Lebaran Night

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Sitor Situmorang

Lebaran Night

The moon above
A gravesite.

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Jakarta

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Sitor Situmorang

Is Sitor = Sukrasana? What a goody-goody.

Jakarta

(for Sumantri)

I am a swamp
Heat blurs the white walls
Everything has a meaning, man and malaria.

Risjwijk 17

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Taufiq Ismail (1966)

Less anger is more poetry.

Risjwijk 17

That night we were sitting on the balcony, the moon was up
Traffic was loud, bleating and roaring outside
Cables spread like hair between telegraph poles
We tried to make out the black outlines of the night

A becak hummed on asphalt, crossed a ditch
Then suddenly in the sky, a bright sickle of light
Cut across the row of pines behind the hospital
We got up, looked at each other: Is that the satellite they couldn't stop talking
about?
The bright star at the tip moved on, slowly like time
The sickle bent its back westward
Across the roofs, skimming the top of the hospital pines
Blinking to the earth below.
We said nothing. We craned our necks to watch the play of lights
Jazz on the radio, 'Summertime',
More bending of the sickle, over
The roof of another building, slicing the shadow it cast
Over a house in disorder
Wrestling over concepts of freedom
And how to make poverty and starvation
History. As the satellite marched on towards the moon
And the next jungle of technological puzzles
And as the house tried again to spell
D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y, starting with the sickle-bend in D

The moon that illuminated the sky and the earth under it, what was dark
And was now light, and children running, laughing, showing teeth,
Over bits and pieces of sloganeering, trampling portraits
Of cult personalities, as they played bandits-and-heroes,
Along the pedestrian strip, the Old Fort's Wall and King's Way
Ransacking the offices of the bureaucrats and ushering them
Out. Off they went. A pack of wolves who
Told lies for a living and now looked around for someone to lead them on.
Someone who would bark at the moon. Once. Twice. There's no point.
He wept over the darkening sky.

Over the red moon, old pines,
His old hunting ground. His hungry bitches.
The marble floor cold on his paws, he craned his head up
Into the sky. Now it's more than just a matter of "It's so beautiful it makes me want to cry"
More than just a matter of the position of stars in astrology
Computerized numbers, technological experiments, and precision!
And here people struggle against anti-logic still
The problem of the four-freedoms, protein deficiency,
No electricity and abandoned blue-prints
Someone walked off, then tens of them, thousands,
Into the flying discs of fire
Like an old wave, slowly rising
Crashing over the horizon. Then stopped
And shouted: Hey you! You there! Yes you!
Hey ............ you
yes: YOU!

Tram

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Mh. Rustandi Kartakusuma

I should read more Sundanese writers.

Tram

The tram screams&screams!
barks!&snakes along the river.

I don't care anymore
a man's making faces at me on the other side of the banks.

I've run out of breath
Going against the current of morning traffic.

A pickpocket went for my wallet
and I'm sweating, like a horse.

All for nothing?

I am so stupid, in this city of millions
that tram couldn't be the only one.

(1950)

News from the Front of the Office of the Secretary of State

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Taufiq Ismail

I usually hate this guy. His words are like fire. But sometimes fire burns all artifice.

News from the Front of the Office of the Secretary of State

Once his body has been stretchered
Hurriedly
Out

We sing
'Leaves are Falling'
Slowly

A soldier
Takes off his beret and wipes
Tears none of us can hold back

At the top of the Gajatri
A flag hangs limp
Behind it: a roll of clouds

Going for a Jog in Menteng: One Morning

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Toety Heraty

Ah,
morning jogs in in the city
no need for a map, won't do me any good—
they've changed the names of the streets
again. they'll soon run out of names of war heroes
streets and alleys, the veins of the city
messages and promises
that never go anywhere, aortas passing over the heart—
old routes in an old city painted
a deserted brown.

Ya,
the streets are empty
people running, lifting
deadweights on old shoulders
a tanjung petal falls, crushed beneath heavy feet
rare plants, sweet-smelling, dew on tips of leaves, everywhere
Now
the city wakes to morning's embrace
lights break through branches, streetlamps
put out, cars
one by one, break rules
traffic lights and one way signs.

Get off the street!
Becak, piled high with this morning's
produce, quick feet pedalling
quick sales at the morning market
Look!—
at Five Ways people deep-fry
bananas and cassavas for the builders
squatting, gossiping—
the progress of development, acceleration
and continuity, maintained as long as commissions are paid—
Clean Up Jakarta: the motto:
No Cigarette Butts! The basket-wielding
troops leave nothing to chance
even their own slow shadows, in the trees
trashbins, green gutters
face down, and quick as a flash
a cigarette butt at the end a mechanical arm.

Ai,
it will be light soon, must make
something of my day—a deserted map
Monas, the fountain, the bridge to
Kebayoran or Kuningan
an old map, like a dying heart
dark corners everywhere, the flow
will soon clog, then stop—
Karet, Menteng, Pulo, Tanah Kusir, wherever
as long as I can lie down, and not sleep
standing up
I know gravesites are getting too expensive these days.

But—
the worst thing is, if say for some reason
they won't bury me here
and one morning, like this one,
or whenever I let my guard down, my soul
will go looking around
for nostalgia in a city it doesn't recognise—
where's the deserted map of Jakarta, where the Xs
that mark the spots, notes, scribbles, and the lines
that mark the scars of life?

Song for a Good-Hearted Woman Before Her Fiftieth Birthday

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Toety Heraty

You be the judge, I'm only gonna tell you what it sounds like:

Song for a Good-Hearted Woman Before Her Fiftieth Birthday

A motel in Kampung Bali
a little upmarket, the sign says 'Wisma'
a woman nearly fifty, waiting for his lover
inside a room, three-thousand rupiah a night, stuffy.
The ceiling fan's broken again
grey mold inside the bathtub, but the water is clean.
Yellow plastic ladle, blue bedsheet,
grimes on the wall next to the lampswitch, dust everywhere,
under it in permanent marker, "Romeo and Julia"
under it, "Cicih and Iman", the picture of a heart
and two arrows striking through.

She doesn't mind waiting, but is a little bothered
insulted perhaps
by the motel owner who let her
run upstairs with a big question mark on his face:
"This rich woman, she must be waiting for his man again,
why is she always hurrying?"
From outside, the sounds of the street,
bajaj, baso, the welding man,
rise and fall and creep in. She listens
to a grandmother swearing at grandchildren
throwing dirt on her laundry.

She doesn't mind waiting, though he's late again
what is it this time?
She sits down, throws herself into bed, clutching a pillow,
bites it. In her mind everything she doesn't need:
"Lover, I miss you, I need you,
don't betray me this time
though I know you've grown used to
betraying your wife—
this is not just an affair, we've been doing this
far too long—this is the only thing
that makes me happy, ah,
this is as good as it gets!
But what if he's woken up to his senses
and gone back to his wife, he's still got things
to sort out there too:
"I've been faithful, I've been good,
raise the kids, a pay rise every semester
pay back the mortgage faster,
I get on well with my in-laws, though not the cousin in-laws
they've forced me to take in!
Sundays, Lebarans, Thanksgivings, Tupperware dinners,
once in a while a movie for two, trading gossips
about the neighbours, listening between the lines,
that means something too ..."

"Why am I still here?
—pathetic!—he must've gone back to his wife!
What am I doing? I shouldn't be waiting
for someone else's husband—"

She gets up, ah, no, the bed has swallowed her
as the door creaks and he comes in
puts down his Echolac and: no more waiting,
no more thinking of unnecessary things, no greetings,
hugs, kisses, waste of time, because the two of them
past the prime of their lives, still have to go the length between
the north and south poles to meet
in this bed, amongst the sleaze of dust, these silent witnesses,
to taste the honey of life.
No longer young, they wear scars like proud epaulettes,
they caress, kiss each other where thorns, a blade,
whatever life has thrown at them, have drawn blood,
and in an hour or two, they are gone
as if by magic—
It's true
never for very long
until someone knocks on the door:
"The room is paid for, here's your change,
and your towels,
you want to order any drinks?"

cracks at the ciledug scooter day

I'd heard it going on all day. A punkabilly band on cheap equipment, cheap amps, playing the "Sepanjang malam, Pesta!" cover of the Rocket Rockers' cover of the '80s disco hit. It sounded like they were playing right there in my backyard, just behind the white wall with long cracks like my grandmother's hair, like veins everywhere, like dead snakes, and barbed wire like afros on top.

Wind carries everything, my maid said.

And so it did. The punkabilly band, happy covers of Benjamin S. songs (was it the wind too that carried Benjamin's chicken dance into my head?), the MC's voice telling everyone that no one needs a riot.

I'm happy the wind carries everything, I thought.