when the days are shorter

these days, my runs are a race against the dimming light. i schedule my last minutes at work to the second, speed past the traffic lights on the turning to red, a change of clothes, knotting my tangle of hair securely, music player gripped in a fist, shoes laced tight. i breathe at last as i swing the house gate shut behind me, out, finally, into the darkening evening. cars swish past me,weary commuters hurrying home to hide from the world till tomorrow. picking up speed, finding my pace, keep that breathing steady, equal steps, inhale the scent of the evening. sometimes a mouthful of smoke as i pass by the little yellow wooden shrine at the corner of the field. sandalwood, cloying incense drifting out into the clear cool evening like a spreading decay. for a few moments, i suffocate--then i am past, and back with thoughts of you, you are with me as I pass through this darkening world of shades of blue, pressing me ever closer. bending to escape the slap of palmtree fronds against my face, the shadows grasping at my ankles as the streetlights begin to glow in the dusk, surrounded by an aureole of dust-motes. breathing is harder now. music blurs into a meaningless, jarring rhythm, i hear only the thud of rubber against tar road, i see only the next corner ahead, escape lies immeasurable strides away. i think of you, all i hope for with you, and I run farther beyond the shadows out of reach of the feeble lamplight.

arabian nights

can i seem hopelessly aloof,

silently undecided

while within, i weigh impossibilities

pit a chance of a future against

certain loss of the past.

dicing with desire on the one face, damnation on the next

dreaming and divining hopeful things that in this transient moment

stolen from responsibility

seem so tempting, shimmering

like fairy dust that turns to ashes in your hand.

thoughts on diving, or sinking

you see the sun through a mist
atop a narrowing tunnel of hope
you writhe against the primordial urge
to grasp at that last breath and hold,
hold it in your lungs
till they stretch and fill
and burst
and the world turns red
then black
you sink
with one hand reaching toward the light
and around you green murk
disturbed specks of white
swallowing you.
you are lost for those few minutes
lost to time,space,sense,life
you have fallen off this dear warm earth
into the green maw of the sea.

the city of storybook streets

London reflected in shards of broken glass glinting on the pavement, London in fire and soot and grime and fear, London of my childhood dreams and hopes and loves, I have known you since the day I first learned how to read and I have known you since, walking your roads and lanes in two separate summertimes.

i have walked some of those streets that flicker on newsscreens at this moment, shabby grey and mud-splattered, far from the tourist ideal. yet they are no less London than the tourist magnets of Zone 1. it's like Edinburgh, they say of it, sneeringly, "fur coat but nae knickers", well, London today shows the dirty underside of its twice-turned petticoat and dares you to love it the less for that.

on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away, my heart aches for this city, and i tell myself that one day i will return again to look for the traces of me that i left trampled in the dust-covered streets.

experiments, the first:

Perhaps now the time has come to write it down; perhaps I am detached enough, now, from that unreal world of blinding white light and exaggerated shadows in the day, violent sunsets in the evening and all the time the blue of the sea like a shout of triumph in the background.

We must have met first on the boat, I one of the many sightseers he had to shepherd on board, blending, probably, into the heaving mass of tanned, sweaty, eager tourists smelling of sun cream and anticipation. I remember hanging on to his words as he explained, calmly and quietly, the theory behind volcanoes, crater formation, earth science, inserting a simple question or two here and there like candy for the wide-eyed crowd.

I remember,vividly, standing on the edge of the cliff, white surf on black jagged rock far below me, and he asking what I thought the broken walls of rock surrounding the caldera looked like; me fumbling my way to the naïve, obvious answer that they were like slices of cake -- dark grey stone threaded with seams of chalk, topped by icing-white villages. I remember blushing to the tips of my fingers at my own childish, stupid answer, then hearing him sigh quietly and say: "I can never look at them without fear. I wonder when it will be, five years, seven years, before the volcano erupts again, and all this will be blown away like sea-foam into the ocean from which it rose."

untrodden yet familiar

so this place is like this, you see; it's a one-storey sprawl over an expanse of sun-bleached knotgrass. little pondoks dot the open spaces, they are populated by malay women in headscarves, with their hospital sympathy-camping paraphernalia of tiffin carrier and plastic mat. their broken-toothed smiles are ever-ready, and if you nod and smile back, it's more than likely that they will call out friendly greetings, or a compliment, or even a word of thanks, in Javanese-accented malay. i have often thought, i would like to spend the midday break curled up with iced coffee from the canteen and a book in one of those little huts, but then it's just not the done thing, is it. how we are limited by the opinions of others.

the colleagues, well, they're nice, and human companionship is refreshing after listening only to imaginary conversations for so many interminable afternoons in that little room in a little building near a beach far away from home.

i never told anyone about that friday afternoon when i went by myself to the seashore. there was a little attap-roofed hut and beyond it the rocks, and i could smell the salt on the wind from the straits of malacca. you know that passage in conrad? maybe there is more than one; i think he mentions the scent of spices of macassar, the scent of the tropics, the scent of jasmine on the breeze, as the ship enters the fabled strait. i wish i knew what that smelled like, or is it better to be me
not knowing the difference
because that is the scent of familiarity?

after that two boys appeared, obviously tourists; why they sought out this unknown and un-scenic part of the beach (in a housing estate!), i'll never know. and we we traded glances of "i wonder why you are here" and i was too much of a coward to stay.

that was at sandy point, where i learned that there was more to being alone than self-isolation.

now i'm here somewhere in between the suburban/rural demographic, and the language barrier came crashing down again today. there's a whole other world whose surface i can only skim; i have the language to a degree, but not the culture, not the mindset, and i am reminded of one particular night spent in an unfamiliar room far away from here, two o'clock in the morning when it was winter. trading theories about why we somehow did not belong in this land we call our own. what are we? the cry of generations of angst-ridden youth looking desperately for what they don't know they have lost.

i remember i said, we are the diaspora. we have no ties. now, on second thought, isn't that just another manifestation of being alone?