Friday, September 25, 2009

always

may you get well soon, boss.
may your leg recover swiftly and may you start kickin' again immediately.
the holiday isn't a holiday without you around.
in our green house, now that the gentle wind is blowing in from the window,
the coffee cup is half-full, i am home with abundance of refreshing ideas,
absorbing whatever a week long vacation in the city of flower can give me.
but this is incomplete.
i will visit you tonight,
bringing for you the violin.
may you get well soon, boss.
and may soon we will ride together again.

"we got our own roads to ride and chances we gotta take,
we stood side by side, each one fightin' for the other;
we said until we died, we'd always be blood brothers."

(blood brothers, bruce springsteen)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

jihan

jihan really made my day.

i was standing in a line for quite a while,
queuing in a bank, expecting to get my turn
to change my cash to smaller notes,
so that i could distribute them
as a gift to my young relatives.

i noticed the person in front of me
wasn't able to change his money
because, as the teller said,
the stock of smaller notes was running out.
"please come back tomorrow," the cashier said.

nervously, while waiting to get there,
i asked jihan who nodded to my question.

in a closed envelope, she handed me my cash.
but it was through her helpful manner,
that she gave me the brightness of my day.

Friday, September 04, 2009

vietopians and tatorism

like two vietopians lost in a vietnamese restaurant,
one was ben, and the other one was me,
lost ourselves in delicious noodle soup served in large bowls.

he fancied seafood; i beef.
i quenched my thirst with ginger ale; he bintang.

but soon, oh soon, we arrived at a same conclusion.
we sealed the night with a dark decafeinated taste of 'tatorism',
a term i refer to the drink from tanah toraja, celebes island.

cikini street jakarta in jakarta has both heavens.
for friends and for the good time.