There’s nothing more tender

Than the exhilaration of a white-hot fever,

Recalcitrant in delirium,

Disturbing calm in display.

Like the game two queens play

Till blinkered to kings,

Till pawn becomes treasure

And treasure dies away.

It is the game that taps quickly to foray

And lays

Waste to regiment, clergy, royalty

As long as queens will try.

But it is the rarity of cunning

Charity; an innocent trick,

The consensual gambit

That percolates routine,

And have queens

Rip off their black-white sheens,

To reveal two players, seeing.

And players don’t always see,

So they play their queens,

Their kings away;

For a conspiratorial victory-----

An emptied army,

A nugatory piece,

Neither moves,

Neither loses.

A white-hot stalemate on the board.

“He says that life is round, that we’re stuck on this wheel of living and dying; an endless circle, until someone breaks it. You walked in here, you ruptured the pattern-----bang-----the whole world gets wider.” - Lucien Carr from Kill Your Darlings (2013)

and so it seems, the scientists

witnessed in graphite sheen, dull

chalk, the perfect length

of a crucible

perfect penciled circles

circumference of the not-yet-defined, the

undefined

held by tension-smitten

strings, pulling

a mass of metal things

and so it seems, they let it

swing, baby-soft

amidst the gravity

the most centripetal idea of the

century! then the

unfulfilled wish.

perfect penciled circles, all

missed, how can it be

that when sat beside themselves, they

see? this tight circular force

wanting to set them

free.

more damning than a

eureka, crafty hands of

human nature, You

make the physics too invested

too involved

the most centrifugal idea of the

century.

and so it seems, the scientists

with their circular theories, their unexplainable

momentar-ies, a taut circle

pulling them in

flinging them out

discovered the world

longing to be freed from

itself; that

centripetal was the explainable and the

centrifugal everything

unexplained

a helpless gravitation

swung outwards, a breathtaking illusion

the disillusionment

we can’t afford

it is everything we want,

it is nothing that we need

but even the scientists couldn’t

resist (as was deemed) this

fictitious force

and so it seems, when the

disruption we long for comes

again, the circle breaks

another lover hits the universe, and

the whole world gets

wider.

Sun hats, broad-brimmed and languorous, dip their tips into the sensual redness of the late-evening Sun as they return to the comfort of homes to be sweetly perched atop the racks. All clocks have pressed the hands of Time against the eighteenth hour, and yet a certain young lady remains entrapped within the nook of a lanky street, half-heartedly engaged in small talk.

Resting an arm on the coffee table, Shura props her thoughts up with a graceless effort, attempting attention, but almost immediately slips back into a lackadaisical reverie. The trees, all swelled with old auguries, pour their sympathies to her in rustles, and she smiles like Regret, watching the red honeyed air; the fluidity of the shadows as they become something of an inky penumbra, creeping up the bark; clinging onto the twisted branches, then slackening like hot glue, dripping with-----

“Miss Eto!”

A flinch catches her. With her attention now steadied, she looks at the man sitting before her, realising his emptied teacup and patience, and lets out a nervous laugh.

“Sorry, Mr Clay. I was just admiring the trees for a bit. They really are quite enigmatic in the redness of the evening, and it’s almost oracular when they…” she trails off at the sight of a rather unimpressed Mr Clay, and becomes more quiet, “I apologise… You were saying?”

The man, finally possessing her serious attention, says, “Miss Eto, if I were to put this in all politeness, I’m not offended, but it’s quite upsetting to speak to a complete wall of a person with such demeaning efforts to engage her partner, and one whom you would not even be having tea with if your mother hadn’t requested for it.”

He rises from his seat to leave, and Shura shifts with some discomfort, but it is what follows that exhausts her with both indignation and dismay.

“And a word of advice, if you aren’t interested, at least save the next person from wasting their time on you, ” Mr Clay walks away, muttering, “Admiring the trees… What does she take me for?”

He leaves, and she relaxes almost instantly that it is comical how stiff she was before. She rests her head on one arm, sighing a little, waning a little, deliberating about things unknown. Then, she begins.

“And he didn’t even pay the bill. For goodness sake, what a gentleman!” Shura stands abruptly with an exclaim, and a slap collides with her wrist so forcefully that she retracts herself with a small shriek. A coat of blue bends himself towards the ground, hand to face, somewhat groaning at the pain of the unintentional attack.

“Ah! Sir, I’m so sorry. Are you alright? Did I hit your eye?” Flustered, she bends down to try and help the man, but then catches herself, for what sounded like painful grunts before, now resembles a boyish laughter. Confused, she asks, “Sir, are you… laughing?”

The man, still in peals of chuckles, straightens himself slowly, and lowers his hand to place it in his pocket, “You sure are a free spirit, Miss Eto. To think I pitied you for a moment, and wished to provide some comfort, but this attack, it seems to put my former impressions to shame.”

With his face now unobstructed, Shura witnessed at once the playful freckles that accompanied his flourish, and the pleasing shape of his smile, almost startled again by such a frisky soul. But as she collects herself, she hears it again more clearly-----Miss Eto-----and colours, “So, you saw everything, Sir.”

The man, sensing a faint embarrassment from his new-found acquaintance, lets his laughter taper off, venturing for some encouragement instead, “Dailon, Miss Eto. My name is Dailon, and given my teasing, I should hardly be a ‘Sir’ at all. What I mean to say is that your actions were well-measured, and you provided me with the comforting humour of knowing that there are still theatrical women in this town.” And as predicted, Shura begins to meet his eyes again, but beneath the brief stillness of their stares, it is very safe to declare that he predicted none of what was to come, for Shura begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Dailon pauses, then becomes intriguely electrified by the lady, betting on a hopeful potential, “Miss Eto, did I say something quite amusing?”

Between her liberal gasps for breath, Shura continues to laugh, “No, Si-----I mean, Dailon. Of course not, it was the amused shout-----the theatrical comeback-----a miracle! That knocked me out…” Tickled, she continues in her wild display, unravelling in front of her new-found acquaintance.

Dailon, feeling his brimming excitement so strongly, cannot help but grin like a fool, “Is that so? I’m not quite sure I get what you mean-----”

“But you do! I know you do! Nobody says ‘theatrical’ like that and expects to get away with-----you’re smiling! You’re laughing! You’re just testing me!”

Both fall into the heartiest laughter, feeling completely at ease with each other, and by no means willing to rest themselves even as the evening passes, and so, the lady proposes a walk, and the man, refreshed by the switch in roles, accepts it.

***

“You mean to tell me that you recite poems whenever it suits the situation? You mean to tell me that when you accidentally cut your finger, you begin spouting lines with ‘onions’ and ‘pink fizz’ and-----”

“Stop teasing me already! And yes, I do it to remember them. You know why, ” Shura lightly slaps Dailon’s shoulder playfully, still tickled even after thirty minutes into the walk.

Dailon laughs, “Exactly, which is why you should come, Shura. There is no meaning without poetry, but there is no life if you never find another to share it with. They don’t sell literature on the shelves anymore. It’s banned, but if you come, it won’t have to be. Not anymore.” He breathes, eager for her reply, but she becomes quiet.

“Shura?”

Shura pauses, not looking at Dailon, “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m quite content with musing by myself.”

“Shura, we’re both dreamers, and we both read Plath once. I think we both know that that isn’t why you’re declining my offer, ” he pushes for an answer. There is an uncomfortable silence, and once again, both are pining for a hopeful potential.

Shura turns away from him, “We’re here. This is my place.” A small house is illuminated by the dim street lamps, revealing a humble garden of red poppies.

Upon seeing them, Dailon becomes strictly resolved, for nobody grows poppies here, unless they had a red heart blooming so astoundingly through their coat. He knows that Shura will be swayed, and so he tells her, “I can’t convince you, Shura, if you don’t want me to. But you’ll convince yourself. I know you will. And once you do, you will know where to find me.”

Shura watches him as he steps back, always facing her, and she finds herself bewitched by a temptation so utterly ridiculous not to succumb to.

“Nor you, nor him, nor him, nor him. My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats, ” he tips his hat with a charm, and leaves the lady to the night, as she keeps watching him dissolve into the shadows.

Shura, without any further encouragement, whispers the remains of his words, and completes his wish.

“To paradise, ” she says, and realises it right after.

“Fever 103°. Is that what they call themselves?”

6.10a.m.

I wash the last fleck of balmy dreams out of my eyes, letting the water ease my sweat-adorned wakefulness. Yet, with my mind still asleep, my hands finger through the routine like a languid Saturday, only pausing innocently to entertain a drag. The empty scent of sleep hangs, lanky and subdued, as I hang my hair up into the quiet morning.

6.28a.m.

Old cracks perfume the way down to the kitchen, too diluted to be ascertained as one scent, but an amalgam of bricked-up histories, cements, and paint. My palms lead blind eyes to a chapped wall who bears the humid weight of too many tongues. I whisper to ask if I could be one.

As I get closer to the bottom of the house, the stairs cool my soles, and the air becomes sharpened to a ubiquitous petrichor (which is a blessing before the afternoon Sun). My feet become tickled with a childlike flourish so unlike myself that I begin to sieve out my sight proper, and the morning begins to take its shape.

6.31a.m.

Animated wisps of steam permeate through the smell of rain, mud, and grass. I turn the boiler off just before it begins to rumble, pouring a stream that melts bags of tea leaves. I smell the red caffeine, and the morning becomes coloured in a familiar, nuanced shade of currant, warming to a sweet brown fragrance that only comes with the addition of evaporated milk.

6.57a.m.

The Sun wakes up plainly this morning, and there is no need to paint it in any other way. It smells of butter and bread, and I breathe in its natural hue. Outside the window, the pavements are littered with yellow flame buds extinguished by last night’s rain, yet retaining an unmistakable pale beauty often mistaken for weakness. One never knows how hardy Singaporean trees can be. A familiar flourish begins to ring.

7a.m.

All at once, the golden hour stirs the neighbourhood to a start, and Morning whisks another day to life while I take in the scent of home.

A subtlety, when noticed, is never too hard to

un-notice. Nothing like a dense summer,

collective sweat sheen, that brief vapour

all condensed into the scene.

Then, the soft prick;

frayed fabric hook with its sharp licks so

sporadic, so consistent.

A fleeting litany.

Many subtleties, when noticed, are never too hard to

un-notice. See, the thread caught on my sleeve,

scraping my skin, tickled to an anxious itch;

all inconsequential lint.

It is the sweat on a frustrated brow.

(I said) Let it flow down

past the shutters, past the mind, to the ground.

There’s nothing to feel now.

The most common subtleties, when noticed, should be

unnoticed. But the indescribable itch

is all spidery nerves, lacerating burns.

Remind me where it yearns.

Fraught fingertips beating with regularity,

tipping into my unconscious calamities.

I just want to be

wrapped up safely where everything means nothing;

where nothing means anything

to me.

(please)

I wish subtleties, when noticed, could be easily

unnoticed. Nothing like a deep hellebore,

full bloom on a hot summer’s day,

that wakes me up again to see the Today.

Out the window, in all its 

purplish gleam, starkly alive

against the pallid snow, sighing to the

whispers of winter trees

and all their leave-less 

subtleties.