Saturday, November 26, 2005
Blood-letting
People want a blood-letting. People want to know you like you know yourself. What you make and what you put into an arena to be viewed is never enough.
To viewed is like pornography. If people are 'your friends' they expect to know you, like people expect a reciept when purchasing a new pair of shoes, or a new eau de toilette.
Here, come close then. Closer and closer, ever closer. But it's not gentle at all, not a civilized exchange of information at all. There are all manner of harsh words, thoughts gone hopelessly astray, endless discourses on fornication and obsession, unchecked by the humanizing effect of poetry. Yes, poetry is humanizing. It is not a disguise, as so many people seem to see it as.
Poetry is a filter, like my art is a filter. I just can't comprehend why people seem to value the unfiltered. If you want to know me, you may simply look at my art and listen to what I have to say, that is all there is to know. The unfiltered is private territory into which it is not a priviledge to enter, it is simply impolite, vulgar, an advantage of information.
The unfiltered is a grab-bag of desires I have buried, deep deep deep down. Sometimes they come up, like a leak from a sponge you thought was long dry. It is such a strange feeling, this seeping. Involuntary and uncontrollable. That is why I hate it.
But the desires are very precious. They come from very precious very private memories. Like a day on a beach, with the wind blowing at an angle so hard that your ears ache, looking out to sea, surfers suspended halfway between a great grey sky and the white tip of a crashing wave. They must be riding a velocity that you can only imagine. Sometimes walking in a city where the lights are always at a distance, but the pavement seems to know and understand every step you take. Sometimes holding your hand, striding against the cold in the deep of winter, always with the promise of a warm bed underneath blankets or covers of books once we reach home.
Home.
These belong to me, only me. No one may have them. They are as precious as currency, to be spent when I feel grey as I drive along these half-built highways of my home city. I experience this city like an old friend I never liked. We have a history neither of us can deny. Kuala Lumpur... you're like a hook in my heart. Sometimes on a balmy evening, you bring out a sunset gentle enough to melt my mind, jaded from the oppressive heat and unrelenting demands of the day. I float as supple as a cloud, into your twilight, into your night, into the next day. I'm always convinced I'll leave you behind, straining forever to occupy my shell with a truer form of myself, but I'm never sure, I'm never sure.
To viewed is like pornography. If people are 'your friends' they expect to know you, like people expect a reciept when purchasing a new pair of shoes, or a new eau de toilette.
Here, come close then. Closer and closer, ever closer. But it's not gentle at all, not a civilized exchange of information at all. There are all manner of harsh words, thoughts gone hopelessly astray, endless discourses on fornication and obsession, unchecked by the humanizing effect of poetry. Yes, poetry is humanizing. It is not a disguise, as so many people seem to see it as.
Poetry is a filter, like my art is a filter. I just can't comprehend why people seem to value the unfiltered. If you want to know me, you may simply look at my art and listen to what I have to say, that is all there is to know. The unfiltered is private territory into which it is not a priviledge to enter, it is simply impolite, vulgar, an advantage of information.
The unfiltered is a grab-bag of desires I have buried, deep deep deep down. Sometimes they come up, like a leak from a sponge you thought was long dry. It is such a strange feeling, this seeping. Involuntary and uncontrollable. That is why I hate it.
But the desires are very precious. They come from very precious very private memories. Like a day on a beach, with the wind blowing at an angle so hard that your ears ache, looking out to sea, surfers suspended halfway between a great grey sky and the white tip of a crashing wave. They must be riding a velocity that you can only imagine. Sometimes walking in a city where the lights are always at a distance, but the pavement seems to know and understand every step you take. Sometimes holding your hand, striding against the cold in the deep of winter, always with the promise of a warm bed underneath blankets or covers of books once we reach home.
Home.
These belong to me, only me. No one may have them. They are as precious as currency, to be spent when I feel grey as I drive along these half-built highways of my home city. I experience this city like an old friend I never liked. We have a history neither of us can deny. Kuala Lumpur... you're like a hook in my heart. Sometimes on a balmy evening, you bring out a sunset gentle enough to melt my mind, jaded from the oppressive heat and unrelenting demands of the day. I float as supple as a cloud, into your twilight, into your night, into the next day. I'm always convinced I'll leave you behind, straining forever to occupy my shell with a truer form of myself, but I'm never sure, I'm never sure.
Labels: sweet misery
¶ 6:15 PM
