Memories of Dreams

Underneath an incensed pink-orange sky
I found myself dreaming of a troubled hero
Swathed in shades of grey
Even as the night turned mellow indigo
A play on colours and shades
Like love which once was vivid
Turn a corner, start to fade

What would you and I
Make of each other if
We accidentally wound up
In the same physical space?

In Thailand I dreamed
We were sitting in a white capsule
Surrounded by glass and
The crystal clear water, which tried to splash in
Slid smoothly back down the protective surface

It couldn't reach us
Just like we couldn't reach each other
(Like we couldn't reach ourselves?)

In all the ambivalence
I'm comforted to know I haven't even scratched the surface
I only keep coming back to you
Because there's no-one else to come back to

Your loss is another's gain

Socially Acceptable Emotion

Out of sync with what passes for 'common experience'
I run far ahead then linger as if in a trance
Waiting for the world to catch up just a little
So I can reprise my instinct to leave it far behind again
Searching for resonant questions, wondering why
Nobody told me I would grow up to be
So unreceptive to the majority

I'm all upset, and they don't like it
Don't want to see how much deeper things can go
How assumptions are best questioned
How they've been mired in horror for so long

My life is half documentary, half fantasy
I become attuned to the need to rearrange
Everything I know about this page
I currently rest my pen upon

And if I look further I would no doubt discover
A sidelong surreptitious glance owned by another
But I'm too panicked by my own spectacle
When will I feel at my most respectable?

My eyelids are heavy and I glisten with hope
People shatter and raise it, I perspire and dehydrate
I know I cling on to an unreliable rope
I oscillate between sedate and irate

Wouldn't understand how to numb my curiosity
Couldn't dumb down my culture of enquiry
I'm aglow again, because they think I'm askew
My happiness can only signal a radical break from socially acceptable emotion

Melaccan Mystery

The doctor wants to get a sample of my blood
But I'm too busy bleeding metaphorically
I don't want to give anything away
Except ideas, which I share, euphorically
Fruit is borne of the conflict
That keeps me stirring, inside
Fabulously fragmented living
I'm resolutely mine, you'll find

I can get caught up in the details
Of the number of days spent in a town
But if I juggle different clusters of variables
The perplexing constructions tumble down

Melacca, a tiny dot on the map
A place to experience traditions
Can I learn something irreplaceable
From this charming brand of conservativism?

Big Asian megalopolises I've seen before
In fact, I still struggle to let Seoul sink in
I breathe in the excitement and sedation
Grimy emissions, silky transmissions...

Such an instance, fails to abate
The joy of the bigger picture
I'm more in touch than I believe
I've always thought it was an inferior tincture
I was lugging around
Stamped atop my halo
And carved out by my steps in the ground
But I'll let the concept go
Unfurl itself out of my system like invisible smoke
To myself much metaphors I do evoke

In the Evening

When the people are almost completely drained of their energy, I have a choice: Do I stay asleep, or awaken?

In the Morning
I wonder if I can find another, more rewarding way to be. Does it involve being less or more aware? Am I approaching the right note, or am I in the wrong key? How many frequencies should I resonate in?

In the Afternoon
I visualise myself as going with the flow, attuned to the undertow, making with the overtones, persistently reinventing the zone.

Where am I now?

It's always evening, morning or afternoon somewhere. I am a multiplicity of states. They bleed into each other, even during the same day. I wake up at 10am. I wake up at 10pm. It's never the same journey.

What will you see in me, I wonder?

Disrespect

Stockholm's Nobelmuseet (Nobel Museum) is so full of treasures that it was only towards the end of my stay that I noticed that there were words stuck on the floor around the two movie theatres I was mesmerised by. Some of them were not particularly surprising, such as creativity. But then I saw one which reinvigorated my thought process.

Disrespect. White letters on dark grey.

If you want to engage with something more interesting, you have to say goodbye to all the unconditionally respectful dynamics you were encouraged into from a young age, then misguidedly clung to out of fear.

How hard can you swim against the tide?

Happy to fail, ecstatic to succeed

I guess that's the philosophy I need to adopt.

Celebrating Rob Thomas

Rob Thomas is somewhere between mainstream and eccentric, and I have been devoted to his inventive melodies and soul-wrenching lyrics ever since I was in high school. 

Here are some of my favourite songs of his:

Bent by Matchbox 20 (the verses are pure genius):

It's the chorus and bridge I adore in Gasoline:

I love everything about Downfall, except that I feel the gospel goes on a little too long:

 

All That I Am, meanwhile has beautiful Oriental touches: