the art of looking sideways

the stolen time

2011-05-19T02:18:00.007+07:00

Aku ingat saat waktu yang tercuri berarti rasa tenang yang menggebu, terpesona oleh ruang yang akan terus ada. Di Ta Prohm, tepatnya. Di kompleks itu, tahun-tahun terlepas dari masa. Diam, beku, kegagahan yang mencemooh para turis yang hanya berkeliling 30 menit saja karena harus mengejar matahari terbenam di Phnom Bakheng. Pokoknya yang rasanya alami untuk dilakukan di situ adalah berusaha lupa dan alpa, menikmati yang jadi. Jangan berlari-lari, apalagi menggali-gali.

Nikmat adalah menyaksikan waktu yang menyelinap pergi. Sayang dalam keseharian yang banal, justru aku yang ingin sembunyi dari detik yang tidak berhenti.

(Photo taken in Siem Reap, Kingdom of Cambodia, January 2010)

pentas bebas

2011-05-12T21:41:00.001+07:00

Jika betul bahwa hidup adalah pentas, maka segala visualisasi yang hadir hendak menegaskan adanya bukanlah sebentuk ilusi tentang realitas. Pentas adalah tempat di mana realitas diproses dan penonton pun turut dalam arus pembebasan dari ilusi: aktif merenungkan persoalan momentum dalam lini masa sebagai gerak ke arah pembebasan.

(Demi aksen yang terberi pada simbol sosok orang ramai, pada gerak, pada detak, atau justru pada ketidakhadiran.)

tetap muda

2011-04-11T15:01:00.006+07:00

And the sense of tragedy - according to Aristotle - comes ironically enough not from the protagonist's defects but from his virtue.

Menyadari budaya yang sakit adalah tidak dengan menjerit, tidak dengan mengibarkan bendera. Dan barangkali sejarah terdiri dari penemuan-penemuan yang separuh benar, separuh salah, sehingga kemajuan terus terjadi.

Pun kita mengakhirinya dengan menyambut, meminjam frasa Pramoedya dalam Anak Semua Bangsa, kehidupan yang lebih nyata daripada pendapat siapapun tentang kenyataan.

Cinta itu subversif.

tentang batas dan bulu mata

2010-12-13T10:21:00.007+07:00

Lucu memang Murakami. Ia mengasosiasikan seksualitas dengan bulu mata palsu, yang dalam bukunya, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, dikenakan oleh Creta Kano bahkan di siang hari, menandingi gemerlapnya matahari, atau justru mengamplifikasi yang-telah-terang.

Saya mendambakan dunia yang dihidupi manusia tanpa harimaunya, di mana kegaduhan sebagaimana layaknya tercipta melalui intensitas pandangan mata, keberadaan yang nyata, dan percikan kimiawi dalam kerja. Pendek kata, mekanisme yang sederhana adanya, seklasik percaya yang tumbuh dari rasa yang menyentuh raga, atau kesadaran saling menjaga.

Namun saya tahu, dan terus-menerus diingatkan, bahwa adalah pilihan sadar untuk melarut dalam pertarungan ini. Yang saya tak tahu adalah umbul-umbul dalam perang ini adalah nama, dan tombaknya adalah kejahatan wanita. Musuh, dalam pertarungan ini, adalah gerak-gerik dan intuisi diri. Memang tak tepat jika kemelarutan ini disebut "pertarungan melawan batas-batas", karena batas-batas, yang awalnya saya kira sang musuh, justru adalah amunisi yang pamungkas, jalan keluar yang nantinya mungkin menyelamatkan.

Yang lalu hadir adalah kegamangan. Saya tak lagi bisa menarik garis-garis nilai, tabel ukuran-ukuran, kategori anggukan dan gelengan. Kali ini, yang menjadi titik tolok keraguan bukan lagi perbedaan diri dan apa yang saya anggap "dunia ruang-sistem". Itu lagu lama. Seringnya saya berharap kembali berada di tengah kolektivitas nilai yang dahulu saya cibir saja, di mana setidaknya jika saya lari dan menghindar, saya tahu saya sedang berlari dari tempat asal saya. Namun saat ini, tak ada yang "asal". Hanya ada batas diri yang nantinya menjadi "akhir".

Lucu memang Murakami. Selama ini ia ternyata adalah penulis yang sederhana. Ia menulis tentang dunia nyata saja.

- Special thanks to M.R., The Disciple, for his "Consider me a stranger" that one evening after work.

pandu

2010-12-05T22:44:00.004+07:00

Kenaifan barangkali bukan terletak pada kecenderungan optimisme relatif, karena kecenderungan tersebut bukan ditujukan pada kebathilan di dunia dari mana segalanya berawal.

Kenaifan, meminjam Camus, barangkali berada pada titik moral keterlibatan yang ditekankan, bahwa "lebih banyak yang bisa dikagumi dalam diri manusia", untuk terus melibati berbagai kebathilan tanpa ambisi mencari sebab, untuk terus bergerak dan mengejawantahkan solidaritas. Yang harus diingat adalah bahwa moral keterlibatan dimulai justru dari kesadaran akan kebathilan yang absolut, yang dimulai dari penerimaan akan medan dan penghidupan pemberontakan melawan absurditas, "kematian yang memotong", dan "kejahatan" (ataupun kebaikan yang meleset).

Maka tersebutlah segelintir yang memberontak dengan melibatkan diri dalam absurditas yang hidup, yang dihidupkan.

Kenaifan adalah pilihan atas jalan yang altruistik dalam memandang, menghadapi, melibati kebathilan, yang memang lebih menenangkan jika disebut absurditas, dalam bentuk dan skala apapun. Kenaifan adalah penolakan untuk takluk pada absolutisme kebathilan. Kenaifan adalah usaha untuk mempertahankan greget untuk melawan, hasrat untuk bertahan.

(Photo taken above South Sulawesi, December 2010)

- Happy International Volunteers Day!

terjun

2010-09-01T17:46:00.006+07:00

Kau membuatku mencuri, di rumahku sendiri. Entah sejak kapan gaung kerut tawamu terselip di setiap reklamasi. Berselimutkan embun dan peluh tak habis kita menalar mimpi, meretas sunyi. Lalu di keheningan kita menepi...

membiarkan fana
menaklukkan yang baka

mengasapi asa
atau mengasinkan luka

affliction

2010-08-09T15:22:00.017+07:00

The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected is something that exists and has always existed; it was not the invention of the philosophers, when the soul was little more than a muddled proposition. With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic revolution, we ended up putting our conscience in the color of blood and in the salt of tears, and we made our eyes into a mirror turned inwards with the result that they often show without reserve what we were verbally trying to deny.

Add to this general observation, the particular circumstance that in simple spirits, the remorse caused by comitting an evil act often becomes confused with ancestral fears of every kind, and the result will be that the punishment of the previcator ends up being, without mercy or pity, without shame or infliction, either twice or half what he deserves.

the gold-plated whale

2010-06-22T14:30:00.004+07:00

A':

You still don't get it? We're talking about revelation here. A revelation leaps over the border of the everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is move from reason that observes to reason that acts. That's what's critical.

Exactly, which is why I'm living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows without a break. But I still think that there had to be one place beyond anybody's reach. I am sure that somewhere I'd run across the entrance that would take me to that other world.

Die Schöpfung ist niemals vollendet

2010-05-20T07:32:00.004+07:00

Ketika berlarian dengan masa yang memangsa, kau impikan makna yang tidak didasarkan hierarki rasa, melainkan ia yang terbentuk dan terurai dalam jaringan acuan lewat momen suspensi.
Mungkin kita telah dikutuk; the sisyphus digging for the imperfection which would discover the audience, imposing the eventually amongst the actually.

Mari.

Bangkit adalah duduk terdiam, beku, dan merentang mengundang keterkejutan.
Bangkit adalah menjunjung karya, menuntaskannya, pun jika kau memilih membunuhnya kembali.
Bangkit adalah membangunkan malam, mendobrak keterlelapan. Bangkit adalah memenuhi undangan pagi, menyambutnya, atau bahkan menidurinya sebagai yang bukan repetisi.
Bangkit adalah menggilas malumu, malumu untuk mendengar suaramu: dengan lantang mengakui tiap ketercekatan, dengan lega menerima tiap keraguan yang tak terhindarkan.
Bangkit adalah meninggikan pagar menghadang kedekatan wajah-wajah yang tak henti melewatimu, lalu merajutnya sebagai selimut yang bercerita tentang kebersatuan, tentang samudra yang menyelimuti benua dalam hatimu.

Kata mereka kita memang terkutuk, untuk terus berkutat dengan sejarah kita: bangkit, berkejaran dengan perjuangan melawan lupa.

Or perhaps let us forget and get carried away, menarikan penciptaan yang tak usai.

gugur

2010-05-12T19:32:00.002+07:00

Menyaksikanmu adalah perih yang membayang dan rasuk yang meradang. Tanganmu membakar segenggam buluh api dengan kementahan kelam, mencacah sekuntum hujan. Dan anggukan akhirmu yang menenggelamkan jingkat-jingkat getar.

"I can see a fireside turn blue, I can see a lot of life in you."

is the glass half empty or half full?

2010-04-19T13:44:00.007+07:00

It is completely full. But it is empty of a lot of things; it is completely empty of everything but water and air molecules.

(Photo taken in Brisbane, July 2009)

Koja

2010-04-14T23:33:00.005+07:00

Kita mengernyit, ini tak sesederhana biasanya. Kita begitu terbiasa dengan dorongan lugas untuk berpihak, membela, memiliki, kasihan, marah, dan hal-hal manusiawi lainnya. Pada hari-hari hitam-putih kita menjentik memilah kami dan mereka, memasakki -mu, -ku, dan -nya. Di tengah momen-momen optimis kita suka berdiskursus tentang sama dan beda, tesis dan antitesis, pun sekuat tenaga kita menghindar dari premis salah dan benar.

Tapi tidak senja ini. Senja ini memerankan gagalnya kita untuk mengabaikan kemelekatan, yang jangan-jangan memang tidak mungkin dilakukan. Jangan-jangan kemampuan untuk melepaskan memang pada akhirnya bukanlah hal yang manusiawi.

Maka pertanyaan "mengapa kita tidak berkelakuan selayaknya manusia?" mungkin tak lagi valid. Bisa jadi yang kini hakiki adalah mempertanyakan kapan kita bisa berhenti menjadi manusia.

"You as yours, me as mine, two before we were us."

-Tori Amos

192 jam

2010-04-14T11:27:00.006+07:00

Dua hari ini adalah tentang gelisah yang mengendap. Kau bergelut di tengah sebab-sebab yang mungkin, dan menemukan bahwa jarak yang ingin kau depa mengada di cerukan yang bukan milikmu.

Di luar sana, ketika peperangan adalah selalu satu-satunya hal yang menyambutmu, kau resah ketika harapan dan manifestasinya tak bermotifkan loyalitas, apalagi nasionalisme gamang. Lalu apa yang akan kau pertahankan di menit-menit todongan laras api? Bahwa kau melacur demi keberbedaan yang wajib meraga?

Kau begitu yakin. Kau tak ingin berhenti. Kau tak kunjung mengerti. Dan kau pun bergantung pada moralitas-moralitas tua: tindakan paling mulia di tengah peperangan bukanlah berjuang menyerang musuhmu hingga titik darah penghabisan, bukan pula berlari, apalagi bersembunyi, melainkan menyelamatkan segala yang kau bisa selamatkan, siapapun itu.

- Tentang surat, bantuan bermuatan, dan dislokasi budaya. Terima kasih kepada G.S.M. dan ingatannya atas Purbo Carito.

the forgotten width

2010-02-07T20:17:00.006+07:00

Probably the world does not know any limits, just as life never sets any boundaries. Probably it all comes down to our incapacities. Probably it's all due to the clear horizon which cleanly cuts the view, or adjoins the view.

Look at us indulging ourselves in the scenes and mobility before the line ends, believing what we see, accepting the sight upon the polarized unseen unknown, neglecting its possible presence, or else maintaining fear and caution for it.

(Photo taken by Ardani Yusuf Prawira, at one pier in Waigeo Island, West Papua, December 2009)

archaetypal waves

2010-02-02T19:03:00.007+07:00

In searching of the Divinity, some would rather be lining up amongst a certain degree of festivity: music, colors, scents, and fellowships. We might not find the tranquility as seeked, but surely similarities are ascertained, manifest within the kinds. We might not be wholly aware, or in any way associated, with what we believe in, but together with the throng we feel to have conducted the act of worshipping, commited the part of acknowledging, even if it is being carried out collectively.

After all, isn't it, for some, a mere searching for the feeling of security? To steer clear of seclusion?

(Photo taken in between the Royal Palace and the Tonle Sap, Sisowath Quay, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, January 2010)

on proceeding into the storm

2010-01-04T17:36:00.004+07:00

Perhaps strength in itself does not become morality, especially if what we seek is not the kind where we win or lose, neither some kind of surrounding protective wall that will repel the outside forces. Perhaps we are after the strength to be able to absorb the floating powers, to stand up to it. The strength to quietly endure what life has in the store - unfairness, misfortune, sadness, mistakes, misunderstandings.

(Photo taken in Yenwaupnor Island, West Papua, December 2009)

the motionless movement

2009-12-29T00:36:00.009+07:00

Watching the sea and faraway lands right after the morning prayer was truly enlightening and profound. I was (and always have been) on motion, and watched the motionless passing by. It made me dwell in the memory of the people and the world I had passed by during my movements, either enforced by the fangs of time or due to the dream of constructing and deconstructing.

When we move, we are in a way destructured by our movement towards a certain direction; we are both here and at the same time not here as we are already in the process of going elsewhere. To stop destructuring ourselves, we have to stop moving altogether. Either we move and we are no longer whole, or we are whole and we cannot move.

Consequently we journey to the different corners and pause, seeking the motionless movements in the world. If such exist.

(Photo taken on board KM Labobar, while crossing the Banda Sea, December 2009)

yang tak juga berakhir

2009-11-14T23:14:00.002+07:00

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Kau tanggalkan semua
tak lupa secangkir usapan ego
yang terus kau tenggak
"Peradaban ini lucu, lihat wajah ketakutannya,"
dan kau memilih untuk berparodi,
biar mereka menjenggut karena merasa,
hanya untuk berakhir mendapati bayangnya
Namun beranikah kau menyelami bawah matamu?
Tak lekang sebentuk kecerdasan
dengan sadar meminumi beban,
karena beban berarti pengorbanan
Sayangnya tak ada keselamatan
dari ketidakmurnian
Lalu kau meringkuk; kalah, katamu,
lalu bermain mengadakan
dan meniadakan.

- Kebajikan tak kunjung menuai akhir, begitu pula mala, dan kau gariskan pada kebrutalan. Hanya kau dan Tuhan yang tahu.

it is the spectators that art really mirrors

2009-11-08T23:16:00.009+07:00

"Optis Jiwa: Kesaksian adalah perihal melihat, karenanya dia visual. ... Karya kemudian menjadi adagium dari dialektika melihat."
- Oscar Motuloh, for the Djakarta Artmosphere program book

I am often mistaken as a hopeless romantic. I maintain plenty of reveries about genius scheme beyond the line of a simply too amazing show, indulge myself in own conviction upon the greatness of minds, regardless how predictable mankind really is. I believe in the power of the middlemen, not due to the number of those bearing such identity badge, but rather to the fact that they lack the aspiration to rule. They just do, and by so doing they project the superior brilliance. They consistently converse, and by so doing they dispense with the small number of floating mass actually really listen and move (their bodies to the music, their minds to the ideas). Trying, moving, as opposed to the self-acclaimed motors who set themselves above the forgiving God. Battling, against the reality always freshly presented.

I suppose I am a hopeful audience.

(To the delight of an all night almost-Leviathan debate with A.A.L., for no matter how you confuted the romantic thesis, we are wearing the Guy Fawkes masks distributed throughout the show.)

you are not alone

2009-11-06T17:30:00.003+07:00

I will hold my longing tightly

before the leaves become quiet

(Photo taken in Klaten, October 2008)

subtlety

2009-10-26T17:14:00.002+07:00

The most memorable scene in Anna Karenina is set at Prokovskoye. Levin, dark and melancholy, is trying to forget Kitty. It is springtime, he goes off with the peasants to mow the fields. In the beginning the task seems too arduous for him. He is about to give up when the old peasant leading the row calls for rest. Then they begin again with their scythes. Rest, and the row moves forward again, forty hands scything swathes and moving steadily towards the river as the sun rises. Hotter, arms and shoulders are soaked in sweat, but with each successive pause and start, the awkward painful gestures become more fluid. A welcome breeze suddenly caresses their backs: a summer rain. Gradually, Levin's movements are freed from the shackles of his will, and he goes off into a light trance which gives his gestures the perfection of conscious, automatic motion, without thought or calculation, and the scythe seems to move of its own accord. Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvellously foreign to the striving of the will.

This is eminently true of many happy moments in life. Freed from demands of decisions and intention, adrift on some inner sea, or a "city of subtlety and brown-colored life", we observe our various moments as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.

(Photo taken in Yogyakarta, October 2008)

ceritakan padaku tentang kebersatuan

2009-09-14T16:41:00.001+07:00

(Photo taken in Tanjung Tinggi, Belitung, August 2009)

you flutter, dear self

2009-09-07T20:09:00.001+07:00

Oh what is it that rustles and shivers
shaking the dithering soul
stirring the valves of glands
folding, unfolding the way of dark and light,
the surreal steeping,
unnaming?

- This cave turns abysmal, i could never have been back up.

the estranged will be gone, the saline eternal

2009-09-03T23:06:00.000+07:00

In your body of nights distilled
silence chuckles
like the splashes of waves
echoing through every curve of the land
gentle as a kiss on a blister
and green dreams set sail to faraway
bequeathing darkness upon the stones
and your skin

savannah

2009-08-21T19:35:00.009+07:00

When we gaze at still life, even though we did not pursue it, we delight in its beauty, a beauty borne away by the magnified and immobile configuration of things, we find pleasures in the fact that there was no need for longing, we may contemplate something we need not want, may cherish something we need not desire. So this still life, because it embodies a beauty that speaks to our desire but was given birth by none, because it cossets our pleasure without in any way being part of our own plans, because it is offered to us without requiring the effort of desiring on our part: it incarnates the quintessence of art, the certainty of timelessness. In the scene before our eyes, silent, without life or motion, a time exempt of plans for the future is incarnated, perfection purloined from duration and its weary greed. Existence without duration, beauty without will.

For it is an emotion without desire.

(Photo taken in Mt. Lawu, at Cokro Srengenge post, 3025 m above sea level, August 2009)

the barricades

2009-08-19T14:52:00.002+07:00

When all of a sudden you need to justify who you have been for the past year, you realize you no longer have a place to stay. Subsequently you have two choices, walk your lonely road, or impose your reality within the possible limitations.

Zurück zu dan Sachen selbst

2009-08-11T01:15:00.005+07:00

Dunia bukanlah sejumlah benda karena setiap benda dapat menawarkan dirinya dalam ketertentuan yang penuh hanya jika benda-benda lain mengundurkan diri ke latar belakang yang kabur. Waktu pun bukanlah arus kekinian yang mengalir karena tiap-tiap kekinian mengisi kenyatannya hanya dengan meniadakan kekinian yang lebih awal dan kekinian yang lebih kemudian.

(Photo taken at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, July 2009)

and it rolls down, everytime

2009-07-30T18:39:00.005+07:00

Perjalanan itu menuju puncak,
yang ternyata sekadar punggungan-punggungan yang lain.
Setiap kenangan adalah luka kemarau yang menggeliat di mataku,
yang terpintal nafas pagi
dan kemudian hangus bersama mimpiku.
Kernyitan dahimu terus menanti,
toh setiap melodi bukannya mengisyaratkan penikmatan,
melainkan lantunan pertanyaan.
Telah kau lempar cabikan air mata ke jalan-jalan sunyi yang menghampar kusut,
jarak pandangku tersesaki variabel angka-angka,
sambil menangkap tangan kirimu yang terus menggenggam mistar.

(Artikulasi yang diilhami cerita seorang teman lama, Y.P., tentang perjalanannya di Pegunungan Argopuro.)

implore the fate to truly meet someone

2009-07-27T20:26:00.001+07:00

(thanks to A.R. and A.E.F., whom I dearly met at a friend's wedding)

We never look beyond our assumptions, and, what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others, we just meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become our permanent mirrors. If we actually realized this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness, we would go crazy.

rhytmic pattern

2009-07-15T20:31:00.003+07:00

I think people would be much happier in a regulated society that had a definite pattern and a unified form - like a folk dance, beautiful and rhytmic. What makes people unhappy is not too little choice, but too much. Having to decide, always to decide, torn every which way all of the time. Now in a society of pattern, a man could feel safe.

(After a conversation with B.T.H., in The Valley area, Brisbane)
(Photo taken in Solo, September 2008)

shall we make a deal?

2009-04-01T22:39:00.000+07:00

How can we explain what happened, we pile up words, words, and more words, the very words we talked about elsewhere, a personal pronoun, an adverb, a verb, an adjective, and however we try, however hard we struggle, we always find ourselves outside the feelings we so ingenously hoped to describe, as if a feeling were like a landscape with mountains in the distance and trees in the foreground.

work is good

2009-03-30T02:47:00.005+07:00

it takes the mind off the pain
or even if it does not, it prevents me from hugging the pain

(Photo taken in Bekasi, November 2007)

dirt and humbug

2009-03-11T15:56:00.007+07:00

Our only guide is home-sickness.

(Photo taken in Mt. Bromo, January 2009)

for the close of our study

2009-03-09T15:40:00.000+07:00

All interpretations, psychology, attempts to make things comprehensible require the medium of theories, mythologies, and lies; none should omit, at the close of an exposition, to dissipate lies so far as may be in his power. 'Above' or 'below' is already a statement needing explanation, since an above and a below exist only in thought as abstraction. The world itself knows nothing of above or below.

Kigali

2009-02-02T17:37:00.000+07:00

"Do you happen to be awake?"
"Luckily I had a bad dream."
"Loss is an odd feeling, even when it's some dream I never knew until it's gone."
"What kind of odd feeling?"
"I don't know really, it's just weird. Reality is weird. I refuse to live in it, I don't want to be attached to it."
"We don't live in it nor attached to it; we impose it."
"How do you gather the strength?"
"I know there's always a price for everything, so I make my sacrifice. But, yes, that kind of mindset often leads me to the brink of bankruptcy, and that's the zero sum game of life."
"To where do you direct your sacrifice?"
"To whatever I'm certain of."

wall's mockery

2009-01-26T01:28:00.005+07:00

“So you think you’re sure of your opinions? You cannot be sure of anything. Are you going to endanger the harmony of your community, your fellowship with your neighbors, your standing, reputation, good name, and financial security – for the sake of an illusion? For the sake of the good mirage of thinking that you think? Are you going to run risks and court disasters – at a precarious time like ours – by opposing the existing social order in the name of those imaginary notions of yours which you call your convictions? You say that you’re sure you’re right? Nobody is right, or can ever be. You feel that the world around you is wrong? You have no means to know it. Everything is wrong in human eyes – so why fight it? Don’t argue. Accept. Adjust yourself. Obey.”

(Photo taken in Depok, October 2008)

diminutive

2009-01-09T23:36:00.007+07:00

“Reason, my dear fellow, is the most naïve of all superstitions. That, at least, has been generally conceded in our age. You suffer from the popular delusion of believing that things can be understood. You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid contradiction.”
“A contradiction of what?”
“Of itself.”
“How … how’s that?”
“The duty of thinkers is not to explain, but to demonstrate that nothing can be explained. The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove that knowledge is impossible to man.”
“But when we prove it, what’s going to be left?”

“Instinct.”

- Ayn Rand, in Atlas Shrugged

(Photo taken in Madakaripura, January 2009)

FSBPS

2008-12-02T15:48:00.002+07:00

Mari meranggas.

(Photo taken in Bandung, September 2008)

the ordinary life as we perceive it

2008-11-13T19:56:00.008+07:00

Half-sheltered, catch the wink that ignites
the confirming corner, open arms, and an ear
The pebbles contain sounds, torrent of lights
This pattern in silence is crystal clear

With scattering thoughts in the midst of the crowd
the joker within the deck seeks for plain float
The humm of the timely space cannot be heard
as the laughter corresponds, the riddle gets old

Between reason and purpose there stretches a line,
though we don't always traverse it
Basketball shoes, flip-flops, barefeet are fine
it's over here with the coffee we sit

* All the best luck to Ray and Dachung!

(Photos taken in Bogor, August 2008)

antechamber

2008-10-05T00:38:00.002+07:00

When we see the Power as the One that grants our every (apparent) need, we will never get out of the dead end. The cul-de-sac in seeking for the Help.
How about stop asking for (apparent) assistance to fill the loopholes resulting from our incapacity, and instead thanking the Power for forming us as unfinished capacity?
Not finished, as we cannot fool around feigning we are not too small for the vast universe, but not incapacity either, for many of us have seen how the Power has allowed us to see many complexities offered by the universe and our own kind.

the April 4th tête-à-tête

2008-09-19T23:34:00.000+07:00

the month before the fourth commemoration, today

hac protegor umbra: On our willingness to give we see the grasp and wave of hands be still with stars falling in between, so much for a lonely man who waits for another watershed to complete his destitution.

innervision: Those are meant to fall, or else our palms will be gazing at the ordinary ones and waving from below. Isn't misery not about loss, nor being washed out, but rather a matter of waiting? And the hope for the waiting to stop completes it accordingly?

charges

2008-09-18T22:26:00.001+07:00

I haven't felt my own presence. This always happens when I attempt to be present, in terms of the state of body and mind as a united package, in a couple of places at once. Being the chimpanzee, he said. I was angry when he said that the first time. But on second thought, insult will always be included in the chain of reactions when someone else's words affiliate with the plain simple truth about yourself.
So here I am, scratching the back of my head looking for the sign of treads I thought I had left. In times like these then, life is the effort to operate between the gaps of what is possible, even if it is well-recognized how life is not completely made up of what is possible.

moony

2008-08-23T17:24:00.000+07:00

hac protegor umbra (22:51): I caught an awkward emotional moment: a Melbourne metro tramways ticket slipped out of my grandfather's book while I was reading it, somehow I felt like drowning in the river.. So tell me how did it feel like being on the moon?
innervision (23:02): It's lonely, and hard to breathe in; it would only suit for short detour. Everything looks blurry, the meticulous details are certain loss..
hac protegor umbra (23:08): Are you describing a fish pond? I'm having one in my head now.
innervision (23:26): No. It is all about staring at the vast ocean from far above, thus losing sight of how the waves dance or the perspective upon contures.
hac protegor umbra (23:42): Do waves dance? I don't think Captain Ahab would agree, the whole planet is sitting on a wheelchair, bluish infinity.. I want to quit staring.
innervision (00:05): Infinity does dance. Go on dear, then what after your eyes are closed?
hac protegor umbra (00:13): I'll be seeing myself doing a bit of psychoanalysis on the pillow, living off a 24 m square room of abstract geometry, starting up the revolution.
innervision (00:32): Just keep me aware of how deep into the fire you go, would you?
hac protegor umbra (00:48): And I don't like how Nietzsche said about the dance of infinity; you can never see the samba of a nebula, because we're the ones who do it.
innervision (01:03): Do it, merely stare at it; it's just the points we take off from. Either way, it tickles. The sensation is what matters, for me at least.

what will grow crooked you can't make straight

2008-08-10T01:07:00.002+07:00

*from Thom Yorke's Black Swan

I’d now say that it goes the same way, vice versa. Awkward moments circumscribed the spree. Nonetheless I suppose it’s merely another assertion how there are those who better learn from oblivion, gather the nothingness, and thus originate (or come across) existence (and co-existence). I left with bucket of paints to be splashed on, forgetting that the only canvas I was about to encounter was an eternal sunshine on the spotless mind.
Perceptions are unconscious inferences. The way solitude is consciously remarked, accordingly, is somewhat a sundry.

to look is to listen to insights on the mind's eye

2008-08-03T00:10:00.002+07:00

For more or less a week, the conception of time was being thrown away. The only way to measure the signified chain of seconds is how far messages got accross, or how entangled relations have been built, or how wide smiles spread when two eye sights met, or of course how drops of growing-up lessons filled our bowls little by little. But still, most of the time it is not measurable.
Same place, different obstacles. This year,surprisingly I pity the people who already maintained unyielding definition upon own selves, who managed to choose paths self-enlightened, or shortly to people to whom I would have had my jaw fell in awe. I pity them for one stupid reason, namely how unlucky they would be to never indulge in the minty solitude deep within just by undergoing hours of trashtalk without sugarcoats with some friends in the middle of nowhere, looking around and sideways, far from walking fast in certainty to an oasis or nirvanas or however ways they're named. Most of the time, life is series of waiting rooms, and thus the likely question is how one can go past through that, with both solid dignity and the feeling of a company.
Accordingly, the past week was also my chance to gaze around my dessert. The smiles, the globules of tears, the laughs, the advance understandings, the streams of ideas, the complex minds poured into one simple language, the instant foods for both the stomaches and the thoughts, THE DETAILS.

"And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life - that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its crucible pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain, and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To note the curious hard logic if passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect - to observe where they met, where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at the discord - there was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was? One could never pay too high a price for any sensation." -Oscar Wilde

dry dessert of presence

2008-07-11T18:25:00.000+07:00

Di ranjangku aku kembali mengais hampa
Ketika itu aku telah memilih untuk
menjejak kuat
dan rusuk pun membelesak
Kata-kata terlepas dari belenggu makna,
nafas membungkus setiap detak
Ingin rasanya ekor mataku mendesak teriak
mempersembahkan bagimu sekuntum ragu
Tetesan ini bernama penggapaian
yang menari mengundang
melalui ketersembunyiannya dari balik pangkal ombak
Sungguh, pagi telah kita cambukki
seiring dengan keterikatan sebentuk ungkapan
di atas pasak bernama belalak mata
Segalanya untuk melumpuhkan kaki waktu
Aku hanya ingin terbenam di lenganmu..

it's been a week

2008-05-22T20:23:00.007+07:00

Three days prior to his arrival, his statement stroke me on how I had become a burden by minimizing my list of compromise. Somehow though, I was not gilded by guilt, but rather drowned in anger as to the difference of perspectives, and the different points we chose to take off from. Thus worrying was not something to be avoided, as my withdrawing seemed no longer to be merely a threat. It appeared as one easier option.
I chose to play it dead.
The people say that only when something is not present we would start to miss it. What happens to me this time is the opposite. The re-presence, and being again accustomed to it, is what led me to another realization of what can actually fill my gaps. Because probably after all it is no longer a question of needs, or even a sense of companion. It is a matter of colors being injected into my streams.
Then wait, it is not a re-presence. It is the new presence.

(Photo taken in Cisarua, May 2008)

We’ll collect the moments one by one; I guess that’s how the future is done.

2008-03-02T07:46:00.001+07:00

I’m not geared up, or probably will never be, to have any fraction of my past being simply perceived by others. It’s not one of the features in the times of yore that got deeply incised, or that huge giant strong pillar, or anything. But along the way, I realize more and more that it is the petite details that build me. The meaningless pieces. But in this case, not for me.

You have a picture of life within you, a faith, a challenge, and you were ready for deeds and sufferings and sacrifices, and then you became aware of the degree that the world asked no deeds and no sacrifices, and that life is no poem of heroism with heroic parts to play and so on, but a comfortable room where people are quite content with eating and drinking, coffee and knitting, cards and radio music. And whoever wants more and has got it in him – the heroic and the beautiful, and the reverence for the great poets or for the saints – is a fool and a Don Quixote. Good. Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

February 29th

2008-02-29T07:44:00.000+07:00

The only reason of its existence is how men can’t deal with the vagueness. Well, the whole timing system is simultaneously functioning as men need to see their foot treads on the wet sand, not the wriggling water. They need to post and mark, discern where they are, and be prolific in whatever they opt. Simply so they can swank about how they’ve done so much in life.
The last February 29th, I was in America. I lived with the Nackeerans at that time, admiring how He’s always had His mysterious way of softly slapping me on the face. I lived among humans, real humans. As real as I know it.
I was probably also busy with the mock trial team at PHS, having myself being defined through the whole mechanism where I belonged. Actions are often qualified with that arrangement of position; we spend most of our time to secure certain position, and our so-called action will start from there on. That and mostly not the other way around. It’s amusing how those actions actually define and, at certain times, delineate us, or part of us. And therefore it’s the whole universe that defines us?
Last February 29th, I was also on my way to notice what actually the essence of having people around, or to be around people, is. It was to pick some bold strings and, if not call it as ‘special’, mark it then shelve it. We never know how it would still be whole no matter how deep into the soil we bury it. Really. I watched one of those strings entirety has not washed out, now four years after. I name that Marlyn.
The next February 29th, what will I have become? What will I have to write? Or probably I would no longer even care to write? Because the only thought I have is how to deny guilt and remorse? I hope not.

the yearning to dust

2008-02-27T19:33:00.001+07:00

What I currently need, is merely space. And, well, probably a little more time for self-reflective session. My thought has been interfacing nothing, but exposure. For all my life, I dedicate some part for superficial exposure, with things underneath left without intrusion. These past weeks, still in my strive to keep the discounted area wide enough and well recognized (as last year there was time in which that area was forcefully pushed inwards, and there it went, my senseless coping mechanism), I see and let too many hands in.

I can’t neglect how those hands have been toning colors up, but they each have own ways of embracing and flicking, and all of a sudden I feel like being polarized to many directions at one time.

While too many occurrences have happened unobserved, or not yet well-learnt, having just that lots of beaks wetting in the stream inside kicked myself in the current small chaos.

Please, I need space, and a moment, to digest.
To breathe in.
To formulate choices and be conscious in doing so.
To pick the questions I want to focus in.
To cross out the opportunities (the ‘tricks’) that will leave me feeling guilty.
To convert movements and sugary sweets into thoughts that roar.
To read with passion.
To sit down and be able to find out just the tight keywords.
To be ready to again have my brain as dry sponge.
To just re-comprehend to stop in every changing-of-the-day before restarting the engine.
To remember the divine intervention, and then feel dependent and protected.
And finally to see what comes next after I open both eyes…

four years later

2008-02-15T19:52:00.002+07:00

(Photos taken in San Francisco, January 2008)

road to re-engagement

2008-01-31T19:44:00.001+07:00

Limitations defined through one comprehensive peek.

(Photo taken during the flight from LAX to SFO)

turbulensi

2007-11-08T07:38:00.000+07:00

Terjunlah menjauh.
Toh kebrutalan kecepatan telah menjadi tujuan
sekaligus akhir dunia.
Dan kegoncangan adalah wajah pertama
dalam perbatasan menuju ketidakteraturan.
Dengan lenyapnya setiap pusat yang menjadi asal,
kini apapun menjadi sebuah permainan tanda
yang tanpa akhir.
Remember,
we are the prisoners of ideas.
Pandanglah kedalaman mataku,
penjelajah adalah mereka yang mampu
menoleh ke belakang
di mana parodi adalah ungkapan yang utama.

nervousness scatters when discipline ends

2007-11-07T18:27:00.003+07:00

excitement ends in other men's beds

(Photos taken in Sydney, June 2007)

qualm upon the shift

2007-11-06T19:30:00.001+07:00

Kebekuan pun dirumuskan atas nama
teralihnya besi yang menjaga
relung dekat dengan liang bercacing,
terkubur dalam substansi yang membangun keakuan.
Atau yang diakui.
Namun banjir bandang bukan penggali.
Dadaku basah dilengketi sepatu yang
minggu ini rajin berkecipak dalam ketercairan.
Apa yang mereka dapat selain detak melambat
dan sarkasme sebuah tawa?
Dan air toh mampu melubangi kelapangan.

Opera II

2007-07-04T16:23:00.001+07:00

The harbor becomes the sea (keep it collision-free).

Opera I

2007-07-04T10:01:00.003+07:00

It is the spectators that art really mirrors.

the trail of looking below

2007-05-14T09:51:00.000+07:00

The ability to figure a shortcut to get out of the house

Paid with the avalanche pushing towards painful end
that would later be seen as the beginning –
people who kick aside the cloud and clean the road.
And the floor in the children pool could be seen,
even from far away.
With ears plugged, keeping up with the pace, each box at once,
despite the snakes and ladders.
Simpler.
Should I shut it dead?
Then again I truly miss the times
when I could feel the wind tingled
at the height of my waist

Parr-à-pluie

2007-03-25T23:19:00.000+07:00

Je te tiens,
chaudement dans mes bras.
Écoute la pluie qui frappe
sur les fenêtres.
J'ai perdu
la puissance de la solitude,
l'invincibilité de l'homme sans coeur.
Maintenant j'ai peur.
À cause de toi,
je suis faible comme dans un rêve
de la douceur de mon avenir
avec toi.
Je te tiens,
chaudement,
c'est mieux, n'est-ce pas?
Et au dehors il fait froid.
Pourquoi tu pars?

[midnight drivel. sorry to disturb you, oxygen.]

the revolution of everyday life

2007-01-18T20:30:00.000+07:00

- no escapade, a social catwalk, the 3 varsity players of boundary-challenging, reality-defying, bitter-talking -

We refuse a world where the guarantee that we will not die of starvation entails the risk of dying if boredom... We can escape the commonplace only by manipulating it, controlling it, thursting it into our dreams or surrendering it to the free play of our subjectivity.

Ha.

approach

2006-12-31T02:01:00.000+07:00

been walking with eyes wide shut. denying the entangled. standing on a train, back and forth. enjoying.
thinking of a blink can't be seen, with fear to face a mirror.
try to park.. kill the self. blinding lights, desires make one thick disguise.
some more years in slumber with eyes forced to wander?

chawpi tuta

2006-11-19T21:16:00.000+07:00

(at last, a pause constantly impels the blurred changing façade into single conclusion..)

Jaring – jaring kian merapat
menembus daging beralih serbuk.
Hembus bayu memecah halimun
mereka turut naik lalu mengendap di danau.
Mencoba berdiri meraba segala teringat
bahkan takdir.
Kutemukan dadamu,
berpintu pucat terpasang sungsang
Berusaha kualunkan simfoni metamorfosa
mengagungkan keterlarutan
bernyanyi tentang jubah malam.
Aku merenangi kubangan hangat dalam relung
menyelam gagal temukan kata sepadan
akan semburat yang memendar bersinggungan
di tiap celah debu,
periksa kembali batin yang berdegup
di balik tiap sajak.
KAU.
Dan dirimu yang terbenam dan terbit di ufuk mataku.

(so long..)
(remember??)

to absorb

2006-10-27T17:53:00.000+07:00

Picasso: Every child is an artist.

The question is how to remain one as he grows up.

alex

2006-10-18T00:03:00.000+07:00

wet cement

granting recognition to certain close ones surrounding by being her own true self. the acknowledgement is the realization, of the genuine honesty projected.
she admires the beauty of the wilds without having to understand, moreover, without having to compromise. she'll just let the streams fluttering the way they really do.
beside, would compromising be the best way? who decides and provides the clauses anyway?
she is a believer, that the universe is not a fabrication of some freaking tall buildings erected in such consencus of analogous similarities.

defragmentasi

2006-09-08T00:07:00.002+07:00

Holiday is over. 3 words probably: Virilio’s point of inertia. Hehehe. Well I did stay remote. No, but it was pretty much a memorable one.
I saw processes. Miniatur berbagai progresi (dan regresi) yang dimampatkan ke dalam sebuah keterbatasan waktu dan ruang yang mendesak. Apresiasi atas detail? Hm, another one’s moving up the rank.. Kesempatan, tabula rasa. Saya begitu menikmati berlembar-lembar cetakan foto tanpa gambar, ratusan telapak tangan yang terbuka. An embellishment of the bidding to wind up in this fortress? Yeah probably.
I spotted upshots. It’s amazing how everything fluttering around could turn you into. Of course with the contribution from all the folds inside, hehe. Waktu lagi les di CCF saya pernah ditanya oleh sang guru waktu kecil suka main apa. Terus saya jawab dengan sejujurnya waktu kecil saya suka main payung, secara kalo dibuka jadi lebar terus kalo ditutup jadi panjang dan keriput.
I remember how I was, therefore to a certain extent completing the project of scrutinizing the massive stream of details in the tapestry of events. I sat and found some of the answers of some major choices. I conversed and settled some fundamental tribulations.
I smiled to what people were projecting. I caught a glimpse of myself, hahaha. Should it take me like 20 years? Such moron.. hihihi. “..a koi in a frozen pond, a goldfish in a bowl..”
I learnt my lesson. Baik dari kenaifan yang monofonik maupun melalui berbagai hamparan ambiguitas yang mengimplikasikan relativitas. Tahu rasanya minum obat cuci perut lalu buang air dan badan pun jadi terasa enteng, lalu lapar mulai melanda kembali? Begitulah kira-kira.
I made friends. Hahaha. Seriously, saya juga nggak percaya baru sekarang saya punya teman dimana kita tidak saling memberi dan meminta terlalu banyak, tidak saling mencari kecocokan, tapi bisa saling menyediakan rasa aman. Sporadic escapades. Man it does feel great somehow. It’s simply about genuinely liberating (part of) yourself. Well no, it’s not that simple.
Pada akhirnya setiap detail yang terobservasi menandai satu gelembung yang terbiarkan pecah. Dulu ada temen saya, namanya Tuan Dao, when he found out that he was accepted at UCLA, kata2 pertama yg keluar dari mulutnya adalah, “This is what I meant by sacrificing for another amusement.” Hihihi.

Kawahratu (IV)

2006-07-11T01:52:00.000+07:00

we're back

Anticlimax.

2006-06-11T20:38:00.000+07:00

Bukit kapur dalam baluran jam pasir.
Bebijian jagung menggeluti angin.
Cermin cembung bersikeras.
Desau ombak yang menggapai malam hari.
Is it?

pseudologia fantastica

2006-06-06T20:37:00.000+07:00

Dimness vanishing each and every precinct and reckoning,
toward the cavernous cavity in darkest sea..
“Sans toi, les emotions d’ajourd hui ne seraient
que la peau morte des émotions d’autrefois”
Dan aku pun membangunkanmu pagi itu,
dengan ketap mulut bergegas menyibak subuh dan
langit masih coklat kita menghitung jejak,
hingga pantai itu dengan cerita berlompatan
bagai biji hujan menjelma laut tempat bersampan.

crustaceae

2006-04-13T19:43:00.000+07:00

Dikenakannya awan – awan kumulus
berkas insekuritas yang menjangkiti rongga – rongga uap
Sinar matahari yang memendar
dan Tyndall tersenyum…
Lembaran seng dilumuri lem kanji
toh manusia hanyalah makhluk yang terjebak
dalam kebebasannya
memandang sembari mengepakkan sayapnya, katanya
Ia terpekur
melewati bebatuan yang sama berkali – kali
tapak kakinya meninggalkan jejak terdalam
pada aspal panas

land of mines

2006-04-08T19:42:00.000+07:00

Ketika kulit-kulit waktu terkupas,
Memperlihatkan benang layang – layang
yang kita tapaki
Ternyata biji – biji tidak terjalin dengan
interval yang sama
Sangat ironis ketika helai cabang terpanjang
tidak memiliki warna,
tanpa tekstur yang teraba kulit jari si buta
Keadaan tanpa kedip dan nafas
Mengisi penitian tanpa telur cacing
Yang terselip di kuku kaki,
satu – satunya penunjuk waktu adalah
bau mulutku..

2006-03-09T23:46:00.000+07:00

to look life in the face
and to know it for what it is

Railway : (sekelumit dusta dan kepandaian)

Eclipse : Terhenyak betapa sekedar budak aksi habitual dan prasangka.

Railway : …

Eclipse : Pernahkah kalian belajar berhitung dengan sungai?

Railway : Terdengarkah detak – detak yang menandai hidup?

Eclipse : Hidup adalah menghidupkan absurditas. Memberontak dengan kesadaran akan pertentangan tanpa harapan antara pikiran dan dunia.

Railway : Bahkan dirimu subjek fisiologis ilmu eksakta.

Eclipse : Sebagian kecil lahir tanpa kepekaan terhadap waktu, berakibat kepekaan terhadap ruang meningkat sampai taraf menyakitkan.

Railway : Kau bukan lagi representasi kejiwaan, two-dimensional icon.

Eclipse : Toh kesedihan tak hanya asam yang menusuk otak kecil bersama gelombang listrik angan.

Railway : Kau temukan cogito yang lain melaluiku.

and to put it away

anomali

2006-03-01T19:39:00.000+07:00

Saat nasib seperti kebebasan
adalah kesunyian tiap batin
Aku dibuat lupa
Serpihan terkecil pun yang telah
terhembus tanpa setitik konsistensi
berosmosis dalam sekejap
meninggalkan dengan cadar kabut
yang lekang sesaat
Pulanglah pada kesejatian:
subyek nomadik dalam peta mesin hasrat
Oh Sartre,
manusia memang telah dihukum untuk merdeka
Kembali kubuka pintu ke gurun
berpaling dari semua substansi yang dibiarkan
floating in wide open space...

ana tobrat nisji

2006-01-31T23:44:00.000+07:00

[ player as in ancient vision ]

determined by forces largely beyond control. caught up in games of chance. playing the part in collective rituals and festivities, for the sake of playing - whether be shamans, fools, or tricksters.
an excuse for sanguine fatalists.
i would probably rather play as a charter for the rampant egotist. forging the world anew, instead of grappling with its eternal flux and pervasive systems. player as the ultimate embodiment of human freedom. daydreaming in the midst of constraint.
should i make some a reality?

in pretense and deceit

2005-10-06T22:56:00.000+07:00

Dan pada akhirnya déjà vu bukanlah jiwa yang lepas mendahului raga, bukan pula kerikil dalam memori akan kehidupan lalu, melainkan percikan kesadaran akan hipokrisi di tengah lakon – lakon lain. Repetisi telah menunjukkan bau badannya berulang kali tentu, though I’ve mastered those conditional white lies in and out after years of doing evil schemes.

Huh, dan sekilas sasaran yang terus menyemburkan tuntutan monofonik: idealisasi.

Ce n'est pas une image juste, c'est juste une image.

2005-10-01T19:13:00.000+07:00

Desire is what makes human live,
and drops us into the arms of death.
Aku kehilangan sebentuk kebeningan,
ketika relungku serupa karpet terbentang.
Enyah saja serangkai kata,
liturgi.

yolk

2005-06-06T20:35:00.000+07:00

Summer days will be gone too soon..
It’s still chiseled deeply beneath the scalp
The trice as the gravels of consciousness were hurled at me –
it didn’t flog, rather constrain me to evaporate
Ultimate choice, the acid wasn’t willing to stimulate me
The durable wind from the ocean blew
granting the sound I had whistled years before
I was cornered
My fingers traversed destructively
They weren’t the ones scratching my skin ‘till it bled
I dissented to fuss over how low I had submerged
nor how wide the orifices enshrouding my carcass are
One might solely be a marvel on its epoch,
it has been the foremost substance replenishing my thorax
The grey matter has been in the burden of prolonging series of eon
If only I could subdue the chief
You wouldn’t have to flinch at that epidemic of the K-2 climbers,
scrutinizing me with my hands hastened hankering a rainbow
I apostrophize exoneration for staying inert leaving the room unventilated
Just put the fan in gear
I’m compliant to oxygenate your visage as well
Down to the mizzle and a hoedown renews on fleeing
Squat dejectedly in the end of the niche with a single grief:
frailty to transmute into the night
I’ll grab a disc from the pile and swallow it up
all my veins then beam and chant our tale
It will be long prior to when I cease licking my bite
Luckily the moon retains no foot nor tongue
You are far more than merely the shadow I can’t seize

Hac protegor umbra

solely superficies

2005-04-02T23:08:00.000+07:00

30 x 40 cm, oil on canvas

mengintai langit

2005-03-29T23:17:00.000+07:00

Ingatkah?
Kaki yang terpijak di lapangan berkabut
Nothing but a conglomeration of protein compunds
Tiba-tiba suatu hari hidup dalam kolam kecil panas mengepul
Sekejap kemudian kita telah bermain dengan lihai
Desisan tanpa jeda dari balik baju zirah
Living a life in a fictional reality
diliputi keabsenan batin yang berdegup
terseret dalam spectrum bertitik fokus ganda
”To thine own self be true”
terhalangi korona sang surya
kelaziman senandung laron-laron hempas
We were in expectation of Promethus everyday
Hanya segelintir yang tersadar pengelupasan tak sebegitu signifikan
Betapa kelak akan meratapi rasa yang tak sepat terkecap
nyanyian sayup panjang tak terbingkai
Diasinkan oleh ketidakmampuan menghindar
dari parodi para pematung melankolis
Terngiang saat pencarian justifikasi atas bawah sadar
yang mengendap lewat mimpi
Jangan bersedih kawan,
Ini adalah saat yang tepat mulai mencipta antibodi tangguh
secara empiris
For we are some slow walkers,
just never walk backwards..

sheer simplicity

2005-02-27T03:13:00.000+07:00

kicked down a hurdle,

entangled deeper

sky admirers

2005-01-17T23:14:00.000+07:00

The hollowness beneath sprouts out some contingent manifestation of crystaled contemplations. It will be all unrevealed when the monastery of drifting away is settled on own hook. But none would prefer the risk on discretion of hurting his sight with the plain unbeautified blue.
We are here for those folks..

Tanjung Benoa

2004-12-24T02:47:00.000+07:00

chased

the brain has done some wilder floating-in-the-air than the parasailing

2004-12-16T23:15:00.000+07:00

Je suis amoureux de toi

Terlena dalam perburuan kami
Saling melempar cangkang kosong
Aku mulai mencemooh Comte dan positivismenya
Saat ini adalah pembuktian
Efek gerak relatif yang selama ini terlupa
bahkan oleh logika tautologis
di dunia berkecepatan tinggi penuh pengulangan
kembali beraksi.
I strive to touch the ground beneath the sea
for the sake of mine,
namun kacamata mulai berembun
Para penglaju yang menggeser orientasinya,
navigators can’t help themselves
from entering their slumber..

(hours by the road, grey bottom)

sparks

2004-12-05T22:54:00.000+07:00

Moins de la moitié,
aku dan matahari ditambah spasi membisu
dan sempat terbersit persimpangan yang sudah dekat
Ça prendra encore quelques années,
dan terlupa pula bahwa bukan waktu yang tersangka

you've scratched my skin way deep
ataukah hanya percikan sebuah realitas friksional?

amateur

2004-11-20T23:10:00.000+07:00

Kelonggaran menyesatkan
The expressway concluded to be taken
so far is proven nerving the crap out of me
Kuborgol kedua kaki, kunci tertelan
Konversi rutinku mustahil
Lambung sempat tersentuh beraksi
Though I don’t mean like “cynide trangulation
or an axe through your head”
Tergugu di sudut saja
The scene won’t play, says an amoreuxeuse
Tahukah ia bukan seorang pemain coba digugah?
Kepasrahan menyeluruh, jawaban
atas perbesaran skala intensional
Simbol dalam mimpi dibuat pedoman
saat Narcissus pun mulai tergelak
menandingi sentuhan kecil yang menjadi penawar

(waiting in void, an afternoon, post science 6 game)

2004-11-15T23:13:00.000+07:00

Eid eve

The circuitous agitation vexing my slumber finally erupts to its climax. Likewise catastrophe on preceding year was not commensurately arduous.
“But break, my heart… for I must hold my tongue”.

utter stillness

2004-09-26T23:01:00.000+07:00

fana pun menaklukan yang baka

jutaan teguran yang menyerah pada keheningan

up to Bromo

2004-07-15T02:51:00.000+07:00

the affirmation of (finally) being home

hello Mahameru..

returned home

2004-07-10T00:17:00.000+07:00

engaged to every bit of it:

the long-line waitings

the KLM talks with way too much caffeine (oh that shitty coffee made the earth gravity just vanished)

the napping spot we found a year back

the kisses

the never-ending walks

the first batch of YES baby!

an almost-20-hours flight tells one thing, that the world is indeed round, that the place which may seem like an end may also be just the beginning..

and we had a very happy 4th of July. who are you kidding?

turning 18

2004-06-29T02:58:00.000+07:00

and i'll be off through SFO in 3 hours, leaving California.
leaving you dear family.

leaving the life i created with my own paints.

leaving with a realization?

well that would be such a gift on the 18th 'celebration' of a birthday.

oh and i'm not finished packing. how could you pack memories of 11 months into two giant suitcases anyway?

i left my heart in San Francisco

2004-06-14T09:32:00.000+07:00

the last city-scheming

Monterey Bay

2004-04-02T23:58:00.000+07:00

the second time, and finally got some shots.

Hollywood

2004-02-16T19:45:00.000+07:00

This was the closest yet i could get to you Victor Hugo..

haha

inside

2004-01-26T23:33:00.000+07:00

there are times when i believe in sounds

Inside the doors are sealed to love/Inside my heart is sleeping/Inside the fingers of my glove/Inside the bones of my right hand/Inside it's colder than the stars/Inside the dogs are weeping/Inside the circus of the wind/Inside the clocks are filled with sand/Inside she'll never hurt me/Inside the winter's creeping/Inside the compass of the night/Inside the folding of the land/
Outside the stars are turning/Outside the world's still burning/
Inside my head's a box of stars I never dared to open/Inside the wounded hide their scars, inside this lonesome sparrow's fall/Inside the songs of our defeat, they sing of treaties broken/Inside this army's in retreat, we hide beneath the thunder's call/
Outside the rain keeps falling/Outside the drums are calling/Outside the flood won't wait/Outside they're hammering down the gate/
Love is the child of an endless war/Love is an open wound still raw/Love is a shameless banner unfurled/Love's an explosion, Love is the fire of the world/Love is a violent star/A tide of destruction/Love is an angry scar/A violation, a mutilation, capitulation, love is annihilation./
Inside the failures of the light, the night is wrapped around me/Inside my eyes deny their sight, you'd never find me in this place/Inside we're hidden from the moonlight, we shift between the shadows/Inside the compass of the night,/ inside the memory of your face/
Outside the walls are shaking/
Inside the dogs are waking/
Outside the hurricane won't wait/
Inside they're howling down the gate/
I climb this tower inside my head/A spiral stair above my bed/I dream the stairs don't ask me why,/I throw myself into the sky/
Love me like a baby, love me like an only child/Love me like an ocean, love me like a mother mild/Love me like a father, love me like a prodigal son/Love me like a sister, love me like the world has just begun/Love me like a prodigy, love me like an idiot boy,/Love me like an innocent, love me like your favorite toy/Love me like a virgin, love me like a courtesan,/Love me like a sinner, love me like a dying man./
Annihilate me, infiltrate me, incinerate me, accelerate me, mutilate me,inundate me, violate me, implicate me, vindicate me, devastate me/
Love me like a parasite, love me like a dying sun/Love me like a criminal, love me like a man on the run/
Radiate me, subjugate me, incubate me, recreate me, demarcate me, educate me,punctuate me, evaluate me, conjugate me, impregnate me, designate me, humiliateme, segregate me, opiate me, calibrate me, replicate me

late night pondering, San Francisco

on faith

2004-01-17T14:53:00.000+07:00

a conversation with Charlie Cox, with a help from John Caputo

What do I love when I love my God? To a Buddhist, or to a Native American, or to a contemporary eco-feminist, the cosmos is not a blind and stupid rage, as Nietsche thought, but a friend, our element and matrix, the beginning and the end, the gentle rocking of a great cosmic womb, a friendly flux from which we take our origin and to which we return, like the steady beat of ten thousand waves in the sea. Then the love of God means to learn how to dance or swim, to learn how to join in the cosmic play, to move with its rhytms and to understand that we are each of us of no special import other than to play our part in the cosmic ballet.

then Parvati Nackeeran (host mother) in the car from Sunnyvale reminded me of Derrida:
"The death of God will ensure our salvation because the death of God alone can awaken the divine"

the profound diversity of rethorics

2003-10-03T19:32:00.000+07:00

(get all set, in a very substantial sense!)

Is communal play –- the rites and rituals that confirm membership of a culture, tribe, or community –- a way into understanding why their-so-called-non-western-traditions-like-Islam might be enraged by the semiotic frenzy of western consumer culture?
Is cosmic play – the deep webs of existence posited by the Asian traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism – a kind of necessary corrective to the egoism of the modern western player?
Might the variety of rethorics available to a northern liberal – the ethical chord chart from which they performed their lives – need to be constrained, or at least weighted, in a global context of multiple truths and value systems?
Might some forms of play, in a world of potentially clashing civilizations, be more ethical than others?

The one thing that a richer understanding of role in cultures can bring to the struggle, to make it a benign and creative (rather than a malign and destructive) process: an appreciation of the diversity of consciousness that human beings can generate among themselves.

Walt Whitman in Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).”

inspired by my elevator incident in 4H NCC Building, Washington D.C.
the first footsteps in the USA

their most favoured strategy: the ludic self

2003-09-30T23:59:00.000+07:00

- a literary persona that toyed with the very idea of being single, unitary consciousness -
being the self that plays with its boundaries and masks (playful)
Gloried in characters' contradiction, writhing deliciously on the prongs of irony and mockery, adopting contrary stances and antitethical positions as their mood saw fit. And...ended up almost as pop-culture cliche (haha): Hamlet's eternal anxiety about whether he 'is' (or isn't), Machiavelli's cynical play of masks invoked by every political columnist.
Finally there is more that unites Renaissance's John Dunne and Eminem: compulsive adopters of personae, self-dramatizing through hyperbole and bathos, occupying the same long tradition of free, egoistic ludicism.

(watching Luis Arellano and Mikey Markullin cracks up jokes in Manning's class)

silent site

2003-09-29T00:12:00.000+07:00

(finally..)

Lake Almanor, Butch's favorite

first week of walking home

2003-09-24T19:55:00.000+07:00

Nothing here to fear I'm just sitting around being foolish when there is work to be done Just a hang-up call and the quiet breathing of our Persian we call Cajun on a Wednesday so we go from year to year with secrets we've been keeping Though you say you're not a Templar man Seems as if we're circling for very different reasons But one day the Eagle has to land Out past the fountain a left by the station I start the day in the usual way Then think -- well why not -- and stop for a coffee then began to recall things that you say No one's at the door You suggest a ghost perhaps a phantom I agree with this in part Something is with us I can't put my finger on -- is Thumbalina size-10 on a Wednesday? -- so we go. you tell me to cheer up you suspect we're oddly even Even still the Eagle has to land Out past the fountain. Pluck up the courage and snap it's gone again I start humming 'When Doves cry' Can someone help me I think that I'm lost here

Lost in a place called America

Ventura

2003-08-19T23:09:00.000+07:00

a journey down south California

Santa Barbara

2003-08-16T00:08:00.000+07:00

Hm, sure some people made such fuss. The highlight was the art and wine festival, i was introduced to this artist Sharon Medler, whose watercolors and acrylics paintings do not suit me. Her images are way brightly colored still lifes, too much of an extension of sensitivity and enthusiasm. But hey she is Varga's favorite.

Also went over to see Solvang, a Danish town, or more precisely, a cold heart evidence of California's hyper-realism.