The Waking

Because the mysteries of light are unsolvable.
Because it rests on my eyelids like moths,
fluttering for dear life, scattering immunity
against the pulsing waves of sleep. I open
the curtain-eyelids of windows and there,
light plays like cats on distant sills. Birds
take flight because of its insistence
that they find food, some common psalm
of joy. The man-made fountains by the
malls wink in its reflections, refractions
like so many disc-plates threaded by children
at art class. Once light bounced off my plate
as I tilted it to catch the rainwater. A stray
ray, sudden as epiphany, swift as lightning
cast like an answered prayer from clouds.
Because my heart strains to lay a claim
on sleep, as moths do in the face of light.

How the Mynahs Forage

A lone ranger. Puffing up his black chest 

like a conceited child to call the rest.
Soon they arrive: one, two, three tarred feathers
knowing the grains’ somewhere atop a stray

tray. Dark cloud forays into darker clouds.
Stray grains invite a growth of storm
or is it rude beggars clawing over dropped
coins? Only the leader’s arrival splits

the flock. He is a monarch striding, pecking
his subjects’ feathers to cleave a path
to enthronement. Only, the Bully arrives,
cleaner uncle whipping hurricanes of cloth

and vile words. The mynahs flee like a ghost

seeking nirvana in the heavens heaving
its own wrath.

Sticks of Wrath

“Toilet”, he mouthed, over the balloon

heads of patrons, throwing me the sales floor.
I know his excuses: claiming a hyperactive
bladder so he could light up another stick
of wrath, drag on it like a man peeved with
the longer haul of work and day.

Once, in the empty shop, I asked him
what favors he’d found with cigarettes.
“Oh, smoking kakis, you know,” he rasped, sizing
me with that right eye squinter than left.
“It’s a drag to cure my people-anger.”

He flees the shop like a cat on meds.
The sales floor is a sea of creatures
seeking their choice of food. I pat the
stick he’s left, poison-candy in my breast
pocket. I remember sucks, a coughing start, vile
bile of days choked on a lit stick-puff.

The city rolled by like neon tombs in a desert.
Cold clinks of glass, two hackling sips,
the night lonelier than liquor.

My colleague slinks back, a dapper dog.
Sometime in the day he will put his
tail between his legs, sneak out to air
job miseries on a glowing stick.

The Barista

Afternoons pass like dark cups of coffee.
Barista’s etched a mural on a face of froth,
wishes me welcome with a trace of something
like sadness. Over time, he’s worked his way into

turning his back on patrons, smiling through
mural art. One day, I caught a koala bear

dozing on brown rock, missing dot on a paw.
It woke – its belly halfway gone into the maw

of my abyss. Dark froth gurgles the way empty
afternoons do. Perhaps a giggle at empty
expressions a barista’s bear-like face can bear.

He turns, udders more froth from a coffee-time-
machine, squeezes once more the giant pen,
creams in waves over another fresh coffee.

the man in the moon

tonight, the man in the moon

hides behind clouds his globe.

grandfather of worlds, chief

general of oceans, magical staff-

fingers drawing quilts of tides

over every sleepy child’s eyes.

tonight, he failed to draw the

shades over my eyes. a lizard

on the darkened moon of my

ceiling lamp befriends me. years

ago I would’ve crawled under the

double blankets of my eyelids,

shivering like a lizard-child.

years later I recall the crinkled

grin of granddad, how he used

to languish over my crib, face

shiny as the man in the moon

tonight, I search out his face drawn

by constellations of nothingness,

the way stars are born and perished

the way the man in the moon touched

my tiny baby face, played with my

tiny baby hands, and vanished

Living in the 8ights of Things

Today’s lucky number is 8: 8km/h 

on the treadmill. 8 pushups because you
can’t hit 20^th. 8 jumping jacks, the last leap

sending pigeons flying, breaking imagined
windows. 8 sips of kopi before you consume
8 spoonfuls of rice for 8 dollars.

The ache in your chest is no more than
a longing: getting up at 8am, taking
to the lawns at 8 minutes past 30.

8 crows ring a plate of leftovers, gobbling
faster than 8 salesmen gobbling down the
kopitiam.

8888^th heartbeats later, you will reach
your workplace. 8 emails blink like the

wink of cats. You take the 7^th, drag out

8 fingers at keyboard (88 words per minute),

fold in thumbs like wings of birds and
leave no. 8 for after the 80^th song, before

8.08pm when you drag your corpse in
bus no. 8 home.

Zahir

He holds my hand like an injured pigeon.

Heart beating like a sparrow I lead him
across the MRT, two guys entwined by
a hand. My eyes are daggers piercing off
unwanted stares. I ask him for destination.

“Bus stop outside,” he smiles, handsome 20s
guy in sunshades, one side attached with
audio device to track his tapping stick.

Handsome blind fellow in sunshades I lead
him to the bus stop. We talk as we go along:
sadness, loss of sight, childhood trauma, thick
glasses, surgery, less sadness, acceptance

of the permanent

abyss

of vision.

“I’m working at a restaurant,” he says. His eyes
are phantoms; his lips curl in a grin that’s
whiplashed
the worst of chagrin.

He tells me he’s getting
married in three months, his fiancé
having weighed the loss and gains of

blind spots: how passersby passed him on
like temporal caretakers at strange locations,
finally into her good hands. He whispers
a prayer of gratitude at my appearance.
His eyes, like his heart, are oceans.

I ask how he sees the bus numbers.
“Oh, I ask people, you know,” he shrugs,
oblivious of the sea choking up my chest.