creeping along my hairline in
beads of sweat and in
my eyes, in the corners he
urges along tears, rides them,

painting

down


my




cheeks,



then onto my neck,
kissing my collar bone
and, in passing,
tickles the freckles
between my
*******.

the little that's left of him fingers into
streams on my belly that has
been hungry for him -



- he knows.

your hips are
sinking ships,
floating along my
jawline, my lips,
take trips along
southern
borders

and you smile like
I wanted you to

can't you see what i'm trying to do
it's about ******* time you knew

so cold it's almost hot
your face an apparition in the backyard lot

broken glass above snow above grass

I'm sure if I saw my eyes on someone else
I would think they are beautiful.
But on myself
I don't notice them at all.

sometimes, i sense myself spilling
my youth from a fragile glass jar.

other times, i conclude it's just me storing
up for frantic spending in its decaying days.

but mostly, my duties occupy the space -
this intangible commodity squeezes for place.

such metaphors would have been absurd and
bizzare to the shrieking children of the kampong days

my grandparents talked about: climbing trees that rusted
with rambutans, ankles dipped in mud burgeoning with

self-invented games, a bedlam of clucking chickens fleeing
unsuccessfully, dinner for a hut bursting with extended family.

nothing i can identify with: neither a similar event, nor
a familiar atmosphere of wild abandonment of youth.  

i exist in a time where parents knock on rooms to bring their
students nutritious chicken essence, with a stack of expectations.

what's so good about progress: when our roots are saliva-speak,
when our youth and beyond are spent before it's expiry?

much like acclimatisation, i am ashamed to reveal that,
many times i can feel alive only when i adhere to the routines in

this city of expectations.

They say
that a beginner
has many options,
but an expert
has one or none,
so I joined
a new website
where there
are thousands
of great photographers,
so, inspired by them
I decided
to enroll in Buddha's self-help school
of beginning photography,
and actually
I have never liked
photography as an art form,
until I began studying
and now I am obsessed
by the actions
of my little Kodak
that gives me
such amazing
bad photography.

I

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

II

Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that ***** -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

III

And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.

IV

And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.

V

Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'

VI

And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.

VII

And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .