Walmart Whale

Mom, there are whales
Amongst the parking lots
Majestic blimps they be!
D'you reckon they sail
Down the aisles of shops
On the tides of Kool-aid seas?
And seas they have fared
Of Dew, Pepper, sludge -
These surreal submarines.
Perhaps if I dared
And gave one a nudge
It would belly-up with ease.

Tunnel Vision

Maybe the rust of your tongue
Will suffice
To salt this useless dew
In the blur of my eyes
Raw whites
White hot
Blooming needles in my
Tunnel vision

Afterglow

Roll over to
Sponge up the
Warmth of the
Ghost left behind
Fast evaporating
Into trajectory
Of disdain
Whisked away on
Pitter patter paws
Flash of whisker
Out through my
Bedroom door.

Boxhead

Boxhead, boxhead 

Like a porous loaf of bread 

Dry and brown and plain

Conveniently stackable 

Unassuming flammable 

Easy to maintain 

Empty and collapsible 

Shake-rattle-rollable 

Utterly inane 

Favorite colors, birthday dates 

Bits and bobs and whatsherface 

Paper shredder brain 

Pulped and bleached recyclable 

New and clean and writable 

Broken thought of train 

Permissibly strange 

Oddly, can’t complain

McDonald's Is A Whore

McDonald’s is a mistress
McDonald’s is a whore
Her love is cheap and easy game
Her embrace forevermore
You tangle in her golden locks
When the canteen is abyss

Turning to her open arms
And sweet McFlurried kiss
She begs of you
To stay into
The long and lonely night
The warmth of home
And wholesome meals

Can wait until the light
At the tunnel’s end
When all is done
And exams but a memory
Yet you’ll come back another year
Her love is misery but McSpicy

-------

Okay context: I'm currently in university studying Industrial Design. Oftentimes, especially when project submissions are due, many of us will stay late in studio, working. The canteen closes kinda early (can you believe our canteen is called Techno Edge??? Ew) so after a certain time, McDonald's is our only option left. It becomes an ultimatum where we either have to go home for food, or succumb to McDonald's in order to keep working in studio.

A Salve

Thinking
I turn the words over
And over in my mind
Pebble in hand
Each syllable I find
A dip in the surface
Smooth and austere
Closing a fist
I hold your words dear
And fling them across the water
Skipping, sinking

Stalks Beneath The Wind

In humble golden pastures
Folding into endless skies,
Frost perched atop the sprays of stalks
Threw suns into my eyes.

If mottled marbled welts of snow
Ebbing slowly into themselves
Know their place before the mountains
And the morn that is their knell,

Then I too bow as the cold seeps in,
Like those humble stalks beneath the wind.

Winter Pastoral

Little tree
How many suns
Have bathed you
That they blaze forth
From your branches
Orange-pink rubies
Throwing their fire
Back into the winter sky?

Discourse

How does one share a glass
With another who does not drink?
Who does not sip
And taste
The same notes that you taste
Who swallows the ocean
If only for its water
And cares not for the salt that christens it?
How does one share a roomful of air
With another who does not breathe?
Who will stand in proximity
Even touch their toes to yours
Their fingers to yours
Limbs encasing
But not extend their presence
Beyond the wall of lung
And skin
And sweat
Refusing to release themselves
Into the same space
And take back a piece of otherness
Only to discover it no different?
How does one share a life
With another who does not
Will not
Cannot
Live?

A Dota Poem (Fragment)

Ahem. Today I'd like to share some wise, poetic words I once heard from a Dota player. Dota can be a trying and stressful game, and I thought we might all learn some zen from someone who faces such pressure on a regular (very very frequent) basis. Enjoy.

"FUCKING INVOKER FUCKING PENIS MASS DICK SPELLS"





Thank you

A Limerick Written on a Whim

There was an old man from Crete

Nicknamed The Bean-Eating Freak

He passed so much gas

That he broke his ass
And couldn't shit for a week

Streetlights

Half past six
Chases the moon;
Watches the last of the streetlights
Fade out behind the misty embers,
Dimming if only for being outshone.

Half past six
Chases watery swathes
In blue-grey rolls
Back over a warming skyline.

Whence came the first wisps of smoke
That filled my cup
And a hundred others
For the sake of these streetlights?

Adolescence

All is futile
All shall burn
Hail the meaningless
And shun those who are the result
Of what we are now.

Darkness devours all
Authority enslaves all
The mindless; conscious or not
The misunderstood; willing or not.


Ehhh.
Fucking white rabbits.

A Lune

Ink seeps into cracks
White throated
A domestic rogue

SAT Practice Essay (25 minutes given)

UPDATE: Received a score of 5 out of 6.

Question: "Nowadays nothing is private: our culture has become too confessional and self-expressive. People think that to hide one’s thoughts or feelings is to pretend not to have those thoughts or feelings. They assume that honesty requires one to express every inclination and impulse."
Adapted from J. David Velleman, "The Genesis of Shame"

Should people make more of an effort to keep some things private? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.


Essay Response:The amount of transparency a person chooses to allow themselves varies from person to person, but in recent times this amount has increased on average. The internet has become the most convenient, accessible and permissive medium available to us, and the result of this is that it has spawned a generation of people who feel the need to express every minute detail of their being and share it with the rest of the world. In my own experience, people tend to retain a respectable level of privacy when interacting with others face to face. However, the metaphorical wall between individuals tends to crumble in the false sense of anonymity on the internet.

Nowadays people live in the fear of being inaccurately judged; hence the need to update even the minutest of details about their lives, in the hopes that the rest of the world will have a clear idea of 'who they really are'. This, in my opinion, fosters self-indulgent and narcissistic mindsets. Online experience is easily tailored to individuals, making the internet essentially 'all about you'. The ease at which we share our lives with others, and view the lives of others', builds a sense of self-importance and the illusion that the rest of the world actually wants to know what you had for breakfast. The repercussions of such effects means a world run by self-centered individuals who would shamelessly expose the most intimate parts of their lives to the rest of the world, yet cower in the face of revealing such things to anyone in face to face.

Also at stake in the lack of self-imposed privacy and prudence is security. To plaster your life story on public space is to compromise your safety. Given that it is possible for any potential criminal to deduce much of a person's life from a stack of their grocery receipts, the job would be immensely simplified if all this information (and more) were handed over on a silver platter. A silver platter with Facebook and Twitter logos on it.

To conclude, it is generally unwise to expose your entire life and every thought to billions of people you don't know. To do so is to strut around the world stark naked - most people don't want to see it, and the ones that do are sharpening their throwing knives and celebrating your vulnerability.

Nothing Nonsense.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.

There is nothing.



THEN THERE IS SOMETHING

FOR A BRIEF MOMENT.


And then there is nothing again;


Less than nothing, now that
There had once been un-nothing
Instead of the usual nothing.

But if there was
More-than-nothing,
Then re-nothing is
Less-than.


Now I wish there was nothing.

It would at least be something.
Or non-nothing.

If not un-nothing,
Then at least re-nothing.

But there will never be re-nothing again.
Nothing will always be sub-nothing.

Unless there is something.
But if there is too much something, then
Something will become nothing.

And previous-nothing will be
Less than less-than.
It will be sub-nothing.

But new-nothing.
Nothing will be restored.
And then there will always be nothing
Unless more-than-something
Becomes the new something.

And maybe one day you find everything.
Everything.
More-than... un-nothing.

But then all else would be sub-nothing.
And when everything is gone,

You sit and stare into empty blank spaces of nothing
And drink too much and develop bad habits and problems
And feel lifeless and lack energy and hate everything you love
And try to kill yourself and weep in fetal position
And think about everything
And miss the times when there was something
And you'd be grateful for even nothing, because

Nothing will never be NOTHING
Ever again.



There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

There was nothing.

Everything.

Walking With Myself

The self is a companion

In the most senses of the word.

It ambles by your side

Ever quiet

And knows exactly where

You want to go;

Where you do not.

It never drags you unwillingly

Into tenacious messes and tangles

For companionship’s sake,

Instead leading you gently

Like a leaf through the air

Following its shadow;

A trajectory into a muffled nothingness

And quiet melancholy

You learn to embrace for its peacefulness.

It shares things with you

Sometimes it can be quarrelsome

But will never desert you

In anger or frustration

Except in those times

When it becomes sullen and difficult

Mulling over discrepancies

Between you and itself,

Things you had neglected

Or failed to notice;

Things you tried to force upon it

Forgetting the fight in its spirit

Always equal to yours

Except surpassing in patience, tolerance

Until it can bear no more.

It tells you things

If you listen.

You never walk by yourself.

The Death Of A Poem

I tried to write a poem
That came into my head;
But when I tried to form the words
A void opened instead.

The idea crouched inside my mind
Piping up now and then
In a tiny voice as if to
Remind me yet again.

But I could not give it life,
As hard as I had tried.
The words simply refused to come
And so it promptly died.

Is This A Poem?

Is this considered a poem
If I break up the lines?

What if I were to
Break them at awkward
Lengths
In the middle
Of the sentence?

What if I took the time
To make everything rhyme?
And if these rhymes are cliché
Would it matter anyway?

Is this now a poem
If I took the lost sighs
Of love, loss, life,
And wove them between
The untied laces of
A lonely man’s shoes?

What if I threw in an abstract
Image for the reader to ponder,
Which in fact holds no meaning
to uncover?

What if one finds meaning in it anyway?
Is it the elusiveness of imagined meaning
That defines the spaces between these lines?

Is this now…
A poem?

Caprice

He is a gray cat
Stretched out in
Undappled camouflage
On a grayer table,
Dust settling;
A small price to pay
For capricious
Whims.
He cares not for
Any command
Given with empty hands,
Nor anything offered
That is
Invisible beyond the kibble
Of an empty bowl.