nocturne (c.r.a.z.y.)

it's like he got lost somewhere in chattuchak and never came back

nocturne (these nights)

these nights, i get half-drunk after working all day. it's the same glass menagerie now except in different ways; instead of As and Bs, now i slog every day for 1s and 0s but still there aint no satisfaction.

these days are spent rushing through emails, loose scraps of scribbled to-do lists, dreading the coding, sleepthrough nights, groggy mornings, oily equipment, deep sinking feelings, and being the bad guy.

these nights are spent with chia lun where things get a bit better but he's a bit different from in the day. other nights are spent in the bustle of cc and in gazing at rizal's hair. then we go drinking down the road and i think, how do i say it, and why isnt mister h around. later we go driving along little east coast roads and still im thinking of the same with my feet on the dash.

off i go to bukit batok now, to work now, until the next morning.

I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin, Aubade