Words and Invisible Cords

The southern beaches are quiet Their shores unruffled The sea breeze is thick with the muffled sound Of the scattered rippling of waves And the chirping of birds Of random unfamiliar muted chatters in Mandarin and French And the solid staccatic barking of the moneyed's white boat engines -- I did a little bushwalking, too Passing thru 2000 year-old aboriginal arts engraved in stones Finally stopping by Jibbon Beach Laid down my handwoven mat Pressed my left ear to the ground As I slowly walked my fingers to the sand Holding a pinch and forming circles Until the crystals fall off Shifting my head to the sky Squinting my left eye Followed by the closing of the right The vastness of the curved blue sky Consumed by the pitch blackness Of a quiet sleep By the beach.

Who needs sunshine In the Central Grand Terminal When the light of day Is cannibalised by the round, suspended Bright lights that line the steel roof foundation Your destination is absolute Flashed on the enormous electronic screen With orange and black text scrolling upwards Incessantly, then pauses for a while As if pacifying your beating heart You stop momentarily, scanning for the correct platform to board You breathe a sigh of relief, 3 more minutes to spare I see you As I refill my soy capuccino cup with tap water I tried to process why I chose to read here, of all places I stepped out of the gates an hour ago with no destination in mind So I chose to settle, enjoy some prose Watch people pull luggages, some running, some taking their own sweet time And I see you And I see me Rooted to my seat, joyful in my temporal solitary transient state You are leaving in a snap I am staying Who needs sunshine in the Central Grand Station When we are all guided By our own sense of destination

John Banville once wrote a novel It's called The Sea Where allegories of crashing waves And tumultous lives are pictured to find rest  When they reach the shores Forming transient froth and bubbles Like memories appearing so clearly Until they vanish with another crashing of waves Memories come and go Like small ripples on the shore  Ever advancing and retreating Bathing the sand  I'm playing with my feet I try to confront the crashing of waves Dissipating all the memories Of a tumultuous life Only to find its fragments In the small bubbles and froth Foaming albeit fleeting ashore They are lovely to look at Those small, white bubbles But they are the byproduct Of so much agitation and beating. How wonderful it is to find beauty In the remains of anxiety No matter how fleeting No matter how momentary.

When your cold feet In the darkest of nights Brushed against my own toes It sent shivers in my spine  Supined in my dreams Of more than a decade of falling in love with you Unrequited. As I pressed my own head Onto your sweet smelling back My hopes for a reciprocated gesture A touch, a nudge, a quick acknowledgment  Of my invigorated love Drowned by my own fears of your own fears To let go of your inhibitions. You did not turn your face towards me But I kept on resting my nose on your frame Until the break of day Breaks the ennui of my sleepless devotion That remains unfurled in our own worlds Of unresolved crisis in how we see ourselves In the eyes of our own dreaded nightmares. The brushing of your feet against mine The summoning of your all too familiar scent  The silence of your feelings failing to give answers To my years of undying, relentless peculiar love for you They all vanished in the sky when you bid your goodbye Th