friday afternoon

sitting, sneakers perched on the horizontal support of
my high chair, watching, waiting, for the world to pass
to and fro, as my slight, bitter latte cools and mellows,
awash in milky foam, while the sounds of Fiona Apple
seep into the bedrock of my soul

how we delight in these snatches of time

sanity

the fraying grows more apparent,
urgent, by the day. what was once
bound inextricably, taut and pristine,

has unravelled, with startling fury –
cords snap and whip around
in anguished throes, lashing
all who dare venture near,
clutching at vain air, seeking

but never finding
the centre, the genesis,
the memory and the present
– your presence.

what now?
worn, a tedious descent
into the forgotten,
a ripening breach.

Inadequate

i stand mouth gaping wide open –
utter awe; at how you paint worlds
into existence; at how you capture
light and toy with shadow; at the way
an idea hurtles from the abstract and lands
thumping in the concrete – by your hands.

i only have words. and even that
is so much blunt scraping against
stubborn rock, while others thrust
rapier-like, deep into the heart and soul.
they make us bleed. feel. cry,
heaving sobs of disrepair, and we remember
we are only human.

let’s dance

so we joined our hands
in an alarming show of unity –
a fit of choreographed harmony. we
stepped in and out (it was assumed
we could not really step out) hands
raised in worship to the hysterical
hoopla of the god of corporate unity –
a sacrifice of spirit and soul.
mindless(ness) rules.

then we spun,
endlessly (or at least it seemed
so) for three counts eight –
a superlative symbol of simpering symbiosis –
a maddening malarkey;
before we sunk
down on our haunches and reached
for the pendulous, bulbous balls of bad
taste.

then we spun again. again!
in hoe-riffic merriment. oh, we laughed!
the consuming comfort of conformity –
to cast thought away, to never wonder,
to intellectual indifference, to benign belligerence –
hushed whispers over steaming coffee and hasty lunches.

no one asked. no one
asked why we were doing this
at all.
why?

don’t think

don’t think of orange penguins
wrapped in scarves striped in red and white.

don’t think of aviating pigs, places
over the rainbow; don’t put up a fight.

don’t think of hair clips,
apart from those in black and blue.

don’t think of shoes in colours,
just thirty percent grey, yellow, and, yes again, blue.

don’t think of straying
out of the box or over the line.

don’t think at all. Follow!
and you’ll be just fine.

don’t think of anything
but the numbers one and six.

don’t think of what you love.
it’ll only make you sick.

don’t think of chasing your dreams.
you’ll only trip and fall.

don’t think of anything.
that’s the best – nothing at all.

don’t think.

Don’t. You. Dare.

rest

the leaves, as ever, are green
and lightly flutter with the faintest breeze
in this land without season,
but phantom shadows still haunt me
and all i see is the browning and falling
of everything about.

the curtain is drawn on
a furious year; desperate days gasp
to a sobbing, heaving close
and what you thought were eternal bonds,
forged of endless moments, perspiration
and tears, are nothing
more than the elusive wind,
memories and relationships of the stage.

thus we dwell and deal
in the superficial, skimming forever
on fragile surface, fearing what lies
below, of what may shatter the careful
illusion. thus we exist within the cracks
of what is real and we are content.

then let me clasp trembling hands
over the stillness of my breast
under the pungent dirt, tossed
carelessly with nary a glance
into the yawning chasm of self and soul;
let me utter under stifling clay
wretched cries drawn from
the well of infinite sorrow;
let me shed salty tears
into the grateful grasp of barren earth,

so let me rest.

My Third Term

Sports Day

For the fourth year running, my team finished second in the Parents-Teachers Race.

This year though i must admit i was somewhat culpable, having lost control of the exercise ball towards the end of my lap.

Oh well, at least it’s a familiar position.

Crab Flower Club

i thought it was an excellent production, especially in its blend of the profound and the comic.

i am grateful for 4I and 4M’s response.

Takeaways from organising this learning journey?

Make it compulsory.

Always.

And the night ended with an unsuccessful attempt to consume Rochor tau huey and a ten dollar note, hurriedly tossed.

Teachers’ Day

I really, really am thankful for the gifts/cards/cookies/candies/brownie.

Football and captain’s ball was fun.

The day a language teacher (EL, Mother Tongue whatever…) in Cedar wins the Greatest, Most Bestest, Fantabuloriffic, Super-Duper Devoted Teacher award, i will give a standing ovation and thereafter proceed outdoors to observe the rare phenomenon of aviating swines and buy 4D.

Sigh. Honestly.

Conclusion

Four and a half or five editions later, things really do lose their lustre.

Forgive me, Holy Father, for ever placing my trust, my hope, my joy, my comfort, my love in anyone or anything but You.

Mad About English

languige can ern money, meh
engrish can it one, ah
gahmen wan livesigns, leh
dey wan enginear, leh
den go an stardy mats lah!
go an stardy signs lah!
mats can it wan
signs oso can
can poot rice on de tehber
dun pray pray okay!

nex taam mus rite argue compo meh
nex taam mus tok reedem meh
nex taam mus in fur rens meh
but
nex taam can aply lo ga ri dem mah
nex taam can tok ess ess mah
nex taam haf too c contour mah
nex taam mus ji de bio an chem notes mah

ler ning not jus mug meh
ler ning not jus ben midnite oi meh
ler ning not jus ecksam teeps meh
ler ning not jus sp oon fid meh

god notes can aw reddy lah!
god spot can aw reddy lah!
god udder sk ool ecksam paypur can aw reddy lah!
god ten yer see rees can aw reddy lah!

god sex poin jiro can lah!
god wan poin jiro can lah!
god top fi can lah!
god for A can lah!
god dee gree can lah!
god musters can lah!
god pee haech dee can lah!
god mahnee den confirmed can lah!

languige ware can ern
dun tok kok!

My, You Do Express Yourselves Day

So Express Yourself Day came and went.

Perhaps it was the division of the Assembly, one featuring the Lower Secondary and the other the Upper Secondary.

Perhaps it was the general dolour that has descended upon the school since the H1N1 measures took effect.

Perhaps it just wasn’t as novel.

But i thought it lacked a little something.

Maybe it’s  just me.

The end of the school year draws on apace, and, to be honest, i am grieved.

What about exactly?

That i’m still figuring it out. But, currently, i would put it down to soon having to bid another class farewell – one i’m deeply, deeply fond of ; how “you can’t please everyone”, as a colleague put it so aptly yesterday, with good intentions; and, as ever, a gnawing dissatisfaction with my expression of worship (i hesitate to honour my pathetic offering with such a hallowed title…) and the bloated, self-serving, navel-gazing, simpering, limp, histrionic excuse we call the C….. .

rant. rant. rant.

And i wonder why i’m more disposed towards verse as a form of self-expression these days.

 

Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of Your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or i would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of  God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God,
you will not despise.

 

As ever, holy Father, break me; till all i am, i am for you.

Grief

the grief –
a seizure of the chest; shallow,
desperate breaths; a cruel,
slow, bleeding of my heart –

seems at times too much
to bear. and i wonder, how
i can go on; how to continue
to trudge within the gravid mud.

wearily; worn more so
by perceived ignorance, a staggering
insensibility, or perhaps my
inherent peripherality, my exiguous existence.

so i continue, to dwell,
buried, within the shroud
of ignominy; where i will lift,
at times, the darkened veil and cast

my soundless sighs
to a withered world.