Poetry in Motion

Went to No Black Tie yesterday to check out Wayang Kata, now in it's fourth installment. Mostly coz Ron invited me on Facebook, then found out that Zalikha was performing...then finally that Ron was too....so it was that coupled with the party Malik invited me to next door.......so setlah.....an evening it was....

I sat there in the dimly lit No Black Tie, barely knowing a soul who was there personally, only by reputation, clinging to the tenuous connection I had to David till Ikha finished her set and I was able to move and sit with her, I absorbed the marvel that is spoken word. This is isn't my first encounter with it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was there too at that inaugural spoken word event at the stiflingly stuffy and sardine packed La Bodega at Changkat Bukit Bingtang, witnessing Francesca Beard along with most of the people present at No Black Tie tonight. It didn't make me feel any easier tho. I just couldn't help feeling out of my depth. But as I sat there listening to others spout pictures made of words and watched my own junior stand up there and recite her own words, I couldn't help but be reminded that I too once dabbled oh so long ago. All that coupled with the fact that darling EuGene reminded me as much that very afternoon over MSN.....

So that got me to thinking.......and that got me to looking......I went home and looked through the stuff I had did for Bernice during that period right after that first spoken word event....remember now that she was rather disappointed that I didn't do poetry for my final assignment....hhmm..........and found my favourite one........it has no tittle...or had.....for now I've decided to give it one......I have to warn you.....it will of course be...rather.....unpolished.....but here it is anyways......

Tabako (tobacco in Japanese)
your presence reeks of tobacco,
half smoked cigarettes
under a starless sky.
the cigarettes butts smolder
in the ash tray of my life
like my affections for you.
half awake and half dead.
an on and off affair that I wish
would leave me

my dreams are plagued
by visions of you
smoking, filling my mind’s eye
with tobacco
threatening to engulf me.
it hurts my eyes and makes me
want to cry but i don’t
my eyes tear as saline threatens
to fall

i started smoking
because of you.
and countless others like you
my unattainable smoking angel army
each smelling of marlboros and dunhills
each stirring and unachievable
yet right in front of me, tempting me

i sigh as i exhale
my breath of toxic smoke.
it coils around me
like the serpent in the garden.
never letting go