The Abduction of Amelia Earhart

I don't know much about her except for

'Adventure is worthwhile in itself'

but the moment I set eyes on

Collage by Joana Coccarelli

I knew it must have been.

Tonight I lay alone in the baby pool looking up at the salmon-smokey clouds in the night sky through artifically planted coconut trees in my auntie's housing estate, my ears were submerged in the pool so everything felt like a vacuum and I was somewhere else. Slowly I realised there was a ringing tone in the baby pool. Brrrrr...........brrrrr.............I sat up into the real world and looked around. There was no one else. Then I let my ears in again, they got filled up, and there it was, somewhere in the depths of the 0.6m pool......Brrrrr...........brrrr.................was it Amelia calling from outer space?

Then I got up and sat extremely still and my goosepimple legs were hugely magnified in the water and didn't seem like mine. Little bubbles were sprinkled all over my belly. They are like pearls you can't touch because they keep running away, you can't even feel their surface. But you can flick them up and they fly to the surface, like parachutes going the other way. I stared at the tiles with my eyes so close to the water it felt like my eyes were seeing that way by themselves, and the grimy turquoise tiles were like the surface of an alien planet with distorted proportions and no weather, and luminescent waves of light floated across the surface like gentle dancing, and I stared harder and it was like a miniscule Amelia was climbing the tiles which were steps from another angle, climbing endless grimy turquoise steps in an other-land that wasn't peaceful or bad but just. And then it was time to go home.

My love, she speaks like silence

Saigon, please wait for me.

You have selected a departure date that is in the past.

'Spit your oranges into this basin!'

'I am falling off the castle! Hallllp!'

'Spit, SPIT!!!!!!!'

'I don't understand why we are not in the swimming pool?'

'Why did I ever fall in love with you? Too many oranges! Madness bloody manic madness stupid craze everyday from bloody pips and orange peels and orange-coloured faeces'

'Let's dive off the castle and forget about oranges forever'

'WHY CAN'T YOU EAT LEMONS INSTEAD'

Kristin's Dream In November

I went thru the turnstyle to the party
In the risqué penthouse that was not
A penthouse, I followed people but maybe
They weren't people, it was ethical
To follow them over the edges of the balloons
Until we found some tapsons to eat, heartily
We indulged & found the right move in relation
To the movements of the lion's mouth, the mouth
Which counted all who entered & left waywardly
Haphazardly the immigrant sphere where
Frozen petals fell behind the red curtain
So slowly they woke me like a knock on door #7
Behind which I'm dreaming
& trying to tango remorselessly


Bernadette Mayer

*

After eight hours of sitting in an air-conditioned room in front of a computer analysing forms, papers and proposals, I get home and am eager for a hot bath but before that I like to stand naked admiring myself in the huge toilet mirror, under the orange light that casts eyelash shadows of black-spikes under my eyes, and thaw.

Jeanette, Oranges are not the only fruit

"As it is, I can't settle. I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never be destroyed. That is why they are unfit for romantic love. There are exceptions and I hope they are happy."


"The unknowness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That's what I will find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on. Except they might have a growth rate I can't measure, or they might mutate, or even disappear. One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but that's quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It's not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because there are different kinds of infidelity, but betrayal is betrayal wherever you find it. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, and then being on somebody else's."

The curious are always in some danger. If you are curious you might never come home, like all the men who now live with mermaids at the bottom of the sea.

Oranges are not the only fruit, Jeanette Winterson

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”

Picasso

Rusty John Lemon Snare

Drawings and words from an alternate universe

lemongrass clouds: My Star, Him

Scent is a symbolic of flourish and intangible happiness

How many words can you rearrange your name into?

Thonburi

Kanchanaburi

Ginje XI

You like fish?

I LOVE YOU

I'm not saying I love you

I won't say I'll be true
There's a crimson bird flying
when I go down on you


Ballad of the Broken Seas




I think he used to like my mother.

Now she is married to the only man she has eyes for and they have children. So does he, but once.

What hard eggs.

Spellbound

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing dear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

Emily Brontë

Now it seems to me some fine things have been laid upon your table

But you only want the things

you can't get.

If reality is constructed in the mind and life is only as we perceive it, then if given a chance would you want to be put in a sleep forever where your mind can dream whatever it wants to, construct worlds, greece, spain, oceans, even outer space, beyond the milky way, even back in time, kampongs and medieval castles; could you agree and accept that as reality, knowing flesh-and-blood life could never give you that? Could the lover from the dream become REAL like the blood and bones lover standing before you who is, equally, a perception?

What stops ye?

Waking up everyday without reporting to someone, not spending the day in an air-conditioned room, using the day thinking and making things, but most of all

the world of adventures, places, rides, strangers, corners, oceans, fields.

I suppose I'm stubborn and seem mad, but I only feel sane thinking this way.

What does it mean to Make a Living?

I suppose, ironically, one has to work for freedom, towards being more free.

She comes down from Yellow Mountain
On a dark, flat land she rides
On a pony she named Wildfire
With a whirlwind by her side
On a cold Nebraska night

She ran calling Wildfire

ode to no one

my cartwheels are never straight
for the dust inside my bones
pollute my young boy's frame
make my rosy little cheeks
the rouge of an old grand gran;
happy laugh lines are wrinkles
lying against plump pillows
on moonlit nights with crickets
outside the cracking wood windows
lying with soft feet crossed
can't sleep or weep
dreaming of cartwheels
and circus crowds
the marvellous blue-yellow tent
sticky slippery lollies
and steaming caramel corn.
i do cartwheels for you, my sweet
handstands tumbles somersaults
just to get to your dark hole
my love is a cartwheel
strong and free and flying hair
green grass to cirrus skies
to lie with you in a caravan
how grand we'd be
for no one to see
just me and my ruby ring
you and your hohner rust
forever young
forever old.

Do you think to kill me?

There's no flesh and blood within this cloak to kill. There is only an idea. Ideas are bulletproof.

-V for Vendetta

*

A new year, and I've never felt more different. I don't know what it is. Wake up every weekday to do something that does not make me happy, wait for the next fulltime job with hope but a large dose of cynicism, brewing plans in the cauldron of my mind, butterflies in my stomach from possibilities, clinging onto old but always fresh fantasies of greece, spain, japan, and magic, more than ever, understanding more about the world and the un-world and myself and what I am to become, thinking of all my plans, plans, plans of which some may never bubble and some will. And the first meal of the year was The Elvis. It's going to be a good year.

*

I haven't slept well in three weeks, and am hardly allowed access to dreamland. Listening to MR. CHILDREN's 深海 restores some hope in men. One hardly meets them but I do everyday. The fruit uncle downstairs who has no favourite fruit.

Dive into the big blue sea!

Why is it so hard to find a sea around here to dive into?

Why don't we have a deep dark wood?

And John, because I can't ask my Mummy or Papa, why can't we lie down somewhere at night and look at the stars?

Lastly, what is the meaning of breasts and pubic hair?

honey pie, you are driving me frantic

sail across the Atlantic

to where you belong

' ' ' blood oranges ' ' '

' ' ' self-invented 成语 from a fruit uncle, 42 years at the job ' ' '

' ' ' dear papa, i'm on a train ' ' '

' ' ' white capsicums- witches' favourite fruit ' ' '

' ' ' breakfast ' ' '

' ' ' i said i wouldn't buy leather, but for my bunions i did. ' ' '

' ' ' grandmother's worst horror: trusty 5-year old mary-janes, from forest treks to wedding dinners ' ' '

' ' ' the trees in ang mo kio are crying ' ' '

peppermint teardrops

On researching for my job interviews I found Ecole Philippe Gaulier-

“As an actor and a director, I’ve gained so much through learning from him. Philippe is a true master not only because he is capable of seeing the hidden beauty of actors but also his great ability to liberate actors to present these beauties and shine uniquely on stage.” Ecole Philippe Gaulier graduate, Mr Alvin Chiam

* * * * * * * * * * *

Bouffon, an artform which he holds as a sort of inverted Clown, where a balance is struck between grotesqueness and charm.

During these performances, the bouffon's goal was to get away with insulting or disgusting the beautiful people as much as possible. Typically, the bouffon would target their attack on the leaders within the mainstream of society, such as the government or the Roman Catholic Church.

The ideal performance for a bouffon would be one where the audience is wildly entertained, and then go home, realize their lives are meaningless, and commit suicide. This of course is a theoretical ideal instead of an anticipated outcome.

*

Why is it so easy to enrol?

Why not? Everything is so complicated in France.

Why don’t you hold auditions?

Because the role of the teacher is to change the person, not to judge them.

sour raindrops

On the bus on the way to work, passing Ang Mo Kio at 8 plus a.m. when golden sunshine is at its most glorious beauty, moving scenes play out as if it is a mini set I watch from the bus window. A long haired dark skinned man smokes on a little hill facing Caltex, his cigarette smoke illuminated against the golden rays. After Caltex, two Chinese men sit on pavement; one looks ahead with his tattered bag in his lap, one opens the day's papers. Moving on at regular speed, a maid pushes a baby on a little pink toy car. Behind is a scene of tall nice HDB flats. Should I think it's perverse or lovely?

At ALB we play with real memories, real people, real feelings. I am reminded of how the real reaches out from all the unreal we seem to be creating, when my father declines to attend the performance. Poor Engineer Mr. Ng is making me feel very emotional these days without realising it himself. Though eldest precious daughter Ng is also always giving dear Papa a lot of grief.

Looking back at looking back

I'm looking back a lot these days. Can't help it. Is this what they call the transition? If I go anywhere I only want it to be a place where I know how to make my dreams come true. Everything is then and now and how I thought life was ___ but it was ___. It's not such a tragedy because it's still wobbly jelly and not a dark hole but it still is a tragedy because now I know that all adults are people who believed in magic and spoke to themselves and played pretend; everyone had that in them, it's just varying degrees of letting go. When I listen to Lovely Rita it's the 17-year-old me in Sgt. Pepper mode, fancy-free at the garden tables. When I listen to Love Minus Zero/No Limit, it's old hot weekday afternoons that no longer are, it's all feelings I can't describe. Maybe that's why synaesthetics are so blessed. THE ONLY MAGIC POWER LEFT? The sages of today, they see things we don't, where are they?

Black-Beetle Bearded Man and Lovely Pirate Olive Oyl

It was the most beautiful dance I ever saw before my eyes.

Today at swing dance, my nervous friend was getting his bearings and consulting his manual of possible moves so I stood there waiting.

Black-Beetle Bearded Man had come from nowhere, an unfamiliar face (but so was I; maybe he is famous to all, unbeknown to me), a tall strong lanky body with a bearded face that somehow had a moustache that curled royally, and twinkling eyes. And she, the founder of the school, in her fifties I reckon, was in her pirate dress- half of it red striped with a qipao collar, the other half deep sea blue. And her red converse shoes as usual. They danced like pure magic. Hopping and swinging and tapping and polkadotting and his legs were like two jumpy grasshoppers and her wrinkles matched her clothes. It was like having googly glowing jelly move through your blood, watching them.

An old pot-bellied caucasian man in a purple shirt and high socks and sport shoes came too- another new face. He spent 15 minutes giving advice to a girl on how to dance, then rested on a chair. Another new face sat quietly on the floor with his backpack and legs wide open, observing everyone seriously. I left early to do office work due tonight and did not get to dance clumsily with any of them.

Pi in the sky, and a broken heart.

from the cloud appreciation society site

Aren't they beautiful?

I hear crickets in my room. They're asking me to close my eyes, and be calm.