Friday, January 30, 2009

Obituary

80-year old died last night
At 1:17 a.m., of natural causes
Strange that no vice
Got him first. He was wise!

He believed in a god above
But for religion, he had no patience
Or, in the spirit of Tennyson
Faith unfaithful kept him falsely true

Race, sex, religion, creed
Love, hate, kindness, greed
To him it was all the same
Difference

In the face of adversity he was cool
Like red-hot Ice
He stopped many a civil war, what
Was civil about war anyway?

He was a great orator
When he spoke, the crowd
Would erupt in deafening
Silence

He was a great writer
Poet in residence in absentia
His body of work was
An organized mess

He did many things
And saw many places
His experimental nature was
An open secret

He was one of a
Kind
He is survived
By everyone

The words above will fill
Every page, you know the drill
When I’m gone, scary!
This will be my obituary.

Paris Is Burning

Picture this
The Eiffel Tower
Is standing tall
In all its glory

There is a group
A few steps to the left
Dancing with fire
It’s a thing of beauty

There are people
Cameras in hand
Looking only at the Eiffel
Fire dancing? No, thanks!

The Eiffel Tower
Is too big, too majestic
It’s a must see
Everybody says so!

Skill and grace
Are crying out loud
But fire dancers?
They might get burnt!

We’d rather be safe
Why bother for the unknown?
The funny thing is
We are the ones getting burnt

The cushy job
The flashy cars
The big house
The fancy clothes
The money
The money
The money
With no time to enjoy any of it

Play with fire
And you get burnt
Paris is burning

The Game

The wickets were all set
Street cricket was the name
Armed with just bat and ball
All that mattered was the game

Broken windows revealed angry neighbors
Of course, I was to blame!
While the road dogs kept watch
All that mattered was the game

Cheating was an accepted no-no!
Mr. Umpire was so lame!
Whether it was a six or a four
All that mattered was the game

If one got clean bowled
They experienced the walk of shame
But a duck out or a century,
All that mattered was the game

Cars, bikes, houses, kids
Every obstacle we overcame
Cuts and bruises were proudly worn
All that mattered was the game

Friendships forged through fights
Winning and losing? Never the same!
What I learnt there is who I am
All that mattered was the game

It was a simpler time
With no delusions of fame
On that street of my past
All that mattered was the game

We grew older and busier
But the street we did reclaim
At the end of the day
All that mattered was the game

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Viva la Vida

Been a while. A lot has happened since. No point trying to capture any of it, as none of it will be done any justice.

Doing a course on Digital Media Across Asia under Prof. Michael Netzley. A discussion on Web 2.0 the other day kind of re-emphasized the importance of blogging in my mind.

This video is kind of cool. If only the music was cooler. Anyway, watch this -



Will resume blogging by sharing a few poems I came up with for a recent Poetry Slam at SMU. Themes for the 3 rounds were Past, Present and Future. Think it was a decent effort for my first encounter with performance poetry.