Don't be shy to nod in agreement

An incomplete list of familiar sensations that we don’t so often pause to appreciate. It was fun trying to put deliberate thought into such subtleties. Here are a few.

1. The chilling twitches and shivers down your spine when your body tries to cope with the sudden loss of heat following the discharge of a golden fountain into a porcelain bowl.

2. The way your eyes melt and your nose implodes with swarming tension because you need just that one more dust particle to sneeze.

3. The volcanic eruption of concentrated lemon fluid that occurs when a certain small red dome is squeezed.

4. The way slime, snot and bacteria would caress the back of your throat every time you inhale a little too hard and swallow without much thought.

5. The way panic compels your body to manoeuvre around the house ten times faster than normal when you wake up five minutes before you need to leave the house.

6. The way certain death sends you back to sleep for a little while more before causing your body to manoeuvre around the house ten times faster than normal when you wake up forty-five minutes after you need to leave the house.

7. The default lethargy on days when there’s PE.

8. Peace after war in your abdomen after you find out it was actually just a really long and smelly fart that you needed, not without sweat though.

9. The denial of it, which may be the most convincing act people will ever see you perform.

10. The psychotic joy derived from learning that your teacher is on MC that causes you to dance around and flail your arms like a monkey who has just discovered that the former ninth planet of the solar system is not called Pluto but Banana.

The Great Deep

Before the stars were put in place
A Ghost pressed lightly on my face
I forked and fused where coasts imposed
With fins and scales in blue abode
Unbolted wrath, cry heav’nly gates
I swallowed Yahweh’s godless race
Save eight whose faith was true and pure
That which at Yam Suph hope ensured
But quick to stray, this errant lot
Whose prophet saw my creature’s jaw
T’was then I frothed my fury’s worth
E’en now my shape consumes the earth
But when He came, I knew t’was true
He raised his hand, my rage subdued
My death the final victory hails
But first from me will darkness rise
The beast who comes in thirteen one
To charm the daughters and the sons
But He who wipes the tears from Man
Will cast the Fiend into the depths
‘Tis then I shall be truly gone
And Heav’n and Earth shall be reborn.

~tc

11.5 more months is a long way to go

I secretly admire some people.

I was just retrieving my towel from the bamboo sticks outside the kitchen windows to bom-bom. The outer walls of the building had undergone rhytidectomy and whitening. As of today, it boasts of a pallid, dystopian blue-grey complexion. Then I went into the enclosure and maltreated my skin cells with shower lotion pudding. So I saved the observation for writing this now. No wonder they woke me up yesterday; the foreign workers who were scraping tint off my windows early in the morning. Outside my house. Five (it's higher than you think) storeys up on a rickety platform. Valiant beyond measure.

Then there’s Ajeet. The Indian floor-sweeper who greets me like Spongebob on coke every morning at the void deck before I drag my tuckered out atman to school. Amazing enthusiasm, I think. Ajeet's not his real name though, but he looks like one. Thin angular face, tributaries of wrinkles, once my height, maybe thrice my age, expert with the broom and the pan. Sounds like an Ajeet to me. Maybe it’s the cleaving prick of double vowels. Well, as long as it serves my memory.

Oh yeah. Ever noticed leaflet-distributors? Flick of the wrist; here, it’s paper, take it, now. It floats momentarily at your belly-level; maybe half a waist-length away. For a second you’re compelled to grab it to help the poor man finish his job. For a shorter second he detects your hesitation. No I don’t want to hold anything. Your feet agree. Sleight of hand; the pathetic slip of vellum withdraws to prone position to join its wad of clones. A blur of white and black. He preys on the next all-suspecting commuter. And the next, and the next, and the next. The escalator is my futon, he says. What professionalism.

And I continue to survey the golden mean between being humble and diligent.

In church.

Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad

New Year Sonnet

Should old acquaintance be forgot
In days of auld lang syne
And new connections be explored
In ever-changing times?
With him I laughed, with her I fought
To both I say goodbye
How oft’ shall souls my mind besot
If age I’ll never find?

When everyone has finally caught
Their chance to sing this rhyme
For all our lives what we have sought
Will bring us home in time.

Christmas Sonnet

The candy lights on Boulevard
Could match up to a Christmas card
In terms of sweetness none prefer
But not as bright because apart
From Santa’s cherry lavish girth
I pen a virgin’s giving birth
The song she sings from heav’n inspired
Exploding with rhapsodic mirth

A peace that reigns supreme on earth
For you and I has He reserved
What better gift I cannot tell
Save God Himself, Emmanuel.

~tc©

Sonnet

Sonnet

If earth was a coin that could buy a bouquet,
Then tails would be night and heads would be day.
The faults and the grooves, the coppery smooth,
The designer’s initials for roses would pay.
A flick, a toss, a fortnight is lost
And into a pocket the dime is now yours.
Her tribes stick like grime upon common exchange
But who really knows if their home is worth more.

No one quite bothers, and truth be told
A quarter’s a quarter, not silver or gold.
So I smell the flowers and caress my ring
A gift for my dearest, the world be sold.

~tc©

Storge, Philia, Eros, Agape

“I’ve done everything I wanna do in my life except to just give and feel love for my living. And I don’t mean like Roman-candle-firework-Hollywood-hot-pink love, I mean like I-got-your-back love.” – John Mayer

What a way to win the ladies, John.

I guess there’s a reason why this L-word has been like poetry material since…way before Shakespeare’s mom.

So what’s the secret behind the magic?

“Sex is currency. She’s easier than love.” – Jon Foreman

What leads to giving birth has also given birth to literature, art, commercialism, more recently an 'emo' culture. Now to a chimp that would sound completely ridiculous, but I guess that’s one of the things that perform a differential favour on our behalf.

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.” –Heather Cortez

Aww. You and I know this feeling. Glee, satisfaction, warmth, pleasure, passion, and of course the idea of someone else sharing the same joy. Everyone dreams of an arbitrary someone special. Don't we just wanna be wanted, smiled at, teased and affected affectionately?(wow this almost sounds like projection) And he or she just has to provide all of that, stay faithful to you, and we live happily ever after, oh then die together in each other’s arms, eyes lost toward the brilliant night sky, right?

Pedigrees could do that.

So check this out, some people say relationships are like climbing a mountain; marriage is at the top. On the big day he goes (in tears of joy and a silly wide smile) “I can’t believe I actually married you!”, and then he says the same thing twenty years down the road.

Or maybe, love is a lifelong commitment and marriage is just public affirmation. 

“Yes, I will cherish you forever, my love.” 

“Yes, whether in pink or ailing health, I will cherish you forever, my love.” 

“Ye..yes, even when you’ve departed, I will still bring you roses everyday, my love.” 

“Ye...ye...yes, even when you’re ninety, I will still fondle with your breasts...my love!” 

The world is in love, and it’s in love with love itself. I wonder if it's just a teenage syndrome; MSN nicknames reveal a lot. Every boy wants to be his girlfriend’s first lover, and every girl wants to be her boyfriend's last woman. It seems like we really don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into when we make that promise, do we.

“Love itself is what is left when being in love has burnt away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.” – Augustine

L-O-V-E. Make it or break it. No pun intended. Puppy love, maybe? Cute, popular, compelling, and its martyrs only needed that bit of discernment to stay alive. Psychotics and suicidals all have a fare share of their population under its mercy. 

But then of course, sometimes even when things were really so genuine, maybe the winds just hit too hard. Our love is not perfect.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

Trust her on that one. Love is blind because it goes far beyond red roses and baby blues. Love goes beyond tangy lips and holding hands, beyond ‘being there for you’, beyond a marriage deal.

“Love is patient, love is kind.” – 1 Cor 13:4

Love is patient, love is glad to swallow; love is kind, love is glad to let you borrow.

They say, "Life is hard, love is simple."
For love He died to give you life. Now that’s a tad too irreducible.

Happy National Day 2008!!!

How sad, NDP just had to be right after Beijing's big day. But it's okay, let me sing you a song.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to Singapore
Happy birthday to you

You’re a peaceful country
Where no villains roam free
We laugh as we’re tethered by
Realpolitik democracy

We are so, so happy
With our peace and prosperity
Please build more casinos
To feed our families

And so…..

Happy birthday to Yew
Happy birthday to Yew
Happy birthday to singapore
Happy birthday to Yew!!!