i, shatter: September 2007

sortie de secours

di kota asing ini
hujan sore-sore adalah

lautan parapluie

sungai tak berarus
air hijau

dan sepasang turis amerika

bermantel eurodisney
di atap bateau-mouche

yang melaju lurus.

in the face of so many projets pour l'art contemporain i feel like so much more like a loser

no more comment.

naik sepeda

It's quiet in the suburbs.
9.37. PM.
Trees have grown in abandoned corner houses.
Overgrown like afros.
And people are up
in strange places
squatting on empty
badminton courts
with the sign
white painted on grey concrete
just outside the touchlines
PARKING SPACE FOR MEDIKA LESTARI CUSTOMERS ONLY
a man bellycooling
his t-shirt rolled up just below his nipples
leaning on doorjambs
of a makeshift
plywood shack for builders
— you see them everywhere
a magnificent wog mansion
next to it
ceilings painted with ducks
doves
angels flying in mid-air
I prefer not to see how they make them float
above white domes lit
by blue spotlight
the colour of the sea in Fiji
Tourism Board brochures.
Yellow light
of cheap low watted bulb
behind the bellycooling man
O how I long to see what's behind the doorjambs
but all I did was smile
at the man
another quick look at his nipples
dark under the ambient blue
of the aforementioned
magnificent
domes.
Two boys
playing cards
outside a gate
sila on the dusty conblocks
(or perhaps they'd wiped the dust off
with their hands the way I used to
sweep loose earth with my hand
then sit
on the now smooth
hard surface
to watch a badminton match
at the RT court
— remember the lines
made of multicoloured raffia?
The shuttlecock
would bounce when a smash hit
above a depression on the ground.
Makes it easier
for the umpires to decide
on line calls. On the line is in.
Or out. I don't remember. It all seems so far away
now.)
So what I'm trying to do is get all the details down
everything perfect and complete
so I don't forget
do justice to this place.