proJect pinK

Updates aren't coming as often as they should, this I know. Don't need to stare daggers at me, sire.

The muse is not here as often as I would like to, and academia is piling up.

Meanwhile my lady writers, please support Elvina on her proJect pinK.



Yours truly
Aristocrat

Part 3: Those whispers that got lost...

Those whispers of love that I kissed her lips with…
To watch her crescent-eyes morph
To twin orbs of the lovely moon

No matter how hard I plead with Time, no matter what I offered to stave off his onslaught, he still does it. He still tramples all over the garden in the East that we have had lived in and tended to. He threatens to drive me out almost every other day, you know? The garden that you and I used to live in, together, such bliss we had everyday. The wondrous flora that fills the air with amazing scents. And those trees! They were so pleasing to the eye and carried all kinds of food! With those trees we needn’t starve, you know? Jane and I just had to tend to it.

But now I already don’t remember much.

Not all of the two years we spent together. There seems to be missing pieces of my memory, pieces of a puzzle that I cannot recall no matter how hard I try. Did I delete them from my memory in an effort to repress those shards of broken glass from piercing my heart? That pulsating mass of redness which everyone seeks to protect from the alien bodies that intrude first into the outer shell, then slithering through the inner walls into that red mass. That alien thing which we call love, can it really be that destructive? It always leaves behind a slimy trail of pain after it has fed on the red mass. Nothing left behind.

But I digress.

As I was saying, I don’t remember much of the time that we had spent together. To be sure, there are both happy times and sad times. I can hardly remember where we shared our first kiss. As hard as I try to remember anything concerning her, it seems to evade my grasp.

But slowly, it comes to me. I can remember the scene where I first held her hand, under the comfort of darkness where I couldn’t see her face and neither could she mine. All the better to hide our embarrassment under. Where no prying faces could see the torrent of emotions that I was struggling to hold back but failed.

Like now, how my composure fails me as another torrent of emotions threatens to overwhelm me again. As it failed me before, so will it fail me again. How could I suffer under the gaze of Augustine, to turn my thoughts away from nature and nature’s appetites, when my very nature was to love wholeheartedly! One might as well ask the nightingale to stop chirping!

Where the first one was a promulgation of undying love, now this is a call of despair, the call of the dying lovebird calling out for his other half. And as that other half took the first step into the doors of Hades, so does this half, for one could never do without the other.

Those first moments of love I can still remember without any difficulty. I can remember the heart-stopping moment when our lips first locked, signing that pact to love each other forever. Her eyes, growing big with emotions. I could almost see myself reflected in those orbs of hers. How mesmerising it was. That infantile moment of pleasure, those spasms of happiness that ran through our spines couldn’t be false, could it?

But now everything seemed so illusionary, as if I had never met her before. The people that we knew acted as if they had never met her before. For them, life went on as usual. Everyone started avoiding me when they realised that all I wanted to talk about was Jane. I think they had enough of my moping around. But I couldn’t help it, I missed her so bad.

And now here she was, standing down there right in front of me. Perhaps it may be a figment of my imagination but at least, I got to see her in the flesh. For a while.

Part 2: Do you know how much I missed you?

*Author’s Note: My dearest readers, here begins the second part of the story. Lay back in your chairs, relax and let these words flow over you like the gentle caresses of your paramour. Let it bring you to a deep well of memories that lies hidden to all…*

For a moment, I saw a silhouette in the distant fog, blazing across the neutral screens of my eyes. Seen through the enchantment of the distance, that silhouette looked fatally like Jane. Her long hair, her slightly drooping shoulders, her slight curves. Everything looked so real. Can it really be her?

“Jane,” I remembered whispering. To her, to that shadow cast out in the distance away from me. Far far away.

“Jane? Is that you, Jane?” The resounding silence answered my questions...

“Do you know how much I missed you so? How much I am pining for you, my dear little one?” I was beginning to ramble, to get hysterical. Come to think of it, how unmanly that was. Have you ever seen a man getting hysterical over a girl? No? Now you have.

I started to make a move towards her, to get closer to the dearest thing in my heart. But it seems the closer I got, the further that thing in my heart got away. I began to try harder, to run faster, just for the sake of trying to ascertain whether that shade of hers was real.

Was it real? Or was it a product of my hyperactive imagination? I have been told countless times that I imagined too much, way too much for my own good. A sensitive, you might call me.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice called out to me to stop where I was. I was pretty sure that the voice wasn’t hers. I could have recognized her voice anywhere in the world. But was that voice mine? It sounded like my voice yet I clearly remembered I did not open my pale lips.

“She will disappear if you go towards here.” The voice whispered in my ear again. Definitely not mine. I did not have such a rasping voice.

“You know she will disappear if you proceed. Just like all those movies that you have watched. Try it if you don’t believe me.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. Even if that voice wasn’t mine, what it said made sense. She might vanish, and I didn’t want that to happen, not forever. I was beyond caring whether the voice had an infernal or godly origin. They were of no importance to me. Only Jane did. And she was gone. Just like that, in the twinkling of an eye,

One day she was still doing fine, her tinkling laughter reverberating throughout the huge mansion. It always reminds me of wind chimes, the gentle tinkling that comes with the wind. The wind that gently caresses your cheeks and the tinkling that flows over your ears like the sounds of a fresh winter spring, melting from the warmth of spring. If you know how sweet the freshly melted waters of spring taste, you would know how sweet her laughter was to my ears. Or to anyone else for that matter.

All the times that we have enjoyed together, be it happy or sad. I have to encase those moments in time, I have to. If not, I would lose them to the force of Time. Time will wear away all my efforts to make the memory of her stay.

Away, away! Get lost from her, Time! Do not ever trespass my memory of her! She will never fade from me!

Please, I beg of you. That is all I have left of her. Please…

Part 1: Freefall of My Memories

Previously I had posted this as Freefall of Memories. It was archived under the Prose section at the sidebar on your right my dear reader. Soon, the second part will be up…

The moment I stepped out of the train, I could imagine the smell hitting my senses again, the noxious yet familiar smell that was signature to this area. I have never figured out the origins of the smell, something that borders along the line of coffee with hot chocolate, yet it was too sharp to be so.

But apparently, the smell was now gone. Replaced by something else, something foreign. Maybe because I have been away from too long. It has been more than a year since I have travelled to this part of the country. This part dictated an hour's travelling time, and in this age of instant gratification, Time was too precious to spend an hour travelling.

And here I am. For no apparent reason at all. Actually there was. A very good one. I'm in pursuit of something which brought me right here. As I walked through the dark pathways, an unrelenting torrent of memories came pouring and I was caught unaware. It was as though my defences had been breached; that someone had actually managed to reach the me that was hidden.

I thought of the Saturdays and the Sundays that were spent here. The ones with my buddies. And the ones with her. I walked through the shopping centre, and everywhere I went, I was reminded of her. I could almost see her shadow beside me, talking and laughing as if nothing happened. How insane it seems, to dream of her now when I thought I had already put the dreadful past behind me. It was still too painful to be thinking about it. Let me just correct that. It will never be not painful thinking about it.

As I made one round and walked past the bus interchange, I could still picture myself standing in the midst of the hustling crowd, a lone figure amidst the multitude of figures, waiting for her to arrive. The love of my life. I am still waiting for her. Nothing has changed. But Fate decreed it be so that she will leave me, stolen from me, taken off the face of this earth.

On that fateful day, she just had to meet me. She said it was urgent.

Was it? Now I wished it wasn't that urgent.

Or else all would have never happened.

And I wouldn't be all alone. On this earth.

Facing this, all by myself.

While you look upon me, your graceful figure in the heavens.

It must have been a joke. Someone's cruel joke.

But it was true, and there was no denying it.

******
4.30 am.
For no reason at all, I'm feeling giddy. Was it the lack of sleep? I suppose not. This is just like any other day. Then why am I feeling giddy? I couldn't even finish today's entry.

The solitude is even more heightened now, like a sharp knife slicing into the depths of my heart, seeing how far it can go. Even when I'm surrounded by friends, I still feel alone. Cold and alone. Maybe it was the memories. The resurfacing of them, those terrible nightmares that I still have, even now. They still wouldn't let me go, would they? Not until they drive me to my watery grave.

Or will 16 floors do? I'm on the highest floor now and the view here is terrific. The glistening lights of the port in the distance, even at 5am. It shows how busy we are. The city that never sleeps. Or perhaps, some of the people in the city anyway,

Plummeting 16 floors down has got to be a real challenge. It's almost like freefalling, but more exciting. For it will be the last thing that you ever do. And it ends real fast too. I can't say much about the pain though.

******

5.15am
Now I'm on the rooftop. Surprisingly, it's very breezy here. And you can even see farther. It's like you are looking down at this small part of the world, this tiny red dot.

One step closer.

The mechanical cranes in the distance looks foreboding. Like hands that rise out of the ground, searching for something. Grasping for something in the air. Straws?

Another step.

Can you hear the singing? Someone's playing Sarah Brightman's Ave Maria. I love her song and how her voice hits the high notes. Wonderfully soothing. I wonder if it's playing for me. And her of course. I will never forget her.

The last step.

The finality of things. One step closer towards her. And one step away from this dreadful world that holds nothing more for me. Everything is already up there. I'm coming.Wait for me.

The Eternal Artist

Lightning streaked across
the canvass of falling rain
a mast’piece indeed

Rebuttal Senryu

Short and sweet it will
Be my rebuttal to thee
Concern yourself not

Insinuating
Something against yours truly
Groundless claims it be

You insinuate
I did multiple voting
But there wasn’t any

To put it simply
I was locked out of voting
By some software glitch

Neither did I camp
With a cuppa by my comp
Aka GE*-style

I don’t have knowledge
Of what my dear readers did
So how do I judge

One did complain to
Mandy Zhang or Jackson Tan
In their Arts Club blog

But until today
I have yet to hear from them
A bottomless well

NUS** systems are hell
Unless it’s school fees they want
Damn fast and on time

This I bet you know
Through CORS and I-V-L-E
Wouldn’t you say so

What is fair I say
Did your readers do it too?
It’s subjective isn’t it?

Therefore let me say
Let’s just have fun and enjoy
Ourselves in this fest

No point in fretting
Making everything in NUS
Become a rat race

*GE = Incoming General Elections
**NUS = read NOOSE (one syllable)

In response to Wanting's comment I have written a rebuttal. For those who have not ventured into my Comments section, this is what she said (reproduced in its originality).

"Hey guess what? Several of my voters have highlighted to me that the blogs under the "Most Creative Blog" category at Blogfest 2006 can be voted for UNLIMITED times. This means that the blogs currently in the running may already have several suspicious votes coming in, like 10 to 20 votes coming in at a time everytime the runner-up threatens to catch up.

I don't know whether the organisers would notice this fatal flaw, but I think I would much rather be in a fair competition.

What say you? "

One almost feels that you are insinuating something against the very character of yours truly, no? And this irks me to end. Almost every word in the passage above has a negative connotation. Suspicious? Even to the extent of FATAL? That to me, is a hyperbole even the Italians would have been proud of.

Irked is a mild word in fact. An understatement even. But one shall remain calm since you are a lady and a fellow poet (budding?) as well.

I don't eat my own kind.

Here then is my rebuttal to your comment. Yes, what you have read is not my rebuttal.

And since I haven't written any poetry for some time, it might as well be in the Haiku form. Please do venture to the above post for the haiku as usual.

A Call To Arms!

On the pretext of sounding repetitive my dear readers, I urge you to cast a vote in favour of my humble tomes if you have not done so.

For those not in the knowing, I am running in this NUS Blogfest for the Most Creative Blog in the tertiary institution. There are a plentiful number of strong contenders for this category and their support has been overwhelming, to say the least.

One does realise that the architecture (if I may be permit to use that word) of this tomes does not conform to the notion of "aesthetics". In a gothic sense perhaps, but there are no fanciful structures here to speak of. Simple is how I run it.

One does realise too, that Poetry only caters to a niche audience, only those who are interested in it. And therefore, the support may not be as forthcoming as the others. For who in this materialistic country does appreciate poetry? Can they earn a living by it? Not here, it seems.

But in a sense, poetry is about aesthetics. Or rather it is "aesthetics" itself, the study of beauty. It highlights the aspects of life that people have taken for granted. It provokes you my dear reader, into more thoughts. It is like what Samuel Taylor Coleridge said,

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.

Therefore, vote for me if you like poetry as well, my dear readers.Vote for me if you wish to see poetry winning the race. Though I don't epitomise poetry, it's the least I can do by representing it. 100 voters will also walk away with Asialinx Privilege Cards worth SGD$38 and California Fitness Vouchers


To cast a vote, there are 3 steps.

Register here >> Login here >> Vote here

Again, yours truly is under the category of Most Creative Blog. The name, needless to say is Whispers of A Blue Moon@http://tussand.blogspot.com

I hope to see you voting.

Gracias.

Wayward

Drunk on drugs, the pervasive high
cutting through the numbness, lying under
the beautiful starlit night, terror lies
in those snarled fingers of twigs, hidden beneath
a dreamy fog, I stood shoulders hunched, a little weary
of the road that lies behind me, and perhaps
a little fearful of the one that lies in front too.

Two Ends of A Same Stick

Looking back at my previous post, one realise that two enterprises of mine were mentioned but only one was elaborated on.

Poetry performance aside, the other is freelance journalism. To put it more concisely, you can call it amateur freelance journalism, the very very amateur type. Yours truly is just like a babe learning how to walk. Stumbles and falls included.

I am now writing for Funkygrad.com, an online student portal that caters to more than 100,000 tertiary students in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Feel free to go there and roam around if you like and leave whatever comments you have here if you please.

I know what you are going to do but don't go looking for the alias aristocrat. What will those students, who are of malleable minds, think when I write under that pseudonym? A human still stuck in the past ages? An anti-democratic entity? One has no wish to undergo all that again. Yes my dear reader. I have taken flak for this pseudonym before. All one wish for is the growth of the Arts again. The dawn of another Age.

But I digress.

As I was saying, I took up this opportunity for self-improvement. And now I find myself stretched in ways that I have never been before. Dead ends everywhere and to say the least, it is quite demoralising.

Why so pessimistic? you say.

Ok I take back "demoralising". It probably is too strong a word. But this stretch experience is forcing me to step out of my safety zone, which in a perverted sense, is good.

The Poet's soul is scarred by such encounters with the Dragon. The Poet has never been a Knight and never will be I guess. He doesn't wield a sword screaming bloody murder. He doesn't wear a trench coat a la The Highlander.

In place of the sword he wields a pen. In place of a trench coat he let his words wrap around him and speak for themselves. No need for appearances.

The Knight is everything but the Poet is everything that the Knight is not. The Poet is Nothing. But Nothing excels at being Nothing instead of just Everything being mediocre at Something.

And that is what I have realised. A poet cannot be a journalist, for they are two extremes of the same stick. Both of them manipulate the same medium but for different purposes. The Poet is free to write what he wishes but a journalist has a dragon to contend with. Such limitations bound me but I shall endeavour to find my way around it. And be a Poet at the same time.

Yours truly,
Aristocrat



(Extremely long)Postscript: My dear readers, if you have taken a liking to my ramblings (how that is possible I dare not venture to guess), please do cast a vote in my favour if you have not done so. Yours truly has been nominated for the Most Creative Weblog in NUS (For details on it, click HERE. Though on hindsight, it troubles me a little to be heading mainstream, I am advised that it is all in the name of fun. So I shall let sleeping dogs lie.

To cast a vote in favour, there are but three steps:
1.Create an account at Livewire (an NUS Arts Faculty portal)
2. Login HERE (the password is usually sent instantly. Check your Junk mail folder if you have not received it)
3. Proceed to vote at Blogfest Polls

For those who have taken the trouble to vote, my gratitude goes out to you.