i, shatter: November 2007

torn raw worth

only
the subject matter

is new

sort of

everything else
pedestrian!

it wouldn't be so bad
if

i get run over
by a passing motorist

soon

enough

'Tis clear thou art a loon

The aim of yer chosen passage
Of charming masks and bergamots
The joy of Lot and a quasi-dance
The sadness of yer fantastic disguise

Chant in yer minor mode!
Love is vain and life opportunistic!
The air, the cross, the magic hour
The son & a mêlée on the moon

The calm air on the moon is full of tears, beautiful
The river, birds, trees & the sangfroid of ecstasy & jets of water,
The grandest jets of waters
Svelte as Parma marbles.

- translitic of Paul Verlaine's 'Clair de Lune'

Gondang Dia

«Here the earth vomits trees it doesn't know what to do with.» And you said I was right.

Then

You put a hand, pale like a flower, on the grey trunk of a palm tree, «That's why I feel so out of place—where I come from, the trees keep everything in.»

Birthday letters #4 (The Blue Flannel Suit #2)

21 years ago I saw my dead grandmother, naked & lying on her right side where the cancer started. That was the second time I saw her pubic hair. The first time was when I was five. Old men were trying to wrap her pale stomach in white silk. They struggled with the unexpected heaviness of her corpse. She was three hours dead and already, I had to say goodbye. Too young to understand, too old to cry. The only thing I could do, was turn the mildewed Koran tapes over on the silver Sony on top of the breakfast table.

Birthday letters #3 (The Blue Flannel Suit)

I saw my dead grandmother, naked
xxxlying on her side
xxxxxxwhere the cancer
started.
xxxOld men
xxxxxxwrapped her pale stomach
in white silk.
xxxThey struggled
xxxxxxwith the unexpected heaviness
of her corpse.
xxxShe was three hours dead
xxxxxxand already
I had to say goodbye.
xxxToo young to understand
xxxxxxtoo old to cry.
The only thing
xxxI could do
xxxxxxxwas turn
mildewed Koran tapes
xxxover
xxxxxxon the silver Toshiba.

Birthday letters #2 (Red)

Dark houses
An architect's fear of light

Dreams of England
Narrow stairs

Cold cubicles
No bath

Birthday letters #1 (The Beach)

An émigré's shock of the new
xxxis nothing
compared to his repulsion
xxxa year on

xxxof the now familiar.

Chao Lei

With one hand on your chin
You look like you're contemplating
Great Things
Like a career in Hollywood
Or ..................................
I wonder

What brand of pomade
Do you wear
To be able to flatten
Your broomstick Mongol hair
Like that
Royal Crown for a royal crown
You're propping up with the said hand?

Whatever happened?

What remains of you
Is a stock fan-letter reply postcard
Of a handsome oriental devil
In sepia

My girlfriend bought it
On a quick stop-over trip
to Hong Kong

Did you ever make it?

Now I look at the watch
You wear on the hand
That propped up your chin
Its hands
Frozen in time
Like the thousands
People found on 10/11

(Were you there?)

They show a mangled
Victory sign

If there does exist the Big Jakarta Poem, it would contain all the following things:

Bratwurst und Beers
München within

the span of a four-leaf
clover:

The Filter Moment Has
Come.

People go out at 9.47
pm for donuts sprayed with

cheese in machines
copied illegally somewhere in

Sacramento, Calif., USA
and assembled in a war-

ehouse in the outskirts
of this city—Town Squares'

din beats the noise the
welders make with the

candy flame of their blow-
torches. Why

is everything so loud here
what happens when you com-

bine THX with Dolby? Maybe
the gallon-drum mestizo will

go off the scales and the
pretty redhead fly on the strange-

ness of her hair—you top beet!—
and all that's just about

the noise. Govinda govinda go-
vinda Jaya jaya—We've still

got David Hassellhoff on prime
time. This city is

a pan of boiling water, forget realism
and moving Amygisms

for a while now and let's
build a future harmonium while

the jury's out: Every-
thing threatens to boil off

into steam. Things disappear
the way the world's omphalos

turn from an outie into
something non-descript just

to make things easy we call
it an outie. Let's

do the long week-end at the
volcano: the merino death

cloud will make easy target
for your Canon Digital Rebel

SLR set to [symbol of thunder] or
for the optimists [symbol of cloud] & enjoy

a culinary feast with views
of terraced rice fields on green

slopes angled at the exact
degree to make the water

run down without ever appear-
ing to move. I think they

call it moving «vertically down-
stream». On boulders like houses

that pimple those green kids
sunbathe penises still recover-

ing from the bong supits' touch, bar-
baric, when they happen at 10,

11, you try to get it over &
done with before the fine fur

on the base of your cock
graduate into a full bush.

A dilemma you keep to your-
self since there's only one way

out. Forget Su Tung-p'o &
his walking stick, stop strik-

ing jagged stones with it &
start somewhere close

to a constant height
above sea-level.