#100/100 Window

This photo was originally published on YB Poetry blog in June 2011. All other photos--the ones taken by me--I've posted here were created for this blog, or images from my personal albums that had not been published or posted in any lit zine or my other blogs prior to their appearance in this space. All prose pieces and poems posted here are original materials, though some parts have or will find their way in my other writing.

I'm using this image for my #100 post because it was one of the first photos I shot after moving into my current apartment. I took it on my second night of living here, a few days before I started the 100 Days 2011 project. I didn't have a proper desk yet, and my piano was still at my old place. For those who know me in real life, on Facebook or from my personal blog, you know that my recent life has been a little 'rocky' in practical terms. Which means I've spent a lot of time alone, in my solitary space, not knowing what the days would have in store for me.

I still don't know what happens next. Things always turn, sometimes at a frustratingly slow pace; unless, of course, you're one of those folks bound up in unfortunate constraints which you have little chance of breaking. That is the truth for many people. For all the not-so-good times I've lived in this life, I'm not fucked. I write, take some pictures, and write.

Pace is an illusion I'm learning to live with. This blog for the 100 Days project was my focus for much of the last three months. Instead of pulling my hair out at the edge of an imaginary abyss, on most days I sat down to create something. It reminded me what I'm here for: to be an artist. Without such conviction, I could have drowned.

So, here's a big and heartfelt Thank You to those who've been following this blog and left kind comments on my work. Really, thank you.

#099/100 Exit (III)

...and I'll find my way out.

#098/100 Ancestors

My grandmother and me browsing through some old family photos. From four and a half years ago.

After I wrote about my ancestors calling me through my genie in this post, they gave me a couple definite kicks. First the Fok Luk Sau statues got knocked over and, after I put them back in their places as if nothing unusual had happened (after all, it was hard to tell and I'm not a 'suspicious' person), my phone slipped out of my tight jeans pocket during a 5-minute taxi ride. 

Excerpts from my phone conversation with Grandma the next day:

Me: Grandma, do you believe in spirits....like getting messages from the other side?

Grandma: I believed in dreams.

Me: A friend of mine...it's hard to explain but let's say she can see things...She told me my ancestors are looking for me. I've also got signs in my daily life. 

Grandma: You mean your friend is a nun at a temple or something?

Me: She's a spiritual medium...Last time I said I needed those photos of your parents to write stories...The truth is I need their photos to communicate with them.

Grandma: That is really...strange. Did your friend tell you what your ancestors are trying to tell you? Have you got any ideas?

Me: No, that's something I have to find out...I guess it's just that they're looking out for me but I haven't paid any attention to them. Now they want me to get to know them. 

Grandma: Ancestors...Shouldn't it mean your grandfather's parents? 

Me: That's the Chinese way of thinking...In the West, and in the other world too, things aren't defined that way. I'm guessing it's your mother coz my friend said she saw a woman. 

Grandma: What if it's your grandfather's mother?

Me: I don't think so...Grandpa and I don't get along so great! Plus there're no photos of them that we can get hold of...What do you think we should tell your family? That I need the photos for writing or to communicate with Ancestors? Are they superstitious? 

Grandma: They're more superstitious than me, but still...

***

Five days later:

Grandma: We don't have to visit my family home anymore. My niece brought me the photos already! She took some shots of the portraits in their living room and made some copies.

Me: What? How did you do that?

Grandma: I said I wanted the photos for myself.

Me: I never knew you'd be so cunning...Okay, maybe I did. You stole those photos of Grandpa and his girlfriends from when he sailed around the world.

Grandma: He went to take a shower and I snatched them...

***

I'm getting those photos on Monday, which means I won't have a chance to post them on this blog before our 100 Days are over. And who knows if they want to show their faces to strangers? It's probably bad enough that I'm telling on them here already!

#097/100 House

we left each other in backwater to forget
the staircases you can never climb to my
room where i put on an armor so rusted in
your faulty vision that you hide from those
you come across for shame & fear of the
losing side of music & flame i run toward
the tunnels you speed through at dawn to
the blocks of sleepers born of your hatred
at the world your house it doesn't love you

#096/100 Nightmare (III)

image: Janelle Stone's 'Desolate'

we speak between spasms & the train compartments' throbbing 

past fragmented visions of each other. if you're not sorry about

the silence, at least say you're sorry about how i moved into &

through it because of you, i say, standing underneath an ironed

cry that arches across the ceiling. but you're weighed down by

hair uncut from not loving for years & the wool scarf spiraling

around your neck. i walked through too many icicles along the

way to the train station & now i can no longer move, you say.

then you turn into green stone, tall & slender in a pool of water

running down the crack. & i see that the only thing left to do is

to push you down the railroad tracks & to walk into the cold...

#095/100 Sleep

 inspired by Kevin Calisto's Day 67

never let me brace
     the vicissitude of grey
i'm a tumber amidst
     a vanishing waterfall
paint me yellow to
     your calls my cradle
sleep blinding light

#094/100 Proposition

image: Dorothee Lang's 'Shifts'


better than Ezra you read my proposition at 5 a.m.
rained bike by your fence, fallen glove on ice &
broken doorbell to the fine prints of my fingers.
you expect a gust of warm air into your room
if i fall through frames to die. to die at dawn
& to circle your steps in black streams till
you open the gate to leave home & enter
the future. everyday. without me.

#093/100 Drawing

From a very long time ago. By one of the many men who married the next women they got involved with, after we exited each other's lives. 

Most people learn what they can and cannot seek in this life--& I call that my contribution to the world's male population. As for me, I'd never learn.

#092/100 Slaughter

On the anniversary of the slaughter of a group of Hong Kong tourists in Manila.

They tell you that they're sorry for your son's death

but we can't apologize for the slaughter--it's the 

gunman's fault, not our government's. It'd have

been the same tragedy if it'd happened in any

other places in this world, like Norway.

Elsewhere in this world a group of tourists would 

hold their breath until the gun in the gunman's 

head went off after eleven hours on a tour bus.

From day to night from silent pleas to fury

at the permanent loss of one's livelihood:

Why does the government not speak to me but

lock up my brother? & the brother's panic 

on a tiny TV screen. Pull the trigger now

& blow these hands & faces & brains 

into pieces, the ex-police officer had

nothing more to lose. Everyone else had their

lives & dignity to shed as the SWAT team

flaunted broken guns & hammers--oh so

handy to break into the vehicle to find

a hand dangling in blood out of the

car's smashed door. & they tell you there was

nothing more they could have done to save

your son or the others whose spirits left

their bodies to become ghosts in that

foreign country, or the ones whose

faces would stay disfigured for the rest of their

lives. let them walk down the streets like the

living dead with mouths that wouldn't close. 

you can get US$1150 for compensation

for each person if that's what you want.

& that's what you get for weeping to a photo of 

your son at the slaughter site. that's where 

you always will be until the end of time.

& your son the tour guide consoles you, 

mum, it's ok i know my way in heaven.

#091/100 Cage

...because some people will always live in cages. Photo taken in Manila.

#090/100 Waiting (III)

i peer through the night's blinds
     when there is no more strength
                                             to carry on

#089/100 Drive

inspired by Sina Evans' Day 86

the drive is born of my body
where night is a lantern
of headlights in rain
that quickens

#088/100 Fingers

inspired by Jim DeCesare's Drawing #75

all my life i've borne the fear of losing a few fingers at 

sudden blades protruding from air. blades gasping

hello to slice me of identity in blood gushing

wounds. now the hammer calls to ask: 

what about my weight does it not

matter in your existence? yes

it does as you drop every

day every hour in my 

head onto the grain

of my hope so

dusty & 

gone.

#087/100 Horse

inspired by Carol Mack's Ghost Horse

the ghost horse gallops for its sweet love for the field where
ribs sunbathing through invisible flesh it taunts & thinks
i must run before black & white takes over my purple
contour. for it's always a race against blanks, dots,
shadows that don't connect on a lilac tapestry.
ghost strings carving their marks on bodies
to pass into drum beats so glorious.

#086/100 Stars

Click to enlarge. From left to right: Fuk Star, Luk Star and Sau Star, Chinese Gods of Fortune, Prosperity and Longevity; Tsai Shen Yeu, Chinese God of Fortune. By the window above my desk.

I have a genie who checks my connection with the other world from time to time and she has passed on a new message. That an ancestor of mine--probably a woman--wants my attention and they have been 'holding back' my luck  just a little bit lately to give me a kick. They spoke to me through my genie twice before and I didn't do anything. Ancestors? Really?

I suppose it makes sense. Why would I keep these statues of strange deities in my space, when those who share blood ties with me look on from a distance? As the story goes, the night I bought these statues at a funky Chinese store selling altar supplies (like Hell banknotes), I lost my wallet with a lot of cash in it, on a two-minute walk on my way home.

Now I'm on a quest to retrieve photos of Ancestors, which is looking to be a tough task. I'm only connected with my father's side of the family. Grandad's parents were blown into pieces during WWII, leaving no photographic evidence of their existence. Grandma was sold at the age of five by her parents, to live as the daughter of a childless couple on another island.

Grandma has stayed in touch with her real family. Now she'll have to make some phone calls to ask if I can visit a relative's home and bring a camera, so I can take pictures of those portraits that are hanging on the wall. It's hard to say if Grandma will manage to persuade them ("Granddaughter wants those images for writing stories"). Let's hope Ancestors will cooperate and let me do my job.

#085/100 Fever

inspired by Hayley Perry's #42

the heatstroke swirls in charcoal & i cannot recognize
the morphing sky above. what pavement what stalls
what flowers are hidden in these colors on my way
up the shimmering slope? a moment later i would
jump into the pool of forgetting & swim in fever
of what has passed. days on a blank roll to
vaporize in sight. my in-between hours.

#084/100 Token (III)

since you left i've been tearing
     dried petals off the roses we hung
          from where you rested & where
                                                   i hid
                                                      my slit

#083/100 Child (II)

inspired by Steve Veilleux's 'Invasion'

i'd put the small child i once was in a bundle of grass, rocks & mud
& give it to the river. the moment it sinks, a doll shrine will come
floating with its song about hands. endless, tiny hands gripping
grief over the departed while i walk through water, thighs cold
against red currents. where all want is lost. & lost again.

#082/100 Black

i'd pin a black mask against the black wall
until my face stops bleeding from my
tearing it off. leave me. leave.

#081/100 Trees (II)

inspired by Barbara J Lacuius' Day 48 'Days End'

in the dream my friend told me to look across the forest where my trees were supposed to be. i saw they had been fixed. the trunks were no longer bent & leaves sprouted where they should. 

but i couldn't understand: how did my trees come to look exactly the same as the ones on the other side? did my friend fold the forest like it was a hand-held, fold-up mirror, so that my trees became duplicates of someone else's?

it wasn't what i asked for. 

#080/100 Revelation (II)

inspired by Silvana Mondo's 100 Fildzana #78 - The Tragedian

there's no fortune to tell
     only twists of a fragile plot &
          sordid characters who drop like stains
               palette of dirt     smear it     over your eyes  
kill future     kill hope     kill void

#079/100 Train

because getting on the wrong train is never a mistake,
only a maze crawling down your throat to your lungs
like a train of cancer. go, shuttle & die everyday.

#078/100 Festival

when the ghost festival strikes in mid-July
                         (in the Chinese calendar)
red candles weep down the slope & leave
pools of dried tears. don't linger where the
spirits meet at the crossroads     they cry
as we move onto different lives everyday
not knowing
                  we've metamorphosed inside

#077/100 Sunflower

inspired by Julia Davies' Sunflowers

i'd put two cigarettes to my lips & light them
& blow smoke to the withered sunflower:
one day i'm gonna die just like you do.

#076/100 Metal

image courtesy of Mayang and altered by me

every time you leave
     i throw the shield i've been carrying
               to the ground

#075/100 Foil

#074/100 Mermaid (II)

we'll drink to crash the gate on the sidewalk past security guards/littered amid whores in their thigh highs & pimps with melting faces/neoned boxes of faded bikinis & chest hair through half-buttoned shirts/along the streets where women are men in fine bones & tattooed arms/past the butterfly at the opening of a staircase to the day/eternal through a shaking camera in aperture priority mode/a green taint around our eyes our irregular hearts splinting towards the window/rusted & greased we'll drink & we'll drink & we'll drink.

#073/100 Mermaid

turn to the night's last sirena: scented flesh, neoned souls by the bar. mine is a gently rocking boat while i nurse a quiet storm on my shore. from the glass tank i emerge, my skin peeling off the edge, to piercing lust in the men's eyes.

i'm the girl they cannot buy.

every night i do my swirling dance in water, until the men drape their arms over girls smuggled from across the border & our owner counts his money at the cashier. run the comb through my wet pink wig. hear it smack to the wild, cluttered breakage before the mirror. 

in the dressing room i slip out of my tail & sing the mermaid song:

our waves would never birth the pod of love

when what's true inside us can only plunder

drink, before darkness withers into morning

we've been whores since Empress Dowager

#072/100 Exit (II)

now that i've choked on mud--can i go now?