fiction
From the training manual for the purely focused:
"Even should your body be unclean, from bleeding, discharge, or not bathing, you shall stay clean in mind.
"Rise above the physical squalor, social filth, and emotional sprawl, and remain consistently attentive to your long-term purpose, which during protracted training you have repeatedly pledged yourself to.
"Besides concerning yourself mainly with the necessary & realistic, seek to act on the simple & immediate.
You of course know to avoid pitfalls from hunger, lust & hubris, but will most likely fail & fall.
"When you should somehow succeed anyway, you would have achieved an invisible bubble of invulnerability surrounding oneself, such that you may live and move about unhassled in plain sight.
"These are my last words for now, in your ongoing pursuit of the clean one."
Monday, February 08, 2010
Sunday, February 07, 2010
The wheel keeps turning
He was there within the caves
When the species was young
and pictures were still words
Speaking out to the world
still lonely of his kind
His would be the long death
before his forever records
Saw light once more
one day far to come
Their speech compiled history
despite folk of the ages
blind to future cycles
deaf to honest truth
mute by the crush of time
Their tongues are dry now
symbols unintelligible
pressed into dry books
Yet look around you
civilisation in the latest
generational blooms
Her proses ran endlessly on
novels capturing secret hearts
fossilised into later classics
But then paper must yield
to energy-come-alive material
Although so many not know yet
their repositories of tree-pulp
bought, borrowed, traded
one day return to compost
but knowledge lives on
elsewhere, as else-form
He joins in the unending torrent
his works likely never known
yet another ark into coming unknown
uncertain of its demise
sooner or late
Just aware
every contribution
makes for potential difference
Even not conscious
the words roll off, roll on
to display, store, be re-used
When the species was young
and pictures were still words
Speaking out to the world
still lonely of his kind
His would be the long death
before his forever records
Saw light once more
one day far to come
Their speech compiled history
despite folk of the ages
blind to future cycles
deaf to honest truth
mute by the crush of time
Their tongues are dry now
symbols unintelligible
pressed into dry books
Yet look around you
civilisation in the latest
generational blooms
Her proses ran endlessly on
novels capturing secret hearts
fossilised into later classics
But then paper must yield
to energy-come-alive material
Although so many not know yet
their repositories of tree-pulp
bought, borrowed, traded
one day return to compost
but knowledge lives on
elsewhere, as else-form
He joins in the unending torrent
his works likely never known
yet another ark into coming unknown
uncertain of its demise
sooner or late
Just aware
every contribution
makes for potential difference
Even not conscious
the words roll off, roll on
to display, store, be re-used
The thing is here!
A simple compilation is ready, of my works in 2008, from May to December.
In PDF-format ebook, it contains 78 content pages of 71 pieces of posted photos, and short essays & fiction.
Costing just USD 7.70, and available through PayLoadz using Paypal, Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
If you like a collection of what you have experienced here, get yourself a copy today!
And if you know folks who would like the stuff here, please let them know!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
photo: Dare to stand out
18:57, January 28, 2010
Bishan, Singapore
Bishan, Singapore
Is it --
the daring couple of crane & apartment,
sideways at the fore,
or the audaciously wispy cirrus,
high in sky,
or the bold almost-round moon,
peeking past sunlight
from farther out in space?
Little, little
This is for he
who first spoke of peace.
Stoned for it,
body ground to pulp.
Deaths kept mounting,
his people grew weary.
Children dreamt of better,
peace slowly dawned.
This is for she
who first bespoke fairness.
Locked away till death,
Words forever silenced.
Gaps ever widened,
unrest turned uglier.
People sought balance,
slowly moved the rulers.
This is for it
who first urged balance.
Blown to bits swiftly,
suppressed with more machines.
The skies turned muddy,
the seas hurled blood.
Humans, creatures, constructs
recalled to Gaia.
This is for the person
who gives of all.
Drowned in the unknown,
screams unheeded, silenced.
The media standardises,
ignored becomes adverts.
People find unique, anew,
in remembered simple.
who first spoke of peace.
Stoned for it,
body ground to pulp.
Deaths kept mounting,
his people grew weary.
Children dreamt of better,
peace slowly dawned.
This is for she
who first bespoke fairness.
Locked away till death,
Words forever silenced.
Gaps ever widened,
unrest turned uglier.
People sought balance,
slowly moved the rulers.
This is for it
who first urged balance.
Blown to bits swiftly,
suppressed with more machines.
The skies turned muddy,
the seas hurled blood.
Humans, creatures, constructs
recalled to Gaia.
This is for the person
who gives of all.
Drowned in the unknown,
screams unheeded, silenced.
The media standardises,
ignored becomes adverts.
People find unique, anew,
in remembered simple.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Proceedings
fiction
Woman towered over the squat lighthouse, a huge wave column before crashing into steel, trembling down into lone rock below.
"Aren't men no less hysterical?!" she shrieked at the male keepers within, who were frantically scrambling about, a few hollering from terror, the rest struck mute by it.
"You speak of me as the tempestress," Woman continued, voice ever resonant, lashing the audacious structure with thick ropes of spray, harnessed from unrestful ocean all around, "but it is your unabating tempest of ambition & greed, which has invited this retributive response!"
As the demolition of the lighthouse ensued, it could be seen, in the near distance, 2 of the colossal companion sea rigs it was supposed to support, now toppled, then wholly capsized.
But the lighthouse, blinded, was lost to this, its occupants trapped in the immediate.
Above, up where waters thinned into extremely lonely void, weather satellites dispassionately recorded this latest onslaught by wave avatars, so that ground experts might find means to control the greater fluidic saline.
But they failed to consider how minutely inadequate their efforts realistically were, as motes upon mighty planet.
Woman stormed on, and none in her marine vicinity were safe from nature's rage.
Except perhaps, for the robotic submarines beneath surface.
But as turbulence churned deepening undercurrents: for how long more?
Woman towered over the squat lighthouse, a huge wave column before crashing into steel, trembling down into lone rock below.
"Aren't men no less hysterical?!" she shrieked at the male keepers within, who were frantically scrambling about, a few hollering from terror, the rest struck mute by it.
"You speak of me as the tempestress," Woman continued, voice ever resonant, lashing the audacious structure with thick ropes of spray, harnessed from unrestful ocean all around, "but it is your unabating tempest of ambition & greed, which has invited this retributive response!"
As the demolition of the lighthouse ensued, it could be seen, in the near distance, 2 of the colossal companion sea rigs it was supposed to support, now toppled, then wholly capsized.
But the lighthouse, blinded, was lost to this, its occupants trapped in the immediate.
Above, up where waters thinned into extremely lonely void, weather satellites dispassionately recorded this latest onslaught by wave avatars, so that ground experts might find means to control the greater fluidic saline.
But they failed to consider how minutely inadequate their efforts realistically were, as motes upon mighty planet.
Woman stormed on, and none in her marine vicinity were safe from nature's rage.
Except perhaps, for the robotic submarines beneath surface.
But as turbulence churned deepening undercurrents: for how long more?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Night lights
fiction
They brought me up to that apartment that night.
You know, the broad one that's brightly lit, even amongst all the buildings of the city turned on in the dark.
And who are they?
If you call them government, they will plausibly deny it.
Label them conspiracy theorists, and they disappear into the crowd.
Or call them secret ops, and they don't exist.
So I think, for you to appreciate what was being done there, in that wide slab of floors above floors, it's clearest to stick with 'they'.
From not even the uppermost floor, we could see everything until the horizon.
Perfect platforms for observing all urban phenomena major & minor, enough to satisfy the snoop in any of us.
But I wasn't there to ogle at young, shapely, leggy beauties close up.
Something far uglier, or perhaps more troubling, was building up.
The mists that clung to the dark ends & private corners of streets & corridors below, they were just not typical micro-climate, or right natural formations.
Multi-mode spectra analyses confirmed that these were not very much our world's.
Already such mild fog, which came & went, were already associated with disappearances in their vicinity.
So far, in these 3 weeks already, the missing had not shown up anywhere else in the country, or abroad.
And then, they diverted my attention, there were indeterminate flying creatures negotiating rooftops.
Atop public housing they soared, towards strip retail malls they dived.
None of our unsuspecting residents had been attacked in any conceivable way so far.
But these flyers showed other possibly disturbing behaviour: extracting lightning conductors, stealing lengths of electric cable; even re-sculpting tiled roofs.
Sooner or later, shop owners, top-floor residents, they were going to sit up, take notice, then complain.
Yes, it was troubling, not just to they who ran this housing block, but also to folks like us who had been snatched here, and apprised of the situation as experts.
I turned to her among them, and confirmed my concern to this team-leader / liaison / public-face (she seemed all these roles rolled into one).
Then they allowed me to leave to gather resources, and return to help them out from my specialised field.
That time, I did not reach ground floor in their elevator going down.
Just 5 storeys above that, we all lurched to the initial shocks of what was later called the first-ever meta-quake.
This broad apartment we were in took off in precaution, I saw it with my own eyes.
Much of the lower levels seemed to house huge engines of a kind, erupting downwards to lift off.
At the same time, we seemed to still stay put, where we were in the city, but all known dimensions we felt -- shifted.
Within the next 5 minutes, I & they knew we were safe... except stranded in some other strange built-up settlement: violet skies, purple cloud patches, distant lightning flashes and thunder rumbles; and instead of the city, a whole collection of indigo pueblos into cliffsides.
Then somehow they shifted us back, to our familiar red-dot of a city in the world.
Relieved to be back amidst normalcy, I hurried home to where I worked, to begin fulfilling my promise of helping this unknown but very concerned folk, towards protecting this place against further mysterious incursions.
I'm glad to share that I made it unscathed, by any vapours or hovering monsters of the black, and you know that already.
But I could never again look at where I lived, with the same eyes any more.
They brought me up to that apartment that night.
You know, the broad one that's brightly lit, even amongst all the buildings of the city turned on in the dark.
And who are they?
If you call them government, they will plausibly deny it.
Label them conspiracy theorists, and they disappear into the crowd.
Or call them secret ops, and they don't exist.
So I think, for you to appreciate what was being done there, in that wide slab of floors above floors, it's clearest to stick with 'they'.
From not even the uppermost floor, we could see everything until the horizon.
Perfect platforms for observing all urban phenomena major & minor, enough to satisfy the snoop in any of us.
But I wasn't there to ogle at young, shapely, leggy beauties close up.
Something far uglier, or perhaps more troubling, was building up.
The mists that clung to the dark ends & private corners of streets & corridors below, they were just not typical micro-climate, or right natural formations.
Multi-mode spectra analyses confirmed that these were not very much our world's.
Already such mild fog, which came & went, were already associated with disappearances in their vicinity.
So far, in these 3 weeks already, the missing had not shown up anywhere else in the country, or abroad.
And then, they diverted my attention, there were indeterminate flying creatures negotiating rooftops.
Atop public housing they soared, towards strip retail malls they dived.
None of our unsuspecting residents had been attacked in any conceivable way so far.
But these flyers showed other possibly disturbing behaviour: extracting lightning conductors, stealing lengths of electric cable; even re-sculpting tiled roofs.
Sooner or later, shop owners, top-floor residents, they were going to sit up, take notice, then complain.
Yes, it was troubling, not just to they who ran this housing block, but also to folks like us who had been snatched here, and apprised of the situation as experts.
I turned to her among them, and confirmed my concern to this team-leader / liaison / public-face (she seemed all these roles rolled into one).
Then they allowed me to leave to gather resources, and return to help them out from my specialised field.
That time, I did not reach ground floor in their elevator going down.
Just 5 storeys above that, we all lurched to the initial shocks of what was later called the first-ever meta-quake.
This broad apartment we were in took off in precaution, I saw it with my own eyes.
Much of the lower levels seemed to house huge engines of a kind, erupting downwards to lift off.
At the same time, we seemed to still stay put, where we were in the city, but all known dimensions we felt -- shifted.
Within the next 5 minutes, I & they knew we were safe... except stranded in some other strange built-up settlement: violet skies, purple cloud patches, distant lightning flashes and thunder rumbles; and instead of the city, a whole collection of indigo pueblos into cliffsides.
Then somehow they shifted us back, to our familiar red-dot of a city in the world.
Relieved to be back amidst normalcy, I hurried home to where I worked, to begin fulfilling my promise of helping this unknown but very concerned folk, towards protecting this place against further mysterious incursions.
I'm glad to share that I made it unscathed, by any vapours or hovering monsters of the black, and you know that already.
But I could never again look at where I lived, with the same eyes any more.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Utility
Behold how she
wields long sword
hilt guard tapers out
or else it serves
the string straddled between
so when returned to scabbard
forms it a crossbow
And the scabbard
packed with bolts
allows for many quarrels
to repeat on reload
sharpened as wood stakes
honed as metal spikes
And the hilt guard folds back in
to become composite staff
But she lives not
in mere medieval times
of high fantasy
Gaze carefully
at steel-concrete city
a nanotech world
the day after
wields long sword
hilt guard tapers out
or else it serves
the string straddled between
so when returned to scabbard
forms it a crossbow
And the scabbard
packed with bolts
allows for many quarrels
to repeat on reload
sharpened as wood stakes
honed as metal spikes
And the hilt guard folds back in
to become composite staff
But she lives not
in mere medieval times
of high fantasy
Gaze carefully
at steel-concrete city
a nanotech world
the day after
Prevailing
fiction
I hear your living pleas for help, of abject desperation, and I return to lend support, to haunt you yet again.
The doors I pass never feel easy, for the energies making me exist, lead to forgotten sleepfulness, away from your worlds, where you struggle against death.
Still, I come when I feel my calling, and swiftly into your time I'm already there.
I cannot block the death-blows inflicted against you, by the physical monsters assaulting you.
But being a ghost, I can befuddle their senses, and borrow time by distraction, for your fortunate get-away.
Against smarter, thinking threats, my pervasive presence lasts shorter but still with significance:
I become a merely intricate puzzle or elaborate mental construct to unravel & neutralise.
But just because you have sworn to your ancestors as you called me, and you have made utter promises to speakable forces that be, I come to protect you where I can, whisk you away to safety when I can, and borrow from the sleep of death to restore your calm, however I may.
So I am your intangible ally for the while of your urgent need, fending off the unliving of which I never was, neutralising also ghouls, spectres & vampires of your dreaming nightmares, and waking realities.
And when I'm done, I shall float away adrift, to restful portals which beckon passage back again, and know the apparition equivalent of satisfaction.
As I was your forebear, and I promise those of us who came before, I am done once more for you.
I hear your living pleas for help, of abject desperation, and I return to lend support, to haunt you yet again.
The doors I pass never feel easy, for the energies making me exist, lead to forgotten sleepfulness, away from your worlds, where you struggle against death.
Still, I come when I feel my calling, and swiftly into your time I'm already there.
I cannot block the death-blows inflicted against you, by the physical monsters assaulting you.
But being a ghost, I can befuddle their senses, and borrow time by distraction, for your fortunate get-away.
Against smarter, thinking threats, my pervasive presence lasts shorter but still with significance:
I become a merely intricate puzzle or elaborate mental construct to unravel & neutralise.
But just because you have sworn to your ancestors as you called me, and you have made utter promises to speakable forces that be, I come to protect you where I can, whisk you away to safety when I can, and borrow from the sleep of death to restore your calm, however I may.
So I am your intangible ally for the while of your urgent need, fending off the unliving of which I never was, neutralising also ghouls, spectres & vampires of your dreaming nightmares, and waking realities.
And when I'm done, I shall float away adrift, to restful portals which beckon passage back again, and know the apparition equivalent of satisfaction.
As I was your forebear, and I promise those of us who came before, I am done once more for you.
Landing
And I saw
the good parent-ship landing
Would touch ground first
for was that not where many sentients began?
Later would it
float upon fluids,
soar into skies,
return to hover in space.
It was the hub from which everything came forth
as general form soon partitioned focus
on command,
production,
repair.
And these specialties would only evolve
until highest sophistication showed.
Simplest vehicles first appeared:
small,
one-wheel,
scouting,
until beam weapons,
armour,
made for larger,
swifter.
Down they would go
below rock in worming holes
and seas pressing intensely;
Across bare desert,
and rocky grasses,
sticking through bogs,
curving across hills,
they speedily move,
until such,
as volcanoes and chasms, met,
through choked jungle,
boreholes,
passed.
And controlled from far,
these machines,
those partials,
Until the individuals who mastered
had to emerge
to play their mortal life roles,
on this worldly platform.
the good parent-ship landing
Would touch ground first
for was that not where many sentients began?
Later would it
float upon fluids,
soar into skies,
return to hover in space.
It was the hub from which everything came forth
as general form soon partitioned focus
on command,
production,
repair.
And these specialties would only evolve
until highest sophistication showed.
Simplest vehicles first appeared:
small,
one-wheel,
scouting,
until beam weapons,
armour,
made for larger,
swifter.
Down they would go
below rock in worming holes
and seas pressing intensely;
Across bare desert,
and rocky grasses,
sticking through bogs,
curving across hills,
they speedily move,
until such,
as volcanoes and chasms, met,
through choked jungle,
boreholes,
passed.
And controlled from far,
these machines,
those partials,
Until the individuals who mastered
had to emerge
to play their mortal life roles,
on this worldly platform.
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