Exercises in Colour: Red Sonnet

Red was the ribbon that threaded my hair
Red were the candies I bought at the fair
Red was my kite when I ran through the grass
Red was my laughing heart, fragile as glass.

Red were my dresses so frayed at the seams
Red were the poppies that haunted my dreams
Red are the streets with the rivers of death
Red are the eyes of the children bereft.

Red is the wine whispering lie after lie
Red are the eyes that can no longer cry
Red is the mark of your hand round my wrist
Red is the wound from my paramour's kiss.

Red are the flowers that wilt in my hair;
Red are the streaks of my manic despair.

Take It Back

Take it back, this sudden invasion by your tears;

I will make a dam of fingers around your eyes, and

an oubliette for your perverse addictions.

Damn you; what gave you the right to cry?

Take it all back, all this maudlin madness;

Jerky puppet, hung on emotional strings -

Going into frenzies and bleeding words.

Your pain is paper-thin perception

Your grief is a cheap prescription.

I will no longer track your orbiting moons;

nor watch your constellations

shift their shapes in your skies.

Take it back, your shadowed nuances;

I will not dance to your hemlock tunes

or the mocking whistle of your morbid madness.

Your dream is an exhaled breath;

dissipating into the vaccuum.

January 2011

No Saints

I need it cleaner, meaner, leaner;
crafted to cut in just one stroke.
I need to bleed.

Chained to my pedestal;
can't get off the altar -
inhaling the incense of
your violence; all your prayers
are recriminations.

Unleash my collar; take these
tags away from me - spare me
the whiplash of your anger.

You desecrate my privacy,
spilling blood upon my waters.

I cannot grant you absolution;
My God is laughing while
your Devil dances.

I need it sudden, sharp and silent;
poised to pierce in just one gasp.
I need to breathe.

August 2010

The Be All and End All

I made it home today in time to do the nightly routine with the offspring; even managed to squeeze in a game of Baby Monopoly before bedtime. When I stumbled out of the bedroom at close to 10pm, light-headed with hunger, my first thought was to get some food into my system. My helper chooses this opportune time to tell me that the diapers that I had bought last week were too big, and by God, I felt like a criminal.

I started to explain that I had bought a size up because they had run out of the usual sizes, but I stopped mid-sentence because I just couldn’t finish what I had wanted to say; seized by a sense of failure and despair so deep that it brought tears to my eyes.

I know I don’t spend enough time with Aoife, and I know that the guilt I carry in me causes me to interpret every innocuous comment as an accusation. I’m wound-up so tight that I sometimes lie awake at night listening to the sound of my teeth clenching, and trying to still the nervous twitch in my fingers. It’s not funny.

It seems as if I hold the clues to every mystery in the house – the mystery of the missing keys/wallet/phone (I can really empathise with St Jude sometimes); the mystery of the miraculous self-paying bills; the mystery of the magic auto-packing schoolbag... and the list goes on. It's hard to shed the entire Superwoman persona, and just exit to the wings, away from the stage lights and the unspoken demands of an expectant audience. It's harder to admit that the greatest pressures come from within, and the one that's shouting the loudest for me to run faster, jump higher, do more, and just be more, is really none other than myself.

All kids think of their parents as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient... and we break our backs to be that way, dreading the inevitable day when our children will realise that we are only human. But I realise how important it is for me to try to be kind to myself - to shrug off the little misses, and to celebrate each hard-earned hit. Because only when we recognise and accept that all of us are imperfect beings who are capable of numerous blunders, can we learn, and teach our children, how to bend and not break.

Learn to... be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Ashes in My Mouth

You know, I absolutely detest eating alone.

I’m not talking about those snatched meals out of a Styrofoam box that I have for lunch at my office every working day, usually procured after a 20-minute queue in the line, and eaten joylessly while in front of what has become, by default, my best friend – the PC.

I’m referring to those late nights alone in my own kitchen, after the kids have finally gone to the Land of Dreams, when I’m perched atop a bamboo stool with a plate piled with rice and lukewarm dishes. Throughout the house, the lights are off, and there’s only silence while I chew contemplatively on my kangkong, or whatever passes for greens in my diet. There’s something really sad about this whole setup.

As a Chinese, I grew up in a culture where mealtimes are more than just moments when one fills the belly. There’s a whole lot of thought and preparation that goes into each meal, and when Mom says it’s time to eat, it’s time to eat – not a minute sooner, and not one later (my father did not entertain latecomers at the table). Mealtimes are family times, and sharing food is a way of sharing love, and of reinstating the bonds of kinship. Every Chinese knows that to be invited to another’s dinner table is a sign that one has been accepted as “one of the family” – a truly great honour.

These are modern times. The kids have their own meal schedules (of course they’d probably be starving by the time we get home from work), and the individual adults have their own timetables too, not to mention their own specific foods. These days, we don’t adhere have a dinner time – dinner isn’t served; just eaten when one feels like it, or when one can find time to choke down a few mouthfuls.

I know I’m letting nostalgia get the better of me, and that realistically, there isn’t really very much I can do, because our contemporary lifestyles are so hectic and so practical. But in losing the cultural practice of the shared mealtime, I am losing my taste and interest in any cuisine. Because when one eats alone, food just tastes bland, and is cold cold comfort to a tired and lonely soul.

Battle

Fletched feathered arrow
Snug in the string of the bow
Poised.
Waiting.

Fly me, archer, to the mark.

How taut the spine
That never learned to snap.

Light me, and let me circle
Wide flaming arcs
To spiral your night.

You burn the tip of me
But I fly true
I still fly true.

Your marching phalanx
Mocks my lonely charge
Sarissas high.

But I will find that weakness
I will pierce your armour -
Pierce it, impaling
Your quivering heart.

Fly me, archer, to the mark
For I fly true

I will still win
This battle called

You.

2002

Photo by koukei

Carnegie's

It’s madness, all this
bared flesh,
ribs, thighs, breasts and
all, all bundled, pushed together in
this abattoir of sin.

Butchers, lining up,
lip-licking, fingers splayed and

eyes, eyes glaring hunger;
so much meat to devour.

Eerie carcasses, jerking
to loud drink, emitting abandon;

Circles and circles of arms enfold
the falling and
the fallen.

Slice the air; red blood condenses –

Lead us to the slaughter, to be
laid on the cold black slab and offered;

I want to be
the lamb, the lamb, the lamb.

Choose me
I am beautiful
Sacrifice me on
the altar.

2002

Painting by Lily Mazahery -"In Remembrance"