth, switches on, resumes his listening posture.

Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape

let me die by saying this -
I love you. (it is said.)

1 day leading to the final count.
1 more entry.
24 hours more.


when I walked past crowds of people today, their faces flashed me by like daisies - all white around them but yellow in the centre.

'LOOK AT ME'

so i refused to.
and glided past.
in cruise control.

and everything was still.
messy still.


but mornings (despite sleeping less than 2 hours)
have this unique quality to lift my spirit up.
it is as if the orange sky is the shade of my mental landscape,
and I can always find inner peace momentarily, if I stare hard enough.

and that was enough, for me to carry on yesterday. to live through that day. and come to this point, today.

i'm building my history tomorrow.

Pre-Eulogy/Elegy

this blog will close on 6 April 2008 2359hrs.

on its 1st year anniversary.

a new blog will begin shortly after its demise.

demise n.

1. 1. Death.
   2. The end of existence or activity; termination: the demise of the streetcar.
2. Law Transfer of an estate by lease or will.
3. The transfer of a ruler's authority by death or abdication.

demise. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

i love wild flowers too.

but it's too late.

hazard control.
may fail anytime.
alert.
tensions.
overload.
and soon.
over-transparent
spinning out of control
positively negative.
it may just end.
soon...
reluctant to let go.
but soon.


don't be taken aback by this rude shock.
this is too much.
it blinds and mutes me.
really can't take this anymore.


blind.
lifehouse

I was young but I wasn't naive
I watched helpless as she turned around to leave
and still I have the pain I have to carry
a past so deep that even you could not bury if you tried

after all this time
I never thought we'd be here
never thought we'd be here
when my love for you was blind
but I couldn't make you see it
couldn't make you see it
that I loved you more than you'll ever know
a part of me died when I let you go

I would fall asleep
only in hopes of dreaming
that everything would be like is was before
but nights like this it seems are slowly fleeting
they disappear as reality is crashing to the floor

after all this time
I never thought we'd be here
never thought we'd be here
when my love for you was blind
but I couldn't make you see it
couldn't make you see it
that I loved you more than you'll ever know
a part of me died when I let you go

after all this time
would you ever wanna leave it
maybe you could not believe it
that my love for you was blind
but I couldn't make you see it
couldn't make you see it
that I loved you more than you will ever know
a part of me died when I let you go
and I loved you more than you'll ever know
a part of me dies when I let you go

Quoted from: fades2.jpg 510×287 pixels

www.carstennicolai.de/d/works/img/fades2.jpg

i have been watching.
from
behind.
i have been walking.
behind.

from the shadows.

@

libraries.

i would seriously like to own a library.
It would be impossible to finish all the books.
and i am going to be very particular when it comes to the books in my library.
Only certain books and authors are allowed.
and there will be a section called Crap - where I shall you will have the entire collection of 'Dummies'.
The yellow pages.
Cookbooks.
phone bills.
Mechanic Instructional Manuals
In-flight magazines.
papers.

but really, you won't want to know the books available in my library.

actually, I prefer my library to look like this -

Quoted from: Rainbow Bookshelf

freshome.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/color-bookshelf.jpg


going back.


flashes.
of future flashforwards.

will i hear the breeze of the subtle letting go?
stripes of specials cutting through.
a momentary distraction.
almost skipped a cue.
the next cue came anyway.

and then my death is the life of the illuminated stage.

Quoted from: 1.2.08 by ~lllnastyalll on deviantART

fc.deviantart.com/fs27/f/2008/032/5/1/5142b07f2477cfb2.jpg

lights have to fade.
somehow.

the doors slammed shut.
i will never see the darkness behind the door.

it is a slow and quiet disappearance.
a slow fade...
to black.

*cue to enter next actor*

@

Tree Story

Quoted from: Organic: REmix. by *luminatii on deviantART

http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs21/f/2007/274/7/4/Organic__REmix__by_luminatii.jpg

i have an affiliation with trees.

my first favourite sketches were trees. i like to draw them.

in fact, i think they are the most wondrous organisms around.
strong, sturdy, diverse, vulnerable;
the beginning of dialectics,
the host of parasites,
the crowning glory,
the canopy of secrets and the unknown,
so many definitions, symbolism and meanings attached
of life and knowledge...
to bear us curses and blessings.

at the very least,
the whole process of a bud growing into a tree is so apt to allegorise our own aging.
there is majesty, no doubt.
but look carefully and you will find uninvited parasites, termites and burrowed depressions
a tree must go if it has to.
and timber.

but a tree is nothing, unsophisticated without the peripheries. with the tensions that surround it.
without the wind to blow at it.
a tree is gentle and suffers long. because there is nothing much they can do.
nevertheless, its meekness is precisely what we need.
no. not personal glory. not to be the tallest tree in the rainforest and to have a thin and unsteady trunk.
it is to grow with the knowledge that there are hidden roots dug deeply into miles of solid ground.
of course, not all trees are like that.
after all...the trees in Singapore don't grow very big, long and they are arranged in a systematic order and of equal distance.

but that does not stop me from wanting to be like a tree.
quiet. swaying with the strong winds.
hissing a unintelligent song as the wind blows through me.
bearing fruits edible, tasty, juicy, with a little bittersweet to remind us of life's gift of suffering.

will you be like a tree too?
don't let your fruits bleed.
let others benefit from your fruits.
grow where people can see you.
firm and strong for as long as you can.
where birds and creatures can nest in you.
survive through the harsh winters.
and feed them in spring and summer.
and flank couples without order as they stroll in an amber autumn, choosing the paths they wish to take through mazed woods

there is beauty in trees.
even the shadows they cast.
it is really just how you choose to see them.

just don't wander into the woods at night.

I used to remember my grandmother said, (after translation) 'do you want to eat?'
It was a simple arrangement - I grounded the dried shrimps and she would do the frying.
'what do you want to eat next?'
and I would eat dried plums.
and enjoyed and await my next snack given by her.

love is encapsulated by the motif of eating.

song on loop now -
Alexi Murdoch - Love you more.

Love you more than anyone
Love you more than anyone
Love you more in time to come
Love you more

Repeatx2

i miss my grandmother.
it is not Freudian phallus.
it's the Jungian unknown woman and her fruit from the tree.

the bride and the spirit.

i write an eulogy every night.
where epiphanies happen in between sleeping and waking.

I had a dream.
of three men.
I and two unknown men.
and a garden full of snakes.
and one of the many I flew past
finally bit my genitals.
and I woke.
at the beginning of the day.

Quoted from: white and blue on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

farm1.static.flickr.com/212/488229398_fee16c9bc0.jpg?v=0

ooohhh~
oooohhhh~
ooooohhhhh~
oooooohhhhh~
ooooooohhhhhh~
oooooooohhhhhhhh~
ohh.

hymnal proportions.

subtle tonal changes.

never forget. never forgotten.

sounds through hollow pipes are always richer

silent Hs.

O

this is an opportunity to shout through that narrow O.

i love those moments when no one speaks to me and no one bothers me with a definition.

'do not add another word'




慢慢
走啊。。。走啊。。。走啊。。。

Who's Theme by Minmi
samurai champloo music records 'impression'

*tsurete tte anata no basho e
kaze ni natte iki wo hisomete
tsurete tte anata wa doko e
toki wo koe kokoro hodoite

yureru hidamari shiroku tooku
ate mo shiranai kioku hodoku
kaoru himawari imada ni chiranai kinaga ni

oshiete yo subete wo shitte shimau fuan
na noni naze shiritaku naru yuragu omoi yo

** haru natsu aki fuyu kanadete
asu wo yuku tabi tsumikasanete
kidzukeba anata to yume no hate made

* repete

mimi wo sumasete tasogareru made
kakureta mama de mukae matte
kimagure na kaze kikkake mekurete omoide
ano koro nanigenaku kikoete ita kotoba
itsu kara ka kokoro no naka ookiku shimeru

** repete

* repete


in english

I'll follow you, to your place
I'll be the wind, holding my breathe
I'll follow you, where are you going?
Passing over time, melting my heart

A spot in the sun sways, white and far away
I don't know my destination, and my memories melt away
The fragrant sunflowers even now don't leisurely scatter

Tell me everything, I'm uneasy about knowing it all
So then, why do I want to know? My feelings tremble

Playing music about the four seasons, accumulating the journeys to tomorrow
Before I know it, I'm at the end of my dreams, with you

I'll follow you, to your place
I'll be the wind, holding my breathe
I'll follow you, where are you going?
Passing over time, melting my heart

Listen closely, until twilight sets in
Hidden, I wait to go out
The fickle wind begins to turn the pages of my memories
The words that I could casually hear back then
For how long have they had a large place in my heart?

Playing music about the four seasons, accumulating the journeys to tomorrow
Before I know it, I'm at the end of my dreams, with you

I'll follow you, to your place
I'll be the wind, holding my breathe
I'll follow you, where are you going?
Passing over time, melting my heart




those pairs of feet.
none of them are mine.

you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you go today.
you go, wherever you go, today.
you went yesterday...

maybe i could not care less.
maybe i cared too much.
maybe it doesn't matter if it's the angel or demon
a fantasy or a nightmare,
a rainbow or a thunderstorm
i must ignore
i ignore
maybe i could not ask more
maybe i didn't ask more
maybe it's just a matter of perspective
either a crazed mathematician who can formulate an equation to understand you
or a mystic who answers questions of you in tongues i cannot understand
i just ignore
could only ignore


i turn around and there you go.
and there you go.
as easy as against the currents of the river
and there you go.
even if you fall,
and there you go...
springtime...
do-do-do-do-do-do-do~

this.

words.

decrease.


with each undertaking of

holdingback.
cannot hear, the whispers, of their hearts
and till they are gone,
then comes the silent roar...

it's one of those days,
when you feel like the world should just consist of you and you and you,
together in a vast but dense winter forest,
threading meticulously through waist-high thick snow,
and naively unaware of your final destination;
since the past, in retrospect, is a disappointing mess of failed affiliations.

but it doesn't matter,
because the point is not to stop permanently (though you take breaks when you're tired);
but to feel the snow part as you dig through with your limbs.
it is also during such moments (and days),
when you just wish that your whispers can be heard by a person very very close to you, walking side by side.

but usually they are immaterial. incorporeal. intangible. invisible.
therefore, simultaneously you can only walk and walk.
because you cannot find someone to hear you, see you and feel you, likewise you are hearing, seeing and feeling him or her.

who's really interested to hear what I have to say?
who's really interested to tell me what he or she has to say?

my words are like jumbled paradigms,
sometimes this, sometimes that.
because I am never confident that these words are meant to last eternally.
forgive me.

but there is a gentle reminder that words are always meant to die, fade, disappear...
it is only how much we are willing to let go.

so, who says we have to communicate to grow closer in a relationship?
it should not be that words govern the relationship,
but the motivations that come before the utterances.
sometimes, all you need is someone to stand in front of you, in silence and perhaps with a smile so sure, so assuring and so gentle
such that he or she gives us the confidence to wander and discover both ourselves and the 'other' smiling figure.

am i such a figure to myself?
the smiling, standing figure in a thick layer of snow?

i won't know.
I'm just very lonely now, with Him, me, me and me.

A smile
may take lesser muscles to manifest,
but a smile is a key
to many doors of superficiality or authenticity.
Either it unlocks doors to more doors
or it unlocks a wealth of precious understanding of that 'other'.

A smile
should be a smile of inward peace,
a smile that comes after an experience or knowledge of some event
that convinces us that we have reason to smile for surviving the event
for better or worse
or just because it is the courage to continue our short lives.

A smile
is always for someone you love.
and the best way to reply to that smile
is a smile back worthy of that love
not because it is a responsibility
but it is the only natural thing to do
because you love as well

White Winter Hymnal
Fleet Foxes
Ragged Wood (2008)

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime...

(listen it here - http://www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes)

quoted from
http://images.etsy.com/all_images/0/03e/9dc/il_430xN.21780637.jpg

i was called a whirlpool. or tornado.

i prefer to call myself an orange sky.

Alexi Murdoch - Orange Sky Lyrics

Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother standing by
With my brother standing by
I said Brother, you know you know
It’s a long road we’ve been walking on
Brother you know it is you know it is
Such a long road we’ve been walking on

And I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my sister standing by
With my sister standing by
I said Sister, here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this..
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

But sister you know I’m so weary
And you know sister
My hearts been broken
Sometimes, sometimes
My mind is too strong to carry on
Too strong to carry on

When I am alone
When I’ve thrown off the weight of this crazy stone
When I’ve lost all care for the things I own
That’s when I miss you, that’s when I miss you, that’s when I miss you
You who are my home
You who are my home
And here is what I know now
Here is what I know now
Goes like this..
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, my salvation lies
In your love, in your love, in your love

Well I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
Yes I had a dream
I stood beneath an orange sky
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by
With my brother and my sister standing by

where the long road I am walking on,

does not neccessarily mean walking with someone side by side.

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it is always difficult.

and simple.

1,300.

there is an unspoken beauty in numbers, especially a linear count of number...1, 2, 3, ...
it is like approaching infinity but you have to stop somehow and somewhere.
it is the perfect analogy of life - you count your days and you do not know when you have to stop counting.

Instead of fearing the inevitable end of our lives,
consider how it is like to live a life that is both linear and fragmentary.
It is like taking a picture at every moment - all the joy, sadness, excitement, horror, pain, tears, laughter - and pasting them all on a wall called life. It is to try to piece together a dream, a reality or just a figment of our imagination that consists of real events, real people and real emotions.
Then step back, in a moment of appreciation (not reflection) and admire the beauty of inevitability and unity (of fragments).

There is certainly a painter drawing my life with colours that I may or may not like. But we shouldn't oppose this painter because there is a omnipotent knowledge of our lives that demands our due reverence. It is to be firmly faithful to this painter and trust in His masterstrokes, such that even those strokes we do not understand form part of a grand master plan. (Am I conforming to a grand narrative?) No. It is to understand that even a micro narrative such as a wretched me can still interest this painter to make me His painting subject matter. It is like a Picasso painting that people did not understand until in retrospect, we realise the conventions he broke. It is not to paint the most beautiful painting a mortal would consider as, but to paint an immortal one, hanged in the heavens. It is realise it is not meant to be seen, but to be hung, and form part of a universe, where Hubble's telescope cannot even begin to fathom that vast infinite beauty.

Hence, even if I disappear from this world (this cruel happy world), I shall appear somewhere else busking in glory and reverence to the one who granted me this privilege.

even if I mean lesser and lesser, day by day, I shall still want to die knowing I left a footprint, that even if the waves sweep the sand smooth again, I was once there, forgotten in time to come, to take my place in the stars, fade and fall, burn and be self-absorbing, disappear eventually...but a new star is born again and again until all is over, all is over.

Therefore, sometimes, dare to resist a little and not be the person this world wants you to be. Resist a little and let it become an adventure; the willing canvas to be painted on.
What is imperfect to us may very likely be the perfect masterstroke. The used up oil can still be reused and painted over, releasing its hidden potential, which may just be a change of perspective. It is an art I do not possess so I shall leave it to the expert.


A crushing anvil on a stubborn and proud heart.
If we do not first tear and destroy ourselves,
will there still be a need to be healed? to be blessed? to be saved?
Beyond words.
it is that intangible perpetual consciousness of the future - what-is-to-come.
but let go of what is in between - the gap between the present instant and the future end.
for in our lifetime we will never know how the final painting looks like.
The crowning does not happen in this world.
even a surrealist empiricialism will not describe this other world for you.

the cruelty of life is that our subjectifications can never encompass everyone and everything.
therefore, leave the subjectifications to the Master painter.


such conclusions can only be made after I exhausted all ways to answer my questions.
when i feel i am hanging on to the ledge on the 13th floor.
when i feel so cold, it is hot and I am burning.
but all at the same time, I can feel this profound smirk on my lips, knowing all will be taken care of. I just don't know the details.


i am praying for you.

2-2-2

drawing by Jimmy

I used to tell myself, "it's easy to move on".

at the crux of that statement is actually that feverish desire to deny any doubt from seeping into the consciousness. Perhaps, it is more appropriate to suggest that "there is nowhere to move on to". so if the veiled desire ultimately remains hidden, which at the most poignant moment and in a most cunning way, it releases itself on you and fastens its grip.

Indifference is not the actual condition of society. Deep within that indifference is that hungry desire to say, do and change something; for the sake of doing. Rather than call it indifference, I prefer to call it contemplative, which is a prolonged process of contemplation before a very pragmatic decision - of inaction. After all, the long-lasting grip of desire works when you do not act upon the desire, but allow the desire to remain perpetually.

Therefore, (a great leap in my argument) humanity has not moved on, because 'there is nowhere to move on to'.

Despite my academic mentor claims that 'the illusion of desire has been lost', desire has more profound origins and perpetual implications and resonances that prevent 'desire' or 'illusion of desire' from being dismissed as 'lost' entirely. It is at its very core, a profound gap that is itself a filled space. It is where great imaginations, warped dreams, convincing illusions and perverse fantasies slide in and out without you acknowledging them. It is never easy to acknowledge them. Ultimately, production (to feed those desires) does not obliterate the process of desire. As long as there is one person who experiences the iron grip of desire, desire and the illusion of desire remain.
Is it not more about an impatient anticipation for a great event to occur and simultaneously wish that it fails ultimately, so that we can continue to hope and desire?

This observation is only made possible because of a recent earthquake that occurred in my life - a purely cognitive earthquake.

To put is simply, I would not have noticed this if I had not stepped out of my contemplative mode and radically denounced my commitment to a desire. In so doing, the radical step returns me to the precedent step of landing myself deeply into a gap called passion. This return, is only to realise that I never made any leaps and progress to filling up this gap of desire and passion. Ultimately, it also made me realise that desire and passion are not what I need. And this return is a return before that unknown, enigmatic but familiar moment when you fall for someone, without reason.

she teared behind me. after the hand was raised.
she walked ahead then. after the damage was done.
but that had a more profound implication than what I had expected then.

she climbed ahead of me. after the dare was given.
she smiled below of me. at the point of descending.
but the beating of the heart ascended faster than what my mind could understand.

so who is she at the bottom, standing, inside, filling that gap within me?
if desire is the gap, then what are you? Desire?

Perhaps, it is this uneasy tension between what is an iron grip of desire, and what is purely just you.
and if they clash, the knowledge of her and the imagination of her will collapse together into a misshapen form of desire and reverence

it is a reverence that places her at a position that no one has ever come close to. A position that I dare not venture into. Because I know it will prick when I do. A long course of inactivity, contemplation and just empty promises of leaving the periphery of her position.
But her sphere of influence extended beyond what I can handle.
I end up knowing so much about her only to realise that I equally know nothing about her.

there is an extreme melancholy at this revelation.
from what was just a simple nemesis and name calling, morphed into a complex patchwork of meanings I cannot defined and identified all at the same time.

they are all repetitions of a common theme. (repetitions of reminders of impossibilities)
there is a fiery furnace waiting to melt everything together but I cannot allow that.
I cannot stand close. too close and I will forget this feeling of familiarity and enigma.

when the two finally collide, i will reach a third area of ambiguity.

It has finally reached that stage. The return.
when feelings take their winter holiday and go into hibernation. I stand close after radically departing (returning) from the position.

So now, it cannot be contemplation, desire or passion anymore.
Somehow, it's no longer allowed to be.
it is that silent quest to diminish.

like a shooting star
like a melting snowflake
like an invisible blown kiss

like a gift of death
like the morbid sensation that comes with a sweet kiss on bleeding feet
like the ending sentence of a short writing

they end with a next life awaiting them

and I am in a room,
with an ah pek me, a young twelve years old me and the recent me.
we stare at each other for a few seconds,
and they both ask me:
"How is the next village like?"

you will know what I mean when no tears can drop for you too.

I leave with a last poem dedicated to this moment.

who's theme is it to believe,
a yesterday's ephemeral relief?
she did, she said, she believed
she does, she says and she still believes.
today's reference to yesterday is to make us smile or cry

whose prayers are there to keep her safe
a future's perpetual faith of hope?
she does, she says and she still believes
she will do, she will say and she will still believe.
tomorrow happens to make today worthwhile.

she is safe in His arms.
so everything she does is beautiful.

let us begin
with a short story by Kafka,

---

My Destination (transl. Alex Flores)

I called for my horse to be brought from the stable. The servant did not

understand me. I myself went into the stable, saddled my horse and mounted.

In the distance I heard a trumpet blast. I asked him what it meant but he

did not know and had not heard it. By the gate he stopped me and asked

"where are you riding to sir?" I answered "away from here, away from here,

always away from here. Only by doing so can I reach my destination." "Then

you know your destination" he asked. "Yes" I said "I have already said so,

'Away-From-Here' that is my destination." "You have no provisions with you"

he said. "I don't need any" I said. "The journey is so long that I will die

of hunger if I do not get something along the way. It is, fortunately, a

truely immense journey."

---

my life is too short to have an immense journey.
And yet.
it is immensely weary to not think of this journey.
Away from here.

Where is Here?

Here the here that remains constant?
here the there that I never belong at?
here the here that changes?
where is here?
away.
if here is always here,
then i must continue my journey away-from-here.

away from the text before me

But my life is too short to begin this journey.

and there will be those people and things which will stop me.
and there will be no

END

to the interrogation
so if I may, I prefer to continue with my journey,
an immense journey
that lasts as long as my life

as long as
the centre...

slides past
and start all over again.
away-from-here again and again.......................

truly, a renewal of faith, that has to be done by myself.



I trembled when I realised how fast time has passed.

Almost Earth is done!

why bother when she does not want you to?

There exists a weariness which is a weariness of everything and everyone, and above all a weariness of oneself. What wearies then is not a particular form of our life - our surroundings, because they are dull and ordinary, our circle of friends, because they are vulgar and cruel; the weariness concerns existence itself.

Instead of forgetting itself in the essential levity of a smile, where existence is effected innocently, where it floats in its fullness as though weightless and where, gratuitous and graceful, its expansion is like a vanishing, in weariness existence is like the reminder of a commitment to exist, with all the seriousness and harshness of an unrevokable contract.

One has to do something, one has to aspire after and undertake.


...Weariness is the impossible refusal of this ultimate obligation. In weariness we want to escape existence itself, and not only one of its landscapes, in a longing for more beautiful skies. An evasion without an itinerary and without an end, it is not trying to come ashore somewhere. Like for Baudelaire's true travellers, it is a matter of parting for the sake of parting.

emmanuel levinas
- existence and existents

he said it better than i could.

i'm keeping quiet for a while.

before they sound like:
Mmmm m mmmm mmm mm m mmmm mmmmmmm.......
and it did...i felt clumsy with my words...


so i'm keeping quiet...
then i will know what to do...
or even say.

but it scares me.

as much as it scares me to see how swift the dynamics changed.

and it makes me miserable more,
to find no words to express

the only confidence left,
is the prayer that resides at the tip of my tongue,

"And lead us not into temptation"

endings are beginnings.

it shouldn't be about me.
I died long time ago.

first and foremost,
have maturity to be stable and steadfast,
in a storm.

and that storms are there, that there may be a tongue to calm them

calm us.

(before we lose it....I hope I haven't lost it yet.)

夫战, 勇气也, 一鼓作气, 再而衰, 三而竭, 彼竭我盈, 故克之。

曹刿

why must I always approach things with silence?
why can't I believe in miracles?
why can't I believe in faith?
why can't I believe in courage?
why can't I believe in vocalising my conviction?
why can't I stand up and act?
why must it always be silence?
why must I allow things to slip me by?
to react only after something has happened?
and react with such lack of courage, faith and conviction?
why must I believe that the outcome must definitely be pessimistic...

is it because I have experienced and seen too many disappointments?
is it because I dare not venture into the unknown?
to fight battles and wars that may severely cripple me?
Aha! to declare defeat even before the battle is fought...such cowardice.
but in all fairness...I did try.
but in all seriousness...I had to give up so often.


SHOUT.
and perhaps it is not only I who trembles.


but inevitably,
i shout by keeping silent.
they won't listen.

i desperately scream in my sleep,
to touch hearts I cannot see.

i can't find a way to stay,
to see you again.

i refuse to be.
i shout the hardest when I'm silent.

I like the moment when I pull out a music box,
turn the mechanical hand,
and it plays a tune I'm familiar with.
at least I can decide when I can stop the tune.
but it happens only when my hands grow tired.

I am tired.
to turn with my hands and be not able to join in the dance.

to go nearer is to be further away.

I shall leave it to God again.

(Alvin, you are a coward.)

like a flash,

it ended.

it was beautiful while it lasted.

a disappearance is possible when there was first an appearance.
a light illuminates a room because it was first dark.
someone is unforgettable because he or she first made an appearance.

my mind is blank because it once had too many things in it.
But really,
it is all about a reluctance,
a reluctance to think, wait, and accept that there are only gaps.

when one makes that appearance, another inevitably bows, curtains fall, and he or she exeunts.
he or she disappears.

will you dance with me?

will she gently dance or dance without restraint?
as I let go of her hands (i never did)?

highlight the words to read them

and so the way is once again a grey tint.
but the way is always as it should be,
narrow but sure.

i won't survive on the luxury of hope.
i will survive on determinism.
on the inevitable moment of disappearances and appearances.

when my consciousness collide.
with the other.

i shall die once more.

die.live.dream.breathe.drink.eat.breathe.live.dream.eat.drink.work.sleep.work.sleep.die.live.love.

dream.live.die.eat.drink.think.think.think.think.think.eat.drink.sleep.work.breathe.break.die.sleep.
dream.live.eat.drink.think.work.work.work.work.wish.stare.watch.see.rest.rest.work.dream.
thinkof.her.die.

such that even pictures and videos wont save those moments
but i shall remember them.
remember as long as i can.

quiet.

it is all quiet now.
it used to be about the moment before a storm.
a moment before the quake.
a moment before death.

but as quiet as it is now,
i finally realise that this silence is a moment after a storm, after a quake, after a death,
when the dust settles.

things seem like they were happenstances.
but that is because they were quiet.
and i did not want to listen to them.
i failed to accept them.

so...

i don't expect anything.
only yesterday i was different.
only today i am going to be different.
only tomorrow will I be different.
but some things don't change. they just disappear into silences.

the faces come and go. a flash of quiet intensity.

when I leave, I leave as quiet as I leave as I am quiet
as words flow into a dissipation...
they heal.

i don't say much do i but the feeling i get sometimes is that i say too much like flowing words that go on and on and i do not know when to stop so why can't i now embrace quietness to feel my way to a new state of tranquility?

i don't expect anything.

i walk down this long hotel corridor.
they all look the same, really.
the velvet carpet and the hanging electrical candles that flicker occasionally.
but it glows with an amber conformity.
the doors are redwood with 4 digits
every step i make is softened by the surface below me
i walk the quiet steps.
it doesn't matter where I'm heading.
the walls along the corridor are a soft and warm brown.

I turn a corner.

leaving this thing called 'love'.
But i do believe, it wasn't a construct.

i'll find a way, i'll see her again, someday.
Again.
i don't expect anything.
really, you can't don't expect anything. so...don't repeat those words.

i shall walk down the stairs at the end of the corridor. quietly.
and remain a familiar enigma.

maybe that is the best I can be, someone always misunderstood, always removed, always dishonest,
always Be;
and not allowed to be consistently fluid.

so i'll find a way.
to see you and myself again.

"ok."

it is so quiet, it hurts.

my world went blank.





one last radical move.

i wish that journey was forever.

i wish those tears were forever.

i wish they

forever

but no... ... ... ...

it
s
lip
p

p



p
s

away
.

I wish the sun took forever to set.

a sentimental moment freezed.

but these beauteous moments are so treasured by me because they are fleeting.
when it shouldn't be about the aftermath,
but that immediate moment when thoughts fly away and the moment takes over completely.
till you are blown away.

I was blown away, twice.
even if i rewind them now...it is just not the same.

it is just not the same.



and now I have to return to reality.

what can i use to express myself besides writing?

each beat.
each split second before I react.

each closing of my eyes
each darkness
each brightness
each moment of helplessness

comes with,
every devotion, every passion, every whisper,
the wind will not blow...

the colour fades but the trace materialises...
slowly i will,
release
this
,
,
.
.
.

just yesterday, I witnessed how we can subtly enjoyed those little moments of our story-making-
just look closely at those fleeting images of people laughing, smiling and that slow waltz of -
little angels making that tiny steps to their guardians,
and squeak at the delight of a familiar taste of love;
the grand stewards of time, though time has drawn lines on them,
they walk side by side, in threes - spouse and spouse, and Joe Black
I am caught in between two thrones of grace,
one will be the infinite innocent receipient of the tiny bottle of grape juice;
the other will be the vintage wine of bittersweetness in an intricate grail,
so much to tell but silence says it all.

don't say anything. life is made up of moments of imagined bliss;
taste it, and even if they are imagined, the sensation of it flowing into you is real,
is smooth,
just like how tears of joy flow...

this world, I do not know.

whenever I encounter her,
she pulls away from my painful grip.

I strangle her, and squeeze her dry,
refusing to let her be as she is.
I murmur words, and skew her trees,
governing her every little movement.

whenever I leave her,
she suffers the liberal illusion of free will.

I sit in a chair, in an enclosed room, staring outside behind a window.
I am rocking the chair.
I decide to look at the room more carefully.
She screams at me.


So, this world, I am a sojourner.

henceforth, I leave the room,
the cruelty of a hot and cold desert awaits me.

She strangles me, and veils me completely,
entrapping me with her openness.
She speaks glibberish, and builds castles,
poisoning the inmeasurable consciousness.

henceforth, I leave the room,
the desert forces me into a double confrontation.

The chair sits on me, at an open space, facing the distant horizon.
The chair is rocking me.
I cannot decide to take down the chair.
She pities me.

I stare at the world and I sing,

"What a wonderful world..."

the closer i get, the further it becomes.