belgrade

i was in belgrade. with my family, in winter and snow. i’ve never seen belgrade before. seemed another typical eastern european sort of town. i don’t know why we were there. some sort of holiday. we got a nice hotel, huge. a little stuck in time but otherwise impeccable in service. we heard there was actually a good italian restaurant somewhere and decided to try and find it, hoping that some summery italian food would help with the cold. from the hotel we took a cab and then a train on a rather long journey, or perhaps it is just that everything moves very slowly in belgrade and so it was just the time that was long. we got to a shopping square of sorts, like a busy old cobblestone town with shophouses on both sides on the street. near the corner and a little further off was the italian place. lovely.  

when we got back to our hotel i spent some time exploring it since it seemed endless. down in the basement area were the huge function rooms and service kitchens. there were many people coming and going, not just the hotel staff. i wonder where they went so i trailed the relative flow of people, past some rooms, through a service entrance, round a corner and out. curisouly i found myself in some place that seemed vaguely familiar. then i realised i was next to the italian restaurant. how peculiar, that a long journey we took to find it in avery different looking neighbourhood should also be no more than round a corner from inside the hotel. i retraced my route and find myself back in the function room basement. i went back up to the lobby and it was bustling as ever.

next meal, the folks wanted to just stay in the hotel and have the hotel’s dinner special for the day, which was an outdoor banquet feast of local fare, in the snowy weather. i wasn’t too keen but they were and they left me to my devices. almost nonchalantly. then i somehow knew that a friend of mine was also staying in the hotel. initally i followed my folks out into the billowing snow where benches had been set up with sturdy wooden tables. countless numbers of them for all the multitudes of people who wanted to eat. they seemed spread out on differing levels and slopes even and looking down i realised that a steep almost sheer ravine was below. some peole had ventured along the barely foot-wide narrowness of a slip that ran along all the way down in the windy snow. everyone seemed light and happy but i found the place to be rather disconcerting.

so i decided instead to look up my friend for dinner and was thinking of the shortcut to the italian place. after all my folks had seemed to morph into strangers and hardly seemed to notice me at all, as if they suddenly did not know me. even my friend seemed a bit odd, rather hyper and merrily scaling the ravine up and down. something odd was at work, i couldn’t quite get a fix on it, but it was certainly something about the place. and all the while the snow just billowed around us.

the test is in the writing

today i realise how rusty i am. i have not had any written test like this since i went to jc or university. for a  moment i had a slight creeping of dread as to how the heck i was going to write legibly and quickly enough to complete any of it decently. and in a room all by myself with rather cold air-conditioning, which means even stiffer digits let alone dexterity. apart from pen and paper, it was nice to be offered a laptop too. although i had certain resevations about using a laptop, mainly for honest reasons,  i gave in because i thought my handwriting would be an embarrassment at best, and chicken scratchings at worst.

it didn’t seem like it was just my fingers that were immobile from lack of  pen use, but my mind was equally stiff too. that plus the heavy lunch i just ate before the test which was full of creamy pasta goodness with potato, bacon, asparagus, spoonfuls of a kicking full-bodied minestrone, and paper-thin pizza with more potato and spicy cod roe. but i digress. this is a feeble attempt of a colouful listing that i stuffed my face with.  

for the paper i faced listings of questions instead, some of which i realised i didn’t quite give a damn about even though i should be fairly familiar with their subject matters, partly because of overloads which lead one to a sort of mental bulimia by the end of the day – retching stuff today to absorb again tomorrow. no wonder i seem to have an increasingly short short-term memory. come to think of it, i wonder if a sort of apathy actually helps to retain one’s sanity where i work.

so to avoid all this and avoid spotting of factual errors, i had to settle on an abstract question instead. this sort seemed the most fun to write anyhow, although for the life of my poor addled brain it quickly dawned on me that my mental gears were also quite badly cobwebbed. suddenly writing creatively seemed like the challenge you faced when writing a full-length composition for the first time in primary school, and presenting cogent arguments felt like the first general paper essay – except you had to juggle both at the same time and still sound like a well-read, eloquent, astute adult worthy of the stripes your university education earned you.

despite all these trepidations, i actually found that i rather enjoyed the process somewhat by the time i was done. i don’t think i wrote my best (i’m never satisfied with what i write anyway), but at least i didn’t feel it was a total disaster under the circumstances. it made me miss writing all the more, the enjoyment of playing with ideas. and made me realise just how badly working life and work reports damage vocabulary and creativity levels. truly a case of english as it is broken.

salve

did i glimpse my salvation so fleetingly

in that sliver of a moment in that time

twixt twilight and dawn

when night is its darkest

 

was it you who reached for me

or You

in that space between word and feeling

between comprehension and consciousness

 

i remained cosseted in my warm blanket

unwilling to taste chill

 

 

dreary lane

dreary lane

see i’m walking back down again

all your winding twistedness

you just knew i’d return

didn’t you?

didn’t you?

ashen slopes and crooked steps

filthy drains and raining wet

it’s always the same

you should be weary lane

why don’t we wake the neighbours this time round?

jolt the dead who sleep so sound?

i’m just one of you in the end

may as well embrace

that smell and the taste

of when it all ends

see the crumbling bricks

the tart turning tricks

that’s how it will end

that’s how it will end

dreary lane to futile bend

that’s how it will end

that’s how it will end

dreary lane to bitter end

zoopreme

see the monkey at the computer

multitasking fries and coke

see the pig next to him skiving

playing busy telling jokes

 

the bitch the boss is yelling

weasel assistant connives

the cock asserts his authority

the cat curls up her knives

 

and us humans we make coffee

yeah coffee for the team

we just make the coffee

see the world unfold its dream

 

cos this world is just zoopreme yeah

this world is just zoopreme

 

the horse does the most work around here

the rhino bulldozes his way

the snake swallows up the pantry

and those it don’t want to stay

 

we humans don’t mean nothing here

just part of office space

we do what we’re supposed to

then exit this bloody place

 

cos us humans we make coffee

yeah coffee for the team

we just make the coffee

see the world unfold its dream

 

and this world is just zoopreme yeah

this world is just zoopreme

see the animals run the dream

peach pie wings

what could you be up to

my love with peach pie wings

i’ve seen you out about in style

enchanting everything

 

your starry coat can’t hide you

can’t cover your magic wings

won’t you take me to your stars

so I can leave everything

 

what could you be up to

my love with peach pie wings

so warm and so tender you are

and so sticky and sweet within

 

up to you i want to reach

to taste you of your peach

feel the love that you bring down

in me crumble your crown

 

what could you be up to

my love with peach pie wings

the glitter dust you scatter

just fascinates everything

 

what could you be up to

my love with peach pie wings

i’ve seen you out about in style

enchanting everything

 

enchanting everything

my love with peach pie wings

familiar stranger

you all blond and fair

tracing cigs in the air

trying your damnest to be dirty

but that face of yours

so angelic devil fine

leaves a different stain on time

i thought i’d never fall

but softly hardly at all

you’re everything just as you’re none before

see the haunt in your eyes

as damned as it’s divine

and i know that i want nothing more

this tainted love this blemished beauty this decadent demise

small town madness

can’t open my eyes

even when it’s day

can’t raise myself

even if i had to save

myself from this place

what if everywhere’s the same? 

so i was born here

in a small town

with nothing much to do

and the more it’s a small town the more mad you’ll be too

follow through

turn away

turn away

here is nothing left to see

the light you think is up ahead

is not eternity

we just wanted to find the way

the way simple and free

but there’s only night where there should be day

placed misleadingly

 

and there’s nothing anyone can do

there’s nowhere left to go

only thing to follow through

try to hang on to your soul

 

turn away

turn away

you don’t need eyes where you will go

only thing to follow through

try to hang on to your soul  

small small world 2

today just became part 2. came home, saw an envelope in the mail and wondered what it could be since i wasn’t expecting any personal letters from anyone… then it struck me. it must be next month’s wedding invite. true enough it really was. but unbelievably the dinner for my 2 good friends is gonna be at the exact same hotel that bestie did hers in just 2 months ago.

talk about wedding wipeout, i need 2 escape(s)…