The Cock*

I dreamed that dead, and meditating,
I lay upon a grave, or bed,
(at least, some cold and close-built bower).
In the cold heart, its final thought
stood frozen, drawn immense and clear,
stiff and idle as I was there;
and we remained unchanged together
for a year, a minute, an hour.
Suddenly there was a motion,
as startling, there, to every sense
as an explosion. Then it dropped
to insistent, cautious creeping
in the region of the heart,
prodding me from desperate sleep.
I raised my head. A slight young cock
had pushed up through the heart and its
green head was nodding on the breast.
(All this was in the dark.)
It grew an inch like a blade of grass;
next, one leaf shot out of its side
a twisting, waving flag, and then
two leaves moved like a semaphore.
The stem grew thick. The nervous roots
reached to each side; the graceful head
changed its position mysteriously,
since there was neither sun nor moon
to catch its young attention.
The rooted heart began to change
(not beat) and then it split apart
and from it broke a flood of water.
Two rivers glanced off from the sides,
one to the right, one to the left,
two rushing, half-clear streams,
(the ribs made of them two cascades)
which assuredly, smooth as glass,
went off through the fine black grains of earth.
The cock was almost swept away;
it struggled with its leaves,
lifting them fringed with heavy drops.
A few drops fell upon my face
and in my eyes, so I could see
(or, in that black place, thought I saw)
that each drop contained a light,
a small, illuminated scene;
the well-deflected stream was made
itself of racing images.
(As if a river should carry all
the scenes that it had once reflected
shut in its waters, and not floating
on momentary surfaces.)
The cock stood in the severed heart.
"What are you doing there?" I asked.
It lifted its head all dripping wet
(with my own thoughts?)
and answered then: "I grow," it said,
"but to divide your heart again."

*with apologies to Elizabeth Bishop.

Is

Taufik Savalas really dead?

SLOW NEWS DAY AT THE TRUTH

Shuffle Songs and Put Your Head Down

1. Old Battery - Guided By Voices

From the Devil Between My Toes album from the Box boxset. I bought it second-hand from this Hispanic looking guy at the Glebe Market sometime around two thousand something and two. It was still expensive. I think I might've waited three weeks before finally yeah okay I'll give you the fucking money dick. And later that night I saw him drinking it away at his local pub. Or I assume it was his local pub, since it was located at the indie suburb I assumed he was living in.

2. What Are We Coming Up To - Oil Can Harry

Really Guided By Voices again. Part of the Suitcase boxset I mail-ordered from their Fading Series Captain. Was still living in Glebe. When it hadn't come after two weeks got paranoid thinking someone had stolen the package because maybe the postman had left it outside the gate since the landlord was too cheapskate to let us have our own mailbox. Bastard.

3. You Can't Hurry Love - The Supremes

I also mail-ordered this. From a music site in Australia that's now closed down. Chaos music I think it was called. I had to borrow my friend Brendan's address for them to deliver it to. Then he had to send it to me who was in Byron Bay for a last holiday with my then girlfriend before I had to go back to Jakarta and she find a real guy. She was sweet and decided not to find a real guy after all and flew all the way to Jakarta to be together with me again but since then I've fucked up everything so I hope she finds a real real guy this time.

4. Bathtub - Snoop Dogg

When I first met my girlfriend I was a bit worried about her friends. They listened to this thing. But then we went for a weekend to a wet Batemans Bay and spent the whole time inside listening to this and Dre. Maybe they should've been worried about me.

5. Gray - You Am I

Man, why all this music from when I was wasting my time in Australia?

6. Watch Me Jumpstart - Guided By Voices

I have a lot of GBV. I am forever guided by invoices.

7. Absolutely Cuckoo - Magnetic Fields

Remember CDNOW? I streamed samples of the 69 Love Songs album from the site on the old computer in the backroom of my house next to the ironing board, not knowing anything about the band but having read in the descriptions that this album actually contains 69 love songs. I listened to I Don't Believe In the Sun and then entered my mom's credit card details. It's probably the only thing I remember from all the things I've bought using my mom's credit card.

8. Is It Really So Strange? - The Smiths

A song I always skip on my iPod. I ripped it from the Louder Than Bombs comp. I probably have another 34257 same versions of it from the 46572 comps The Smiths released in the '80s, when everyone was too busy hairspraying their ass hair to complain. Or notice.

9. Boxing - Ben Folds Five

I've never seen them live. Though I once got a free ticket to see them at my uni bar on the Underground tour. I let Henry, my best friend, carry it to the gig, thinking that the free ticket must have got a +1 attached to it and I hate asking ushers for +1 so let Henry do it. The ticket never had a +1. And Henry already got the inside of his wrist stamped. The bastard. (I just ripped this song on to my girlfriend's Creative Neeon Zen.)

10. Lily of the Valley - El Vez

Got into an El Vez phase right after my Elvis phase. The Elvis phase after the Morrissey phase. Going from Morrissey to Elvis after watching the Live in Dallas video and ah, so he got all his stage mannerisms (eg., the whipping of the mike cord) from Elvis's '68 Comeback special video! Then from Elvis to El Vez via Google searches on 'pompadours'. Bought the CD at a dag-y CD store in Brisbane, the man at the counter called me 'man' and had ass-parted long hair like Lee Dorrian from Cathedral. I went there the summer of 2003.

11. The Abandoned Hospital Ship - The Flaming Lips

I have no idea what this song sounds like. But I know it’s from their pre-Geffen compilation A Collection of Songs Representing Something Totally Stupid but Since Soft Bulletin is Such a Work of Genius I Can Now Release Anything from My Back Catalogue Even If It’s Just The Sound of Me Farting, I Just Have to Call It Something Like Yoshimi What A Stupid Name and stupid amateur indie historians will buy it no questions asked. Just like I did.

12. Meter - Ruang Hampa

The last song in the JKT:SKRG compilation. I don’t think I ever listened to it until one day I put my iPod on another shuffle and I thought I was hearing an unreleased Radiohead track from the OK Computer session. With better enunciation. But just as boring.

13. Dear Morris - Even

I like a band like Even. A trivia in rock history—in my history—but, maybe because it is a piece of trivia, with an indelible place in it. Like the battle for Surabaya (10 November 1945) in the history of mankind. Not a match for the Peloponnesian War, but fuck that suicide bomber who killed the English general was so cool.

14. Broken - Teenage Fanclub

One of the B-sides in the Ain’t That Enough single. The single came in two versions, each with different B-sides. I chose this one because it had a cover of Lou Reed’s Femme Fatale (which sucked, but how did I know, this was pre-Limewire). I hate this song, but Ain’t That Enough became a soundtrack for cold, sunset-y, summer evenings in my college room, a buddy love with H. who taught me the chords to the song (C-G-Am), a perfect life until I realized, no, it ain’t ever enough.
 
15. Stumbling Block - Ben Lee

Being Ben Lee is a stumbling block for Ben Lee’s career.

16. For a Second - Magic Dirt

What Are Rock Stars Doing Today was a great album, may be the only great album with a girl-singer who sings in an awful, exaggerated, Kuta-Australian accent. But I don’t remember this song was on it.

17. (Intro) - Sigur Ros

( )

18. True Love - Scavengers

“True love is beautiful, true love, everything’s cool.” Cool sentiment, totally untrue.

19. I Knew I'd Want You - The Byrds

Once a year, you’ll read a Byrds-revival article complaining why aren’t they more appreciated when Fifth Dimension foreshadowed Sgt. Peppers’ by a full five months. BECAUSE THEY WERE SECOND-RATE AND ARE ALREADY OVERRATED ANYWAY YOU STUPID MOJO-READING HACKS.

20. Mrs. Leroy Brown - Van Lear Rose

Bought the album because I saw the clip for Miss Being Mrs. in a hotel room somewhere. I must’ve felt lonely and sentimental. I miss being lonely.

21. Flat Tire - Eraserheads

I own five Eraserheads albums that my mother bought me on an Ophthalmology Conference trip to Manila. I don’t remember ever having listened to this song.

22. Atwa - System of A Down

Toxicity is one great slab of heaviness. Impossible to distinguish one song from another.

23. The Applecross Wing Commander - You Am I

There were times when I thought dressing like Koes Plus was cool. These times were sometime circa 1993. I was also smoking pot almost everyday then. To ease the acid flashbacks. Applecross is a suburb in Perth. Little Wing Commander impressions was a popular game among primary school kids in boring suburbs like Applecross. Tim Rogers, the lead singer of You Am I, grew up in Applecross. He is a boring cunt. You memorize band members’ names when you’re a boring indie cunt. (These last two sentences should've been (virtually) crossed out but this primitive Multiply word processor blah.) You know a lot of boring rock trivia like this when you’re a pothead.

24. It's Only Divine Right - The New Pornographers

A lesbian friend of mine once said that she’d buy a copy of Hustler if it had Neko Case in it. I would keep buying New Pornographers records as long as it has her in it.

25. All I Really Want to Do - The Byrds

One of their better songs. AND IT’S A(NOTHER) DYLAN COVER.
 

IDIOTIC THINGS PEOPLE SAY #1

"Kami merasa sulit menulis dalam bahasa Indonesia. Bukannya mau gaya, tapi hanya orang-orang cerdas yang bisa menghasilkan lirik dalam bahasa Indonesia dan jadinya bagus, tidak norak, atau klise." (Goodbye Electric, area, Juli 2007, p. 12.)

what a bunch of cunts. so it assumes 2 things: one, that one doesn't have to be "orang cerdas" supaya "bisa menghasilkan lirik dalam bahasa [Inggris yang] jadinya bagus, tidak norak, atau klise" and two, that they no doubt "bisa menghasilkan lirik dalam bahasa [Inggris yang] jadinya bagus, tidak norak, atau klise." fuck you. "what about distance, around me, the distance, around you?" distance around? educate yourself, you twats. get adidas to endorse you a fuckin dictionary. or better still, shoot yourself in the head. or is that on?

(and i was obviously wrong to think it's the sole prerogative of indo selebritas and TK dian harapan toddlers to answer "merasa sulit menulis dalam bahasa indonesia", when pressed to explain why they seem to live in a parallel universe where the language consists entirely of  MTV sound bites, eg,  "like", "like", "like, you know". you actually just have to be a fuckwit.)

keangkuhan dan prasangka

tiga tahun yang lalu saya mencoba untuk lebih banyak membaca sastra indonesia. saya kira, kalau memang saya akan tinggal di negara ini selama hidup saya, mungkin sudah waktunya saya pernah membaca ronggeng dukuh paruk, subagio sastrowardoyo, atau apa ya, ya saya juga tidak tahu apa lagi. yang jelas waktu itu saya bahkan memaksakan diri membaca catatan pinggir.

saya juga langganan koran minggu, dan di tempat kerja saya yang baru saya tinggalkan beberapa minggu yang lalu setiap senin saya pergi ke perpustakaan dan menggunting lembaran-lembaran sastra di koran-koran minggu lain yang saya, walaupun seberdedikasi apapun, tetap tak sudi berlangganan. pertama-tama saya gunting semuanya, cerpen, puisi, esei, tapi lama-lama saya hanya gunting yang kira-kira saya tertarik. di rumah semua guntingan-guntingan itu saya tempel di buku gambar ukuran besar merek kiky. pertama-tama saya tempel semuanya asal muat, kalau sebuah esei terlalu panjang saya potong hati-hati dan sisanya saya tempel di sebelahnya atau pas di baliknya biar tidak merusak aliran argumennya. saya menghormati penulisnya. lama-lama esei-esei itu, puisi-puisi itu, cerpen-cerpen itu, saya potong-potong sesuka saya, kemudian saya tempel-tempel sesuka saya, cerpen itu bersambung dengan esei itu bersambung dengan puisi itu bersambung dengan catatan pinggir senin itu bersambung dengan iklan phone sex lampu merah.

ada kenangan-kenangan manis, seperti sedimen senja, novel sn ratmana—saya juga mulai pergi ke gramedia—tentang guru sekolah tua di anytown, jawa tengah, yang ketahuan beraffair dengan guru sekolah yang sama yang kebetulan juga isteri kepala sekolah sekolah yang sama itu setelah si isteri itu meninggal dan meninggalkan surat-suratnya untuknya. novel itu berakhir dengan si guru ini ketiduran di bus antar kota yang mengantarnya pulang dari reunian di jakarta; dia telah menulis surat-surat bekas kekasihnya yang suaminya masih hidup tapi untung sudah tua jadi sudah pensiun dari sekolahnya tadi menjadi novel epistoler dan tangannya pegal menandatanganinya untuk bekas murid-muridnya di sebuah gedung pemerintah yang disewakan menjadi tempat reunian tadi.

novel itu tidak membuat saya berpikir, kenapa harus begitu sih, norak banget.

selain itu juga ada cantik itu luka, yang jorok dan lucu, tidak seperti saman dan larung dan buku-buku djenar maesa ayu yang jorok dan lugu. o ya, juga ada jakarta kafe yang bersampul ala chicklit dan dipajang di rak chicklit tapi di tangan kanannya bergoyang payung / tangan kirinya mengibaskan tangis (this is how deep i've got into this indo lit thing). juga subagio sastrowardoyo sebelum dia terobsesi dengan kematian, toety heraty sebelum dia menjadi filsuf,f rahardi (ya, tanpa titik setelah f) kalau tidak sedang protes, rita oetoro dan potongan-potongan dialog casablancanya, goenawan mohamad misalkan dia tidak pernah ke sarajevo, srintil dan rasus, pramoedya dalam bahasa aslinya, ya banyak juga. tapi saya juga baru sadar, saya hanya suka orang-orang tua. (toety heraty is like, 74 years old!)

mungkin hanya ada satu cerpen di kompas minggu yang membuat saya agak tidak marah. koh su karya puthut ea. tentang nasi goreng koh su yang sudah hilang resepnya dan sekarang dicari-cari. itupun sebelum akhirnya ternyata si koh su dan resepnya hilang karena deng! deng! mereka pki.

o ya dan saya harus menyebutkan rita utari. girl, mentioning death cab for cutie in a sob story about you and your boyfriend that's really only, literally, a shadow of your present self might fool hasif amini into thinking that you're like cool and stuff, but not me. not anyone else. in fact, mentioning death cab for cutie in anything is never cool.

unless you're an o.c. whore.

karena itu kemarin setelah membaca sajak joko pinurbo di kompas tentang mata yang sajaknya atau sajak yang matanya atau apalah who gives a fuck dan satu lagi cerpen karangan seseorang yang aktif di komunitas ilalang lebah, saya memutuskan untuk tidak lagi membaca sastra indonesia.

karena saya capek berpikir, kenapa harus begini sih, norak banget.