I Walk Amongst Them

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Chairil Anwar

I walk amongst them
They who cornered me
Into a face/off
On the side of the street.
I see the world through
Their eyes. I follow them
Through the hacking crowd.
The reality as they see it.
(The Capitol is playing
American flicks,
We dance
To all the top ten hits.)
We go home
Not a hair out of place
Though death
In all its guises
Is all around us.
We huddle at a stop
Wait for the City tram
In the deep of the night.
I pray for those who read
My scribbles out of love.
I pray for syphilis
And leprosy (and
The simple matter
Of the atomic bomb).
This is the proof
Of our independence:
I open my arms
To the living:
Those who can see
The darkness I see
And the darkness
In me.

i lost it, a long time ago

he just has to close his eyes and he will come back to the same old places. narrow alleys cobbled out of chinese gravestones, the nicer, coloured ones cut carefully into narrow steps up into the home, the doors open to let air in into the dark inside, the smell of 4 o'clock, of the sun dribbling ball into corners and the damp rubbing hands in the dugout.

he doesn't know why. he doesn't know what he's looking for. what's the point of remembering when you can only remember one thing?

he stands in front of the old house where his father grew up, subdivided into a pink miniature of of a wog mansion and a warteg serving cold gudeg and bright red krecek hard as bricks. he can hear the chatter of old women investigating each other, "payu? payu pira?" their great old breasts sag like the unsold mangos in front of them.

he opens his eyes. if there's meaning in any of this, he no longer wants to know.

is crumpled in old letters

he found one yesterday. on yellow paper like corncobs missing the smell of butter. he wrote it when he was away, where the streets were hilly and the heat in spring was strong enough to leave a heart-shaped sweat mark on your butt when you go for a power walk. if you go. he never did. but this girl was, the old highschool friend of his old girlfriend who was away on a holiday to fiji and the friend had asked him as she power walked past his daydreaming gait, "how is she?" and he was too shocked to answer and just screamed, "fine!" his eyes on the wet dark heart of her ass. but later he'd written about the encounter, typing the words excitedly on his new second-hand brother with the missing : key so he had to write "met susan this arvo on that hilltop you always want me to hurry up c'mon, she asked how you were and so i said you were too busy spit-roasting across fiji, aren't i funny?" yes, he was funny, he thought. he was ironic, if by that he meant he was lying to be funny. now everything is so serious. as grave as a grave. he doesn't feel like funny. he doesn't even like lying anymore. he feels like he has to get at the truth, the cold hard facts of everything everytime, he has forgotten how to be ironic. instead, everything feels hard, iron-ic, iron-y.

he's thinking of ditching

he's sick of writing the punning titles, sick of the sadness, the seriousness, lips puckered up like someone cramming for ebtanas—he was thinking of himself, years ago—and thinking i can really nail this if i worked hard enough, he doesn't wanna work hard anymore, all the hard work made ebtanas boy a very dull man, sitting on top of the roof with his sejarah text book, looking at all the other RT boys playing football on the sandy pitch behind his house—oh what he would've killed for the fine golden powder of sand on the boys's feet, gold that will turn to black tributaries when they pour ice cold water over it, from bottles taken from his fridge, the only fridge in the neighbourhood. but he didn't kill anything. that was the point. the roof, his whole house was like a gigantic fence, so big no one could see it was a fence, he was sitting on. he'd read a bit, "jenderal urip sumoharjo bertanggung jawab ...," then his eyes would jerk up off his book and towards the direction of the latest excited scream in front of goal. "no, rumpun's too good for that kind of cross." he struggled hard to get the best of both worlds, when all along what he wanted just little pieces of. just a taste. he ended up with nothing.

you might have to find somewhere else

like at the grounds of the old palace where he went, bare-footed by order of the guards, old and wrinkled like the trunks of the sawo trees, one day when he wanted to be away from his family and everything else that was crowding in around him. his life. the lack of. he stepped on the cold black sand, imported two hundred years ago from 60 miles west, from the old burnt palace, for better luck next time. his heels pressed hard on the sand, he wanted to leave his mark, like men always do, but the sand refused to give in. so he walked on, around the dark pendopo, stepping over the No Visitor Past This Point line when no one was looking, and he thought, "that's like giving someone the finger and sticking it up my own ass," and he laughed, quietly, as if out of respect for the watermarked angels and goddesses. the white eyes always make them look like they were blind he thought again. and as he turned, trying to make a divot with his heel and failing again, he saw an old woman with cleavage brown as chestnut and carrying a brazier of glowing charcoal like it was the most normal thing to do in the world. she looks totally ridiculous. and sweet. i want to cry. he felt the same way whenever he was in bali and having got up early in the morning walked around the streets trying to find a breakfast place that was not a continental or american and always failing, and saw pretty shop attendants in kebaya that somehow look so much sexier with the thin, brief obi like an afterthought giving sacrifice to the gods, flicking holy water with the makeshift spoon made of bamboo, doing the sembah with eyes closed like they really meant it, in that brief moment when the sun had not had time to burn away your dreams for the day you would believe in anything, wouldn't you? and then he would wish the gujarati traders or cheng ho or whoever it was had never bartered islam into this country. this is just so much prettier. i want to start my day everyday like this. and the old woman with the great brown cleavage shining like a lake under the midday sun walked past him as if nothing else but her devotion to serve the new king (but which one does she really believe in? does it matter?) mattered in this world. no, existed. he cut across the invisible track she left on the cold black sand and the tip of his nose hit the thin white cloud from the burning charcoal tailing her. he was surprised the smoke didn't burn his skin. it was just warm, and enveloped his head like a witch's spell. which made him think: she, me, those pretty balinese girls, this stupid kraton, that megalopolitan i want so much to call home, everything is so random, and everything is related, nothing is true.

He and I

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Chairil Anwar

(for L.K. Bohang)

It's late and and we're still walking
Through the mist
The rain soaking us through
The ships frozen at the docks

Blood thickens, my body is solid iron

What was that ...?
Nothing's left of you but cold bones
The rain has stripped everything else

What time is it?

It's very late
Nothing means anything anymore
Even the way you move.

North Freedom St., Jakarta

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	F. Rahardi

on the kerb
mahoganies stand with the raintrees
the angsanas in coats of black exhaust
and watch
suits and ties
bulging suitcases
shiny shoes
polished everyday
the bowing drivers
and the bodyguards
erect like pencils
lift their heads up
let the wind hit
and tamarind leaves
fall like snow
on their sweaty faces

and what i like about this city

is how everywhere you go you see people trying to make a living, people trying to live and you look around them and all you see is death. there, an empty plastic garuda peanuts wrapper glazed in rain water like a bright yellow accidental donut, a broken bicycle wheel with the tyre still on it though a section is peeling off like a band-aid on its second day, the rain's made the black rubber shine like a leather patch on your elbow, right on the sharp angle where someone had tried to make a square out of the shiny circle of the wheel it looks exactly like that, then there is always the puddles of water like temporary lakes that reflect the big city lights like a prostitute's polished nails and the bigger one that will stand the test of time and the evening's heat and greet tomorrow's sun like the mirror in your bathroom. death. death. death. and life inside and between the spaces inside and around the letters. as i walked on i kept thinking, "someone should give these people a break," then i saw them, two blind men swinging their white canes over me on the busway ramp. they walked closely together, as if happy for the audio support when the canes hit the metal railings and for the jolt that must run up their arms when the canes hit each other in mid air. and then i knew, there will be no break in the cruel play of life for these people.