To my hair (A man mourns his loss)

In a fortnight's time it will be September
In a fortnight's time it would have been five years
But I would not take it any further nor grow my hair an inch longer
Thus drunk on vanity which flames my slighted anger
One cold Sunday evening I found myself at the local barber's
To once and for all cut my hair short and be rid of it forever.

There used to be a time when we got along just fine
I have to do little and friends' words were still kind
But Time grew envious of us and nothing I do would appease it
No amount of Dove would suffice nor would it be happy with just Rejoice
When lice made three's a crowd that was the last strand
The problem laid not in the foam, no matter how dear the brand.

But men's desperation outlasts our vanity
And their memory impishly feeds our injuries
I, a mortal recalls helplessly only when it was good
To drown out the insults when my hair had her own mood
All I have now is photos from the times bygone
When my long hair completes me like a crown adorned.

Alas, Time, the cruel joker is also the kindly healer
In awhile my hair grows longer while I weep a little softer
And I will be moved to grow my hair differently and style it a different colour
When we need no more than the daily dove and a little water
Until Time, again on a whim decrees it so
That my new hair grows obstinate and I, weary of it.

Sung hoarse

Come here little sister and keep me company
Scoot a little nearer, sit right next to me
It's ten to twelve and I'm inside on my own
I've boarded up the door before sitting here alone
But now that you've found a way in and then you found me
Do stay awhile and sing to me like a child.

Do you fear the night and chase it like a dog?
Do you kneel before the bright, the artificial sunlight?
I tell you now as a friend, fear not what's unseen
For all you have to fear is all that have been
I tell you now out of love, love not that which is livid
For all you have to fear is fear itself and those that come from it.

You have ceased your lullaby, I didn't realise that
Now restless like a church hooker you will soon take leave
Alas, even the sweetest voice way be sung hoarse
Even the daintiest of whores will soon start acting coarse
When it gets bright I'll force myself to sleep
Then you may leave, for you have another appointment to keep.

Sidewalk

I'm eating on the sidewalk
I eat on the sidewalk cause I need to smoke
I'm eating on the sidewalk alone
I eat on the sidewalk alone cause I can't stand the conversation
I'm eating on the sidewalk with a cat
I eat on the sidewalk because people can't compare to a domesticated pet.

THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE

1) Visit New Zealand, specifically the locations where they shot Peter Jackson's LoTR

2) Get published

Well this is such a short list. Will add more when I can recall the rest.

not a poem

1) I will be nicer to people, laying off the sarcasm and insults (at least to those who matter)

2) I will salam my parents before I go to work, regardless of how upset they are at me that morning

3) I will not ignore people when they nag me, even if I don't agree with their opinions. The bottom line is they care (but I'll still ignore their nagging though)

4) I will get in touch with my friends more often

5) I will ditch my tit-for-tat kind of relationship with friends. It was supposed to be a defense mechanism against just one specific person, and admittedly it has gotten out of line

6) I will smile more while attending gatherings that I have no interest in attending

7) I will not act condescending towards and around people I don't think much of

8) I will change radio stations less often and start listening to songs that I only mildly like more often while driving. Life is about enduring annoyances while getting to the good parts

partial nudity

the kind of stuff we see on tv
guns violence partial nudity
the kind of stuff we see on malaysian tv
religion superstition susilawati
after the executioner thumbs out and goes for tea
awani's gonna find something else that rhymes with susilawati.

Against the wall

Line up against the wall
Stack yourselves from short to tall
Kiss each other on the cheek
Dry your tears don't show you're sweak
You may hold hands if you so please
Either way I won't miss
It's just another day at the office
for the ticket conductor to eternal peace

That face

When you can't stand to look at his face
When the sight of him leaves you with a bad aftertaste
It's high time you stop being so close to the mirror
Heck, step out of the room, go walk through the door.

Some people just have that please-sock-my-teeth-in face
And his is ultimately one of them
Though it's not his fault, God made him that way
But isn't He supposed to be kind, that benevolent mind?

All he needs to do is go under the knife
That oughta fix it and turn around his life
If he does it right and there'll be no life turn around
Even if he brings a mirror along six feet underground.

The thief stole in again

I woke up today and my house is a mess again
My socks are mismatched my clothes inside out
And as usual my necktie's hung from the fan in a noose
I'll have to call my boss and tell him the thief stole in again
So I'll take the day off to take care of my house
I'm sure as usual nothing is stolen from me
I don't have a lot and what have are nothing fancy
But she comes in anyway and rearranges things to frustrate me
The funny thing is the thief and I were housemates before
And I used to have a lot more and it was good company
But it was never enough for her and I threw her out the door
And now she comes once in awhile to settle the score

Well it's partly my fault that the thief gets in
I should probably change the lock and get a dog
But I have to admit that I kind of like these nocturnal visitations
At least once in a while I get to alleviate my self-imposed isolation

Orang bujang

Orang bujang makannya ringkas
Orang bujang jalannya tangkas
Orang bujang liburnya pantas
Orang bujang marahnya lekas
Orang bujang murungnya keras
Orang bujang sampai bila membujang?

Merdeka selamanya

merdeka bukan hak selamanya
boleh hilang begitu sahaja
diberi raja yang pendek akal
disedekah penderhaka gila kuasa

merdeka kita merdeka bersekolah
tak perlu berperang tak perlu berbalah
bukan tin kosong bukan omong kosong
mencipta lawan, sia-sia bertarung

bebaskan dari perbezaan bangsa
bebaskan dari kesempitan bahasa
bebaskan dari membututi dogma
bebaskan dari politik sepenuhmasa

merdeka ini hayati bersama
merdeka letaknya di minda terbuka
laung di mulut, hayati di minda
merdeka merdeka merdekakah selamanya?


(as commissioned by my employee for a poster)

Kind words

Do you remember the kind of words we used to say to each other?
Do you remember the kind of words we used to say to each other in anger?
Do you remember the kind words we used to say to each other?
I do, but the former more than the latter.

Post-coital us

Now that we're just airing our sweats off
lying in proximity but no more intimate
I wonder whther u ever think of the postcoital us
When the rubbers been stripped off and silence enters
unwelcomed unwarranted but ultimately expected

it sure is awkward lying naked beside a relative stranger
who's been sharing the bed for the last five and a half years
will taking a knee fix this customary awkwardness i wonder?
Or chain a perfect woman to a perfectly free man


it would be nice if we still have our clothes on
those lurid garments streaked with Jewish names
without them now we look plain don't you think so?
without them we now look rather exposed dont you think so?


we have ascended the romantic frontier by climbing on top of each other
downhill downhill we now roll never reaching the top again foreverafter

Send us a sign

The dead upon mortality is bound no more to the mores of the living
they are no more helpful nor do they heed the tears of the living
our prayers reach not their eternal feasts and perennial parties
God's law concerns them no more in the end and they soon forget


the ungrateful dead are selfish in their abandoning of us
after moving on they cant be moved to send us a sign
how is it over there? is there a god and, does he really care?
do the wicked in hell get torched and their arrogance eternally scorched?


you will be loved friends, family and lovers on this earth only
upon mortality you will be put out of mind and out of our misery unless
you send us a sign that you are happy in the afterlife, if there is one
or we'd just as well turn atheists, godless hedonists

The loveliest creatures that walk side by side

Take off your make up, my love,
That painted disguise, your facial glove,
For I have seen you in your total nakedness
With my eyes closed and I saw no blemishes.

Other women powder their cheeks white,
And to top it off paint their lips bright,
Barring the laymen's gaze from prodding inside,
Whereas you my love have nothing to hide.

I could just carry off one of them on my shoulders
Alpha-male style but tarry a little, listen awhile,
In twenty years' time no amount of paint would suffice them,
While your nakedness shines brightly still like a rare gem.

So let the two of us, the naked women
And the ragged man shun romantic conventions,
We in our unsightliness have nothing to hide,
For we are indeed the loveliest creatures that ever walk side by side.

Transcription of discussion with Farahnaz

I hung out with my MA World Lit classmate Farahnaz the other day. We got to talking about stuff and as we were leaving she presented to me her so-called transcription of our talk on that day and told me to compose a poem using the gist of the discussion, since I'm such an arty-farty Humanities student. But since I was already out of my most recent literary-fury bout, I haven't been able to come up with anything since. So why don't you guys give it a shot and write something of your own using what you can read in the picture.

Diving into the lake

Here I am pushing your button
Watching you tense up little by little
Day by day I up the voltage
I have tosay you're getting used quite nicely

But there'll be the day when from just seven
I'll turn it right up to eleven
You'll explode right through the roof
While I'll be ROTF at this mobid merriment

I learned it from a great teacher sometime ago
She'd go through the roof without me trying
Before crushing down into me at terminal velocity
And I graduated the first time I tried it intentionally

I guess I am a little sorry for doing this to you
You deserve better in light of who I am to you
But those who stick around after I pushed their buttons
see me for who I am, then I'll stop this self-punishing amusement

But many went away the first time I pushed theirs
I tell myself it's alright, it's a filtering process
Just like you, now walking away looking rather irate
Leaving me like a kid whose RC plane just dove into the lake.

Iranian girls: or the funny thing with modern warfare

There are three girls in my class who came from Iran
I love their accent and the way they pronounce 'ih-RAHN'
Fun-loving, friendly beauties who wouldn't even hurt a fly
So please, masters of war sir, never mistake them for enemy combatants.

When they speak, it's the American accent that they try to affect
They suck cancer from that great American export, those Marlboro cigarettes
Heck, their fair skin makes them look like your daughters back in DC
And judging by their liberal ways, you should have given them green cards already.

If you go looking for the Axis of Evil, don't harm these girls
Go after Ahmedinejad and the Ayatollah, not their long-suffering people
Don't take over what their tyrants did to them, by pointing your gun barrels
at them for truth be told, they despise all this pseudo-religious nonsensical babble.

You know how funny modern warfare is, if you learn a thing or two from Iraq
How today's vengeful innocents can become tomorrow's bomb-strapped insurgents
You charge in hunting for Talibans in all their mosques and every single one of their schools
When those Talibans simply waltz right in behind your marines with every single one of their seventy-two virgins.

So please all of you, masters of war, 'The Star-Spangled Banner' singers
Remember this fact, before it's Operation-Liberation-Whatever all over again
A country is made up of her citizens, not her keris-kissing, 'Allahuakbar'-chanting dictators
And when you nuke a country, you'll mostly kill innocent people, not their well-hidden dukes.

A girl from Santa Monica

I once had a girl in Santa Monica
but i fucked her up real good
and she me in her month-long swell mood
but who keeps score with this sorta thing

so she now lives in the state of Virginia
where it snows all day and they sleep all night
and you read linguistic books by the dim candle light
you pretend its okay with vodka every lonely night

why do we keep doing this to ourselves like were addicted
to self-punishment so we keep getting hurt
and when we do find happiness we push it away
open the door, go out on the street try our best not to stray

I need to go somewhere where there's no one around
that way I'll stay sober and have no one else to blame
but there's so many people in Santa Monica
where I once had a girl who gave me this obvious scar

Empat tahun sekali

A new man comes calling
And you, sayang, like a proper young girl
Wilt and melt everytime he calls.
You loved him even more when he brandished his four-inch keris
Man had guts, you have to admit, for taking that big a risk.
After all your former man is the complete opposite
of him; spineless, senseless and sen-less; an utter parasite.

A new man comes calling
And he is the picture of piety & Islamic values
The Quran and Sunnah are the only places he takes his moral cues
You'll surely kiss his sole when the two of you get married
Just as long as you are the only woman that he decides to marry.
He leads jemaah prayers and you swear he knows what it means
Buy you don't know that the prayer he leads is his only one that day.

A new man comes calling
With a steady income and consultation fees on the sides
Enough for food, roof and his sweet new ride
He doesn't flaunt, although he does have a bit of wealth
He knows that those who overeat are the ones with a big belly.
Once in a while he fills up the tank of your Proton Savvy
But only after he takes the change you keep for your toll money.

And when another new man comes calling
He, in a heartbeat, points out his rival's many flaws
And you listen to his words like it's the land's law;
"That man is not religious, and not even a pure Malay
Not masculine like me sayang, and in all probability a closeted gay!"
But by that time his is already a lost game, he had no other plan
For you've forgotten your four years together and found yourself another new man.

Songs I can Already Play on My Guitar

I bought a guitar sometime ago and so far I've learnt how to play these songs, except for the solo parts of course. I think all are easy songs that don't involve any plucking whatsoever.

1) Anyone Else but You
3) About a Girl
4) Wild Thing
5) Jack & Diane
6) Use Somebody
7) Suffragette City
8) Sweet Jane
9) Last Caress
10) Throw Your Arms Around Me
11) Big Me
12) Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again
13) Last Night
14) Brimful of Asha

15) Unintended

16) Espionage

17) We are 138

18) Rebel Rebel

19) Harvest Moon

20) Here Comes Your Man

21) Show Me the Way

22) You May Be Right

23) Personal Jesus


Easy-peasy right? Well right now I'm trying to learn how to play Muse's Unintended. The chords are simple enough but the trick is in nailing the arpeggio plucking. Wish me luck.

A pinch won't do

Saints and sinners, losers and winners
We are all drowning swimmers
in this God-forsaken, water-logged land
God gave us heaven, but just because he could,
Chucked us out of it after some female fruit
Ate a piece of paradise fruit.

But then again that's just what my mother told me
She learned it from her own mother
They read it off a century-old bestseller
One with no shred of evidence nor an ISBN number.

A pinch won't do, so just leave the shaker here
I need a lot after all the lies, after all these years
The female kind has been quite unkind
to me whether I choose to believe or die an unbeliever.

The bottom line

I am your pillow, you my blanket
We can't have it all even if we crawled,
The keyword is sharing the bottomline is caring
for one another, not making it hard for each other

DIFFERENT UNIFORMS

Let they build no statue for me,
In honour of me, nor in my memory,
Bid me no grand farewell fit for kings,
Let none do any mourning and crying.
Let me lay in the trenches, deep in the puddle,
After I fall, in the thick of the battle.

Just take my helmet, and take it to the Fuhrer,
Lay it on his table, in front of his dinner,
Tell him quickly, before he gets angry,
Tell him, and tell him quickly:

“This belonged to a soldier, Herr Fuhrer,
Who’d fallen and will return never,
Who with his last breath cursed you aloud,
Who in his death can never be proud.”

What have I done to deserve my death?
When the Fuhrer merely slouches behind his desk,
After he waged war with a proud roar
And sees not all these horror and gore.
All for the sake of his pride and greed,
Disguised as what the state wants and mortally needs.

How different am I from this French I’d just shot?
Cowardly I feel, for he saw it not.
And the Briton I found broken in two,
Doesn’t he deserve to live as much as I do?

When the time comes, honour me not,
Leave me alone, let me just rot,
For ashamed am I to bear these weapons,
And to kill and maim my distant brethrens,
Just because they come not from where I come from,
Just because they are clad in different uniforms.

Here we go again

I hallucinate to get a better picture
to enunciate all that I cant see clear
I see you for who you are when I dont look
you simply dont see me when you dont look

I surrendered to your fighting spirit
you've rendered me nothing, jackshit
but if you let me wash off all your spit
i'll come again raring for a second hit

so now the playing field is even
its you me and all the self-inflicted pain
no more talking no more teasing
there goes the bell here we go again

Eternal Twilight

I shall no more be seen walking among the living
For all that’s left alive within me, is slowly leaving,
And the joys of the sunlight that burns bright,
Reveals all that is absent from my being
In whose gaping valley sits the darkest of nights.

When the time comes and nobody sees
I’ll depart this plane and crawl to the next
I shall be walking among you, but unseen by you
(Without a worldly care and trivial affairs)
Whose mortal eyes are glared by the sunlight
And I walk among you in my eternal twilight.

A Flower sticks out

I’m a man who sits on the edge of everything
I fidget with the gadgets that came with my being
And I collect people’s dirt and turd in my pocket and I keep it
Then I pile them into one heap of god-awfulness and eye-brow raiser

So they shun me but mostly they are a lot meaner
In their meanness they’re painful, like the edge of a razor
But behind me a flower sticks out of the muck and soil
And they stand, mouth a-gaping at the fruit of my toil.

So you can go to work

I seem to be needing a new wallet
Mine’s rather old, admittedly I’ve been faithful to it
I have just enough money to buy one, that much I admit
The problem is I’m broke and down to my last ringgit
If I go and purchase one, there’ll be nothing left in my pocket
The new wallet will be moot, for I have no money to keep in it.

Life is a hoot in all its day-to-day pointlessness
You get a wife, she gets on your nerves
You take out a loan on a car so you can go to work
But you forget that you got the job so you can pay the dealership jerk
Most people soften it with religion, the rest with hard liquor
Thus I’m left with the full brunt of life’s confusion, for I subscribe to neither.

The 8 o'clock cabaret

The crimson caps line up and congregate on one side
From cadet to colonel all collaborators
of this cabinet sponsored cartoon democracy
In the other corner us; the conveyor of catalyst, the coalition
Coaled as criminals, conmen and subsequently convicts
No doubt the amoral character of their 8 o’clock cabaret

We clash with them of course though we do no clobbering
They commit all the cleaving, we contest but a little
For we do not fight cowards, those who are cockless
And it crumbles into a cat and mouse hunt, catch-at-all-costs
They cart and cuff us into their coaches, not unlike cows
Parading us in their convoy, a caravan of curiosities

Their kangaroo court quickly finds us culpable
Culprit of the conspiracy, a cult of the coarse
As if on cue, our custodians carry us away
Confiscate our freedom, curtail our courage
We don’t plead our case, it’s not in the script
The curtain comes down, but no one’s clapping.

Kuala lumpur oh kuala Lumpur
Can you hear our cry oh Kuala Lumpur
The cock and bull on your cable, consider it carefully
For they were all created quite cunningly
Keep in your recollection, never quell the memory
For we convened for you, and collapsed in your view.

The Serdang Gloom

I remembered it like it was in my own backyard
Every turn, every stoplight, every money grubbing toll plaza
All the young lovers oblivious to their partners' disinterest
All the vacationing couples putting off divorce for another week.
We would fight half the way and sulk the remaining half
And in came a silence so stinging a slap is a caress, that things
Ended with me chasing away the dim sun thinking it was a rainy cloud
Ended with me grinning a smile that’s so damn proud.

But Serdang is now like the drop when using a long noose
Much like watching the government-written RTM news
I recognise it when I see it in my term paper
It keeps me company when I'm having a lonesome dinner
It swirls and waves at me at the bottom of each bottle
And I cant now smile even when a gun is at my temple, for
Some nights I think I'll go mad trying not to think of you
Some nights I'm sure I'm mad when all my dreams are about you.

With Prozac in one pocket and a ring in the other
With happiness on one hand and enslavement on the other.
I will return to Melaka my land of future promises
Where the sun shines sufficiently for those who badly need it
For returning couples that chickened out of divorce
For young lovers who come with a new amour.
Whether you like it or not I'm grafting a smile onto my face
If it means you'll shine brighter and chase this Serdang gloom away.

That self-made ire

My problems real or imagined can be solved by liquid solution
(and no I don't mean ablution)
Wherever you are now is none of my concern
Since I can find you now in sweet intoxication
Where we spend our nights in make believe fornication

I've been made to grow older but none the wiser
A constant quitter, who's every bit a loser
That you painstakingly made in your image
Only to later hate with a passionate rage

In my current state I confuse the facts all the time
All the fights there were many, all the joy I keep recalling
Yes I was the one parachuting out the plane as it caught fire
But you were the one torching it with that self-made ire

I hate it when it wears off, this temporary absolution
It tends to put me resentfully in this realistic position
As I am more able to walk in a relatively straight direction
The truth starts to sink in:
I am here quite sober, in your resounding absence.

The last cigarette at the top of the minaret

The tallest building in Bangi
Seems to be the minaret of the mosque
So that will have to do for me to fulfill
My pledge as a man who's at the edge

Bearing in mind that this, too, shall pass
I'll crawl up the stairs, out of this self-made mess
Broken glass, promises, confidence all now ghosts of the past
As a new man emerges at the top, almost with a hop

The view will be breathtaking in the stillness of the night
As I light my last cigarette at the top of the minaret
The cold shackles will have bound me for the last time
For I'll be flying off the minaret fearlessly, worry-free.