sovereign entrance

"please refrain from walking on the carpet,"

says a signboard in front of the hotel entrance.

so the red carpet was covered with a white sheet;

a sacred pathway prepared only for the sovereign.

i saw the signboard when i arrived there,

a hotel in cha am, thailand,

where we are assigned as the troupe from jakarta.

the rest of the work is done somewhere else,

another hotel located not very far away from the 'sovereign'.

this morning, before i entered the site,

my eyes fell upon a line of children sitting on the roadsides,

wearing their school uniform,

waving the flags of our nations: the southeast asians, and our friends'.

that sight reminded me of my days as a student in elementary school,

when i did the same.

look, there are more security officials than the town folks.

the emissaries are here now.

but the top leader is still about to arrive.

his excellency and his newly appointed minister.

so we are preparing for their arrivals and their schedules.

somewhere in this secluded location,

where the envoys meet.

white mug

this is but me and my simple rituals, which i perform tonight with a white mug, as i revisit this one-way street in jakarta city. cikini.

i came in; and they nodded.

they roasted the beans finer than they usually did,

and poured the strong result into a white mug.

seemed like they knew what i was coming for:

work until late,

right here, close to the window,

where you could see me,

and i could see you,

if you were a pedestrian.

i placed my devices on the round marble table,

and unrolled my earphones from its spiral box.

just by gazing into the white mug,

i could smell and absorb everything:

it contains essential elements of which inspirations are generously made.

i was also thinking of you,

who are perhaps not so keen to go out tonight.

because the forecast said it was about to rain.

it was probably only my guess:

but if i asked you,

directly or through the electronic device that you carried,

wouldn't your answer be ambiguous too?

so i took a pair of antique wooden chairs,

and let the white mug steaming,

blurring the window glass.

it sat unaccompanied

except by me

who was, like it, steaming,

and performing my simple rituals...

guitara

"there are people i know who have a very finely developed sense of nostalgia," said leo. well, i don't know i fit into the criteria of being nostalgic. i just miss my guitar. and maxim's guitar too. especially when i'm back from work, and with a certain kind of mood for a song. the tunes ring in my head. but where did i leave my guitar? i couldn't find it anywhere. not even in my home. i left the instrument last year before i went to oxford. who might be using it now, i don't know. nobody knows where you are. how near of how far...

dark room

heeiiiysss mr mosquis, fly away from me plisss,
need some sleep right here; can't stand your buzzing noise.
i speak no chineze, and don't understand this,
so stop buggin' me with your itching kiss.

(and thizis what mr mosquis sez:)

"i aint comin' to bring ye a kiss,
let alone to converse in chineze.
'am here just to see ye freeze,
without blanket in the mornin' breeze."

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)

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.

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.