A wedding is a party with,
Of course, a wedding cake.
But sometimes by the time it comes,
It's hard to stay awake.
People need to talk a lot,
And laugh and joke and kiss,
And cry - why do they cry? - and mention
God and love and bliss.
Two people have decided that
They'll share one house for life,
And call themselves, instead of friends,
A husband and a wife.
And so we have to get dressed up,
And eat a lot, and wait
For hours till they finally serve
The great big wedding cake.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Monday, March 3, 2008
STAY FOR A WHILE
STAY FOR A WHILE
By Amy Grant
Long time since I've seen your smile
But when I close my eyes
I remember
You were no more than a child
But then so was I
Young and tender
Time carries on
I guess it always will
But deep inside my heart
Time stands still
Stay for awhile
Well, it's good to see your smile
And I love your company
Stay for awhile
And remember the days gone by
For a moment it can seem
Just the way it used to be
Snowfalls, phone calls, broken hearts
Clear summer days, warm and lazy
Long walks, long talks, after dark
We vowed we'd never forget
Now it's hazy
Time takes its toll
And time alters our view
It would be nice to
Spend some time with you
Stay for awhile
Well, it's good to see your smile
And I love your company
Stay for awhile
And remember the days gone by
For a moment it can seem
Just the way it used to be
By Amy Grant
Long time since I've seen your smile
But when I close my eyes
I remember
You were no more than a child
But then so was I
Young and tender
Time carries on
I guess it always will
But deep inside my heart
Time stands still
Stay for awhile
Well, it's good to see your smile
And I love your company
Stay for awhile
And remember the days gone by
For a moment it can seem
Just the way it used to be
Snowfalls, phone calls, broken hearts
Clear summer days, warm and lazy
Long walks, long talks, after dark
We vowed we'd never forget
Now it's hazy
Time takes its toll
And time alters our view
It would be nice to
Spend some time with you
Stay for awhile
Well, it's good to see your smile
And I love your company
Stay for awhile
And remember the days gone by
For a moment it can seem
Just the way it used to be
How Long More?
It pains me to hear you say goodbye
Sending off to another what is yours by your right
I watch your awkward stride, carrying your ailing hunched back
To lock the gates as he walk towards the steps
Oh God, hasten Your work of reconciliation
Grant me grace to wait with patience
Give them courage to follow your wisdom
So as to claim your full-bloomed salvation
My hope is in You to make all things new
Give a fresh start from deep within their hearts
Do what only You are able to do
You are my hope and all that is true
Sending off to another what is yours by your right
I watch your awkward stride, carrying your ailing hunched back
To lock the gates as he walk towards the steps
Oh God, hasten Your work of reconciliation
Grant me grace to wait with patience
Give them courage to follow your wisdom
So as to claim your full-bloomed salvation
My hope is in You to make all things new
Give a fresh start from deep within their hearts
Do what only You are able to do
You are my hope and all that is true
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Singapore You Are Not My Country
Singapore You Are Not My Country
Singapore you are not my country.
Singapore you are not a country at all.
You are surprising Singapore, statistics-starved Singapore,
soulful Singapore of tourist brochures in Japanese and
hourglass kebayas.
You protest, but without picketing, without rioting,
without Catherine Lim,
but through your loudspeaker media, through the hyp-
notic eyeballs of your newscaster, and that weather
woman who I swear is working voodoo on my teevee
screen.
Singapore, what are these lawsuits in my mailbox?
There are so many sheafs, I should have tipped the
postman.
Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all.
Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your
anthem although the lyrics are still bleeding from the
bark of my sapless heart.
Not because I sang them pigtailed pinnafored breakfasted
chalkshoes in school
But because I used to watch telly till they ran out of
shows.
Do not invite me to the podium and tell me to address you
properly.
I am allergic to microphones and men in egosuits and
publicwigs.
And I am not a political martyr, I am a patriot who has lost
his country and virginity.
Do not wave a cane at me for vandalising your propaganda
with technicolour harangues,
Red Nadim semen white Mahsuri menses the colourful
language of my eloquent generation.
Your words are like walls on which truth is graffiti.
This has become an island of walls.
Asylum walls, factory walls, school walls, the walls of the
midnight Istana.
If I am paranoid I have learnt it from you, O my delicate
orchid stalk Singapore.
Always thirsty for water, spooked by armed archipelagoes,
always gasping for airspace, always running to keep
ahead, running away from yourself.
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist, an opposition party,
a liar,
a traitor, a mendicant professor, a Marxist homosexual
communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty
smuggler?
How can you say I do not believe in
The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of justice?
And how can you call yourself a country, you terrible
hallucination
of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes'
drive from the MRT?
Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness
lies at the end of a Toto queue
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter
whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver whose
handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
That that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a
broken collarbone and three dead comrades but who
will not hesitate at thrusting his tiger ribcage into
another fight
because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own
fire and there is no turning back.
Tell that to the yuppie who sits in meat-markets disguised
as pubs, listening to Kenny G disguised as jazz
on handphone disguised as conversation and loneliness
disguised as a jukebox.
Tell that to all those exiles whose names are forgotten but
who leave behind a bad taste in the thoughtful mouth,
reminding us that the flapping sunned linen shelters a
whiff of chloroform.
Tell that to Town Council men who feed pigeons with
crumbs of arsenic.
Tell that to Maria Hertogh a.k.a. Nadra who proved to us
that blood spilled was thicker than water shed as she
was caught pining under a stone angel in the nunnery
for her husband.
Tell that to Ah Meng, who bore five hairy bastards for our
nation.
Tell that to Lee Kuan Yew's squint.
Tell that to Josef Ng, who shaves my infant head admidst a
shower of one-cent coins, and both of us are pure
again.
Tell that to my Warrant Officer who knew I was faking.
Tell that to the unemployed man who drinks cigarettes
smokes tattoos watches peanuts
unselfconscious of his gut belch debts and wife having an
affair with the Salesman of Nervous Breakdowns.
Tell that to Maya Angelou's who are screeching like
witches United Nations-style poems populated by
Cheena Babi Bayee Tonchet Melayu Malas Keling
Garagok Mat Salleh.
Tell that to the fakirs of civil disobedience, whose head-
phones are pounding the hooving basslines of Damyata
Damyata Damyata
Tell that to the statue of Li Po at Marina Park.
Tell that to the performance artists who need licences like
drivers and doctors and dogs
when all they really need is just three percent of your love.
Tell that to the innocent faggot looking for kicks on a
Sunday evening to end up sucking the bit-hard pistol-
muzzle of the CID, ensnared no less by his weakness for
pretty boys naked out of uniform.
Tell that to the caretaker of the grave of Radin Mas.
Tell that to Chee Soon Juan's smirk.
Tell that to the pawns of the Upgrading Empire who
penetrate their phalluses into heartlands to plant Lego
cineplexes Tupperware playgrounds suicidal balconies
carnal parks of cardboard and condoms and before we
know it we are a colony once again.
Tell that to Malaysia whose Desaru is our spitoon whose
TV2 is our amusement whose Bumiputras are our
threat whose outrage is our greater outrage whose
turtles are weeping blind in the roaring daylight of our
cameras.
Tell that to the old poets who have seen this piece of land
slip their metaphors each passing year from bumboats
to debris to sanitation projects to drowning attempts
to barbed neon water weeds on a river with no reflec-
tions a long way off from the sea.
O Singapore your fair shores your garlands your GNP.
You are not a country you are a construction from spare
parts.
You are not a campaign you are last year's posters.
You are not a culture you are poems on the MRT.
You are not a song you are part swearword part lullaby.
You are not Paradise you are an island with pythons.
Singapore I am on trial.
These are the whites of my eyes and the reds of my wrists.
These are the deranged stars of my schizophrenia.
This is the milk latex gummy moon of my sedated smile.
I have lost a country to images, it is as simple as that.
Singapore you have a name on a map but no maps to your
name.
This will not do; we must stand aside and let the Lion
crash through a madness of cymbals back to that dark
jungle heart
when eyes were still embers waiting for a crownless
Prince of Palembang.
- Alfian Sa'at, One Fierce Hour, 1998
Singapore you are not my country.
Singapore you are not a country at all.
You are surprising Singapore, statistics-starved Singapore,
soulful Singapore of tourist brochures in Japanese and
hourglass kebayas.
You protest, but without picketing, without rioting,
without Catherine Lim,
but through your loudspeaker media, through the hyp-
notic eyeballs of your newscaster, and that weather
woman who I swear is working voodoo on my teevee
screen.
Singapore, what are these lawsuits in my mailbox?
There are so many sheafs, I should have tipped the
postman.
Singapore, I assert you are not a country at all.
Do not raise your voice against me, I am not afraid of your
anthem although the lyrics are still bleeding from the
bark of my sapless heart.
Not because I sang them pigtailed pinnafored breakfasted
chalkshoes in school
But because I used to watch telly till they ran out of
shows.
Do not invite me to the podium and tell me to address you
properly.
I am allergic to microphones and men in egosuits and
publicwigs.
And I am not a political martyr, I am a patriot who has lost
his country and virginity.
Do not wave a cane at me for vandalising your propaganda
with technicolour harangues,
Red Nadim semen white Mahsuri menses the colourful
language of my eloquent generation.
Your words are like walls on which truth is graffiti.
This has become an island of walls.
Asylum walls, factory walls, school walls, the walls of the
midnight Istana.
If I am paranoid I have learnt it from you, O my delicate
orchid stalk Singapore.
Always thirsty for water, spooked by armed archipelagoes,
always gasping for airspace, always running to keep
ahead, running away from yourself.
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist, an opposition party,
a liar,
a traitor, a mendicant professor, a Marxist homosexual
communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty
smuggler?
How can you say I do not believe in
The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of justice?
And how can you call yourself a country, you terrible
hallucination
of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes'
drive from the MRT?
Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness
lies at the end of a Toto queue
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter
whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver whose
handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
That that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a
broken collarbone and three dead comrades but who
will not hesitate at thrusting his tiger ribcage into
another fight
because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own
fire and there is no turning back.
Tell that to the yuppie who sits in meat-markets disguised
as pubs, listening to Kenny G disguised as jazz
on handphone disguised as conversation and loneliness
disguised as a jukebox.
Tell that to all those exiles whose names are forgotten but
who leave behind a bad taste in the thoughtful mouth,
reminding us that the flapping sunned linen shelters a
whiff of chloroform.
Tell that to Town Council men who feed pigeons with
crumbs of arsenic.
Tell that to Maria Hertogh a.k.a. Nadra who proved to us
that blood spilled was thicker than water shed as she
was caught pining under a stone angel in the nunnery
for her husband.
Tell that to Ah Meng, who bore five hairy bastards for our
nation.
Tell that to Lee Kuan Yew's squint.
Tell that to Josef Ng, who shaves my infant head admidst a
shower of one-cent coins, and both of us are pure
again.
Tell that to my Warrant Officer who knew I was faking.
Tell that to the unemployed man who drinks cigarettes
smokes tattoos watches peanuts
unselfconscious of his gut belch debts and wife having an
affair with the Salesman of Nervous Breakdowns.
Tell that to Maya Angelou's who are screeching like
witches United Nations-style poems populated by
Cheena Babi Bayee Tonchet Melayu Malas Keling
Garagok Mat Salleh.
Tell that to the fakirs of civil disobedience, whose head-
phones are pounding the hooving basslines of Damyata
Damyata Damyata
Tell that to the statue of Li Po at Marina Park.
Tell that to the performance artists who need licences like
drivers and doctors and dogs
when all they really need is just three percent of your love.
Tell that to the innocent faggot looking for kicks on a
Sunday evening to end up sucking the bit-hard pistol-
muzzle of the CID, ensnared no less by his weakness for
pretty boys naked out of uniform.
Tell that to the caretaker of the grave of Radin Mas.
Tell that to Chee Soon Juan's smirk.
Tell that to the pawns of the Upgrading Empire who
penetrate their phalluses into heartlands to plant Lego
cineplexes Tupperware playgrounds suicidal balconies
carnal parks of cardboard and condoms and before we
know it we are a colony once again.
Tell that to Malaysia whose Desaru is our spitoon whose
TV2 is our amusement whose Bumiputras are our
threat whose outrage is our greater outrage whose
turtles are weeping blind in the roaring daylight of our
cameras.
Tell that to the old poets who have seen this piece of land
slip their metaphors each passing year from bumboats
to debris to sanitation projects to drowning attempts
to barbed neon water weeds on a river with no reflec-
tions a long way off from the sea.
O Singapore your fair shores your garlands your GNP.
You are not a country you are a construction from spare
parts.
You are not a campaign you are last year's posters.
You are not a culture you are poems on the MRT.
You are not a song you are part swearword part lullaby.
You are not Paradise you are an island with pythons.
Singapore I am on trial.
These are the whites of my eyes and the reds of my wrists.
These are the deranged stars of my schizophrenia.
This is the milk latex gummy moon of my sedated smile.
I have lost a country to images, it is as simple as that.
Singapore you have a name on a map but no maps to your
name.
This will not do; we must stand aside and let the Lion
crash through a madness of cymbals back to that dark
jungle heart
when eyes were still embers waiting for a crownless
Prince of Palembang.
- Alfian Sa'at, One Fierce Hour, 1998
Friday, May 4, 2007
.Fifty.Three. meaning..
ok emo frequency graph getting exponential here. have no idea what's been eating in lately.. tired of being an old wretched grouch.. but i really can't remember the last time i was truly happy, or what really mattered to me. am i still a believer or follower of a god?
i hate this way im living, hate the way this world is..
just awoke to the the reality of it.. and seeing the gargantuan mountain of trash i've left in my tracks.. not that there's anything i can do about it.. wat's the purpose of this living? is it gonna be just work, work, work, work, work and work, studies, money or wat?? what is truly genuine and lasting on this damned place?? don't give me that shitload of godly crap again.. i still can't fathom the meaning of life... the ultimate worth, what living for God? how to? what exactly does it mean? do you go on the road, meet any sane person and hear them telling you i'm blindly living for god? i need a cause to justify that!
dunno really know what matters to me, dunno what i'm living for now.. but the frustration beats having to be some stupid 'led-by-the-nose' ass.. nothing's worth sacrificing or living for.. call me a cynic, a skeptic, a pessimist.. watever.. this place is just pure hopelessness.. everything sucked the shit outta me.. hellish, brain-draining, suicide-inducing rollercoasters of lessons in life.. till nothing matters anymore. my world's exceedingly crumbled.
just as i give up hatred, i give up love.. that's only fair. no more room for either. escapism is the cure.
i dun wanna be a 'to be', a 'has been', or a 'must be'.. im afraid of falling, afraid of failing and afraid to pain somemore.. i'll just not succeed in everything i do.
I dont really have much to say though than this: "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, I will give you rest" - Matt 11:28. I wrote this poem for you...
Watch the sun rise
It will soon set
Watch the oceans roar
It will soon be still
Such is life
Watch the storms rage
Calm will soon become its end
Watch the rainfall
It will soon stop
And here comes sunshine
Smile at the mountain
It will soon become a plain
Take a deep breath in sight of the valley
It will soon be filled
God holds it in His hands
The Lord grant you peace and cause His face to shine upon you!
We are praying for you
i hate this way im living, hate the way this world is..
just awoke to the the reality of it.. and seeing the gargantuan mountain of trash i've left in my tracks.. not that there's anything i can do about it.. wat's the purpose of this living? is it gonna be just work, work, work, work, work and work, studies, money or wat?? what is truly genuine and lasting on this damned place?? don't give me that shitload of godly crap again.. i still can't fathom the meaning of life... the ultimate worth, what living for God? how to? what exactly does it mean? do you go on the road, meet any sane person and hear them telling you i'm blindly living for god? i need a cause to justify that!
dunno really know what matters to me, dunno what i'm living for now.. but the frustration beats having to be some stupid 'led-by-the-nose' ass.. nothing's worth sacrificing or living for.. call me a cynic, a skeptic, a pessimist.. watever.. this place is just pure hopelessness.. everything sucked the shit outta me.. hellish, brain-draining, suicide-inducing rollercoasters of lessons in life.. till nothing matters anymore. my world's exceedingly crumbled.
just as i give up hatred, i give up love.. that's only fair. no more room for either. escapism is the cure.
i dun wanna be a 'to be', a 'has been', or a 'must be'.. im afraid of falling, afraid of failing and afraid to pain somemore.. i'll just not succeed in everything i do.
I dont really have much to say though than this: "come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, I will give you rest" - Matt 11:28. I wrote this poem for you...
Watch the sun rise
It will soon set
Watch the oceans roar
It will soon be still
Such is life
Watch the storms rage
Calm will soon become its end
Watch the rainfall
It will soon stop
And here comes sunshine
Smile at the mountain
It will soon become a plain
Take a deep breath in sight of the valley
It will soon be filled
God holds it in His hands
The Lord grant you peace and cause His face to shine upon you!
We are praying for you
All You Got
All You Got
I heard you say that no one seems to care ‘bout you
It’s in your eyes, you think that life’s unfair to you
Just give it all you got, my friend
Just give it all you got, it’s not the end
CHORUS
Cause you oughta know
There’s a reason for these changin’ seasons
God only knows how much your heart can bear
So don’t you let go
Everybody has their up and down times
Everybody needs to know how much they’re loved
My friend
So hold on, it’s not the end
As I remember everything you touch
Would turn to gold
You held the secrets
To make your grandest dreams unfold
You were the very best of us all
But the sun that rises still falls
CHORUS
It’s just a love song
Cause everybody needs a friend
I’ll be right here for you
Just a simple prayer
It’s from the bottom of my heart
That He’ll never let you go
CHORUS
I heard you say that no one seems to care ‘bout you
It’s in your eyes, you think that life’s unfair to you
Just give it all you got, my friend
Just give it all you got, it’s not the end
CHORUS
Cause you oughta know
There’s a reason for these changin’ seasons
God only knows how much your heart can bear
So don’t you let go
Everybody has their up and down times
Everybody needs to know how much they’re loved
My friend
So hold on, it’s not the end
As I remember everything you touch
Would turn to gold
You held the secrets
To make your grandest dreams unfold
You were the very best of us all
But the sun that rises still falls
CHORUS
It’s just a love song
Cause everybody needs a friend
I’ll be right here for you
Just a simple prayer
It’s from the bottom of my heart
That He’ll never let you go
CHORUS
Friendship?
"Friendship is fragile. Please handle my heart with care." What seems like common wisdom turns out to an abstract concept to grapple with. What is true friendship? Who are our true friends? Do we really know and feel it? Have we really experienced it? Or do we merely think we know but have not the slightest idea what it truly is? We say we care but we trample on it, Familiarity breeds contempt and we begin to take it for granted? Then we subject it to the gift of neglect and without realising it, we lose it.
a simple gesture sometimes speaks volume and really doesn't cost much.
a simple gesture sometimes speaks volume and really doesn't cost much.
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