Naga Terbang John K.

half a tablet at 8.30 and off we went
to a wooden birdcage

filled with men half-raising whisky glasses to someone elses' faces

so bright !

another half at 10
we can no longer afford to risk lulls

in the eternal search for fun

what about the things we look forward to hate :

                   the inevitable midnite fashion show on top of squeaky clean bar tables
                   no amount of make-up can wipe out the frightened smiles on the models'
                   emaciated faces !

their masks of gay abandon !

turn off the bright lights !
put on leif erikson !

' i am balan
  i have come from chennai
  to a magical place where dragons fly
  (so ive heard) '

i am so sorry to have disappointed you

                                  lets go home and stick our heads in the air-con

yr hands are cold
mine are pins & needles

time for eccy scratch

yr back or mine                                        O GREAT FUN

celibacy is overrated

sex is underrated, nobody ever says that anymore
sure, sometimes id just like to have someone to hug
in the backseat of a taxi putra
on the way home, or out as luck would have it
but no luck ! the lights on those buildings are cold
theyve been cold for a while, as cold as the stars
that make up the constellations of sorrow
on my fingertips
long may they experience the electric softness
of the hair on your arm
but no such luck !
cause sex is underrated
and i never get it !

Capoeira logic

i don’t like these people.

they believe in astrology.

they don’t think capoeira is annoying.

they think just because you talk to a girl for longer than five minutes that means you want to sleep with her.

they smoke too much pot and play xbox all day and call it fun.

too much means everyday afterwork.

so they work like zombies and relax like zombies.

for some reason i love them.

but it’s a reason i can’t fathom.

i have no clue why.

when i was away from them i used to think it was their dumbness that attracted me.

because i am dumb too.

but sometimes i am not dumb.

or precisely, i think they’re too dumb, sometimes, when i talk to them.

then i think: i don’t need all this dumbness.

i get afraid i’ll become as dumb as them.

that’s one thing, another thing is i just don’t like talking to dumb people.

about astrology.

having to prove why capoeira is totally annoying.

having to face fact-based arguments like that capoeira is martial arts.

who the fuck cares?

it is annoying.

that’s what i feel.

and what a lot of other people feel too.

and what i feel and what other people feel add up to a fact.

a truth.

but i don’t care.

i feel it so that’s true. at least to me.

but one person believing in something is never enough.

it’s like jesus would never have made it here.

he would’ve been told: yes, but the fact is that these temple sacrifices give people a lot of comfort.

but jesus didn’t even give a shit about the sacrifice.

he would’ve brought a baby sheep to the altars himself, if it would give him some peace of mind.

but it didn’t, so he didn’t.

but he never told those guys to attack the coin-changers.

he never told anyone to feel anything, or to think a certain way.

he just wanted anyone, someone, to listen to him. to his story. the world according to him. not according to what someone’s parents, or the elders, or whoever he has been listening to all his life, tell him.

he didn’t give a shit about truth-claim.

i don’t.

i was at a table full of people who would not relate to my history.

so i kept silent.

but that was fine. totally.

until i did say something and someone told me that i was wrong just because what i said was wrong. according to her.

but i was just telling her how i feel. not the fact corresponding to the word ‘capoeira’.

no truth claim.

no pretension to knowledge of any kind.

sure, capoeira might very well be martial arts.

i am an ignorant man, so i could very well be wrong when i said, “what the fuck is it anyway, even i can jump around the beach pretending to kick air into submission.”

but it’s just like karate!

i think, or so i thought, even someone who does not have a clear conception of irony and sarcasm would’ve worked out that i wasn’t really asking anyone to define capoeira for me.

she didn’t.

i don’t think she’s dumb.

but even she can’t help telling me that what i felt was wrong because she had read somewhere once that capoeira was really martial arts.

if a = capoeira
   b  = martial arts
   c = feeling good about the world
then since a = b, not c must not follow.

i don’t know how when what i object to is a, i can be criticised for my feelings, not c, because a = b.

i don’t care what a is. i only care about how a makes me feel.

but here you can replace a and b with anything and as long as a = b then no one will ever allow you to have not c.

= = the only truth that matters.

perhaps, = = the only truth.

because = = the only thing that matters, whether a thing is true or not.

and if =, then c.

= is sufficient whereas i don’t even think it’s necessary.

i am not happy with the above formulation.

it feels like i’m neglecting to talk about belief. perhaps deliberately.

to move from = to c you need belief.

it’s easier to convince them that a does not = b. you just have to show them a scientific paper, or maybe you don’t need that much, maybe a copy of newsweek.

then they will happily go not c.

i was going to say that they will happily change their belief, go from belief to non-belief, as soon as they find out that what they believe to be true was false.

but i see now that it’s a matter of losing their belief that you can move from = to c. it’s a loss of faith in the world.

you believe that you can go from = to c but as soon as someone comes along and proves that something is doubtful about the state of = you suddenly feel the moral obligation not to like a, since a doesn’t = b anymore and therefore you can’t feel good about a anymore. in your world there is no other reason to feel c except when = holds.

belief is a delicate issue.

L=A+N-G+UxA:G=E

when it rains it’s the same everywhere.

the loud bullets of raindrops on my shoulder as i get out of the centre culturel :

the mango tree nods its wide leaves and lets the rain water bend its back like a swimmer on his starting block, then fall, to the steaming earth.

the earth, you, you sweat like rugby players in winter.

the earth, now you're giving me the same diction as you did a year ago :

when on a black young night you fixed the stars to light a path for me, down a slippery hill, and then up, up, up.

the round pimples of my camper soles held on tight to the rough shiny sharpness of the asphalt, and i thought, yes, now i can make sense of the world !

it gives nothing to us directly, its hands have been tied behind its back since prometheus used them to steal—you know what he stole !

and we have been born since with our livers outside.

but on a night like this you, earth, shrug your shoulders and let man have his way again.

on a night like this i see new blood patterns on the old marble floors, the leaking of god’s grand design in the simple square of man’s genius.

do people still say bonsoir at the cote d’ivoire ?

what about that diction you just gave me ?

oh, it’s no longer useful to me, as useless as the feathered races and sylvan scenes and fleecy cares of the augustans.

no, i must rebuild my diction from less than scratch.

how, i mean how can you build a javanese dramatic monologue with english as its bricks ?

it is like using straight bricks to make a curve on an art deco balcony :

the edges will stick out and cut you, its own impatient, deluded creator.

thai whores speak in broken english, but their voice stays intact.

no, no, no, this is what i do, paint the white black with words.

i must find a way.

would people believe me if i just make out that everyone speaks english here, broken and unbroken ?

it’s possible. people do.

then, if i write the dialogues as though the people were othello, desdemona, lady m., then i won’t have the problem of translation !

everyone will speak in his native tongue !

i thought about the tall plastic cups of strawberrypinkness, which i imagined as lassi, but didn’t do anything about it when i saw the mas-mas reel in the sambal bowls with the soft hook of his index finger.

i liked the girl in the lime green shirt. like me, she sat one university chair apart from the rest.

the way she said, “for example”, as if there was no better way to express herself.

(that’s it, see, she did speak english! there is no need to think what if she really was just translating her thought into english.)

the messy sweatiness of her fringe, the square of her javanese jaw (i realized at 8.57 pm she really looked like shanty).

i liked her promise of ordinariness.

it is hard to fill up even a page, it feels empty even when i’ve covered it with single spaced arial 11s.

i am tired, though i know i should never stop working just because i’m tired.

becak drivers are tired.

pemulungs are tired.

the wagon-draggers are tired.

i am not.

tiredness is not relative.

hunger, scribner death in the afternoon, golding metamorphoses, ferry ars poetica, memoirs of hadrian.

when can i stop hoarding book  and start reading them ?

perhaps when i've got no more money to buy one.

today i realized too that they’ll refuse to say your name if the words have never before been rat-tat-tapping on the rooftops of their mouths.

they’ll say michael, because it’s easier.

some things, i guess, will always be different.

'buka g-stringmu aisyah, calon suamimu berhak tahu rupa labiamu,' etc

Waktu adalah twhirl, cintaku, dan spaz adalah gaung   

Waktu adalah mesin hitung, cintaku, dan kalkulator adalah raung

Waktu adalah mesin hitung, cintaku, dan kalkulator adalah ruang

Saya Cemaskan Sepotong Lumpur, Rodin, aidez-moi!

Variasi untuk Sebuah Lagu pada Kaset Greatest Hits Duran-Duran-ku

Di Kota Itu, Kata Orang, Gerimis Telah Jadi Logam, Masa Sih?

Ia Meminum Kopinya, dan Meletakkan Telapak Tangannya, Goddamn! Thats Hot!  

Barangkali Telah Kuseka Namamu, Tulis Lagi Dong Pake Snowman Permanent Marker

Di Beranda Ini Angin Tak Kedengaran Lagi, Ya Lepas Dong Headphones-mu Oom!

Dari Jendela Bar Saya Lihat Hujan Ikut Hingar, Menari Nari Diiringi Interpol dan GWAR

Misalkan Kita di Sarajevo, Lo Aja Gih Sana



*membutakan babi dengan bantuan twitter, twhirl, lg kg300 (agnes monica je t'aime !), dan tuhan

Abdoh Rinbo's Odyssey

pulang gampang bagimu al-wajid
yang selalu menemukan detik ini juga apa yang ingin kau temukan

jalan pulang menembus semak belukar
telur paskah bercat ungu menempel di lebam mata

kau tak punya alasan untuk bermurah hati al-mu'akhkhir
kau yang maha bisa menggagalkan segalanya

tapi sudilah berikan kami kapal portugis
dengan layar setengah terbakar pun tak apa

asal tak kau cat langit malam dengan tinta cina
o al-dhar kau yang maha penyiksa

biarkan angin dan konstelasi bintang
menuntun kami pelan-pelan, ke ithaka

pulang kantor gandengan tangan dengan ney di sini

AL-SHU'ARAA'

'Lihatlah, penyair selalu dibuntuti oleh orang-orang yang kalah
lihatlah mereka terseok-seok di setiap ngarai yang mereka lewati
menjual obat yang tak pernah mereka minum sendiri.'

Tapi Al-Mudhill, Tuhanku Yang Maha Penghina
pilihan apa lagi yang kupunya
kalau kau telah berkomplot dengan Plato dan mengusir kami dari cetak biru surgamu?

Selain kata-kata yang mengalir di benang-benang optik antar dunia
9 to 5 Waraney di sana, siesta sepanjang hariku di sini
O Al-Qabidh, Tuhanku Yang Maha Membatasi?

Memang enak kau punya paling tidak 99 nama
kami hanya punya satu
itupun sering salah dieja.

jaringan puisi liberal didirikan di sini

HIKAYAT USMAN BIN AFFAN VOL. 1

di sudut tendanya usman bin affan menghitung merjan mengkilap
upeti kurir yang mengantar pesan menyerah dari raja-raja sejazirah arab

tahun depan, kordoba! pikirnya. dielusnya janggut yang keriting seperti sulur anggur
dibelainya kuran dari kulit onta, percikan-percikan darah di sudutnya

ya muhammad, jalan pedang membawa kejayaan lebih cepat
daripada badai gurun melenyapkan pucuk tenda pedagang kurma!

di paris akan aku tegakkan, scimitar dan bulan sabit
di puncak bukit montmartre, akan kubangun masjid di sana

dengan hamam gratis di basement-nya, buka 24 jam
bagi kita laki-laki yang selalu berkeringat darah!

sebentar lagi ya muhammad, akan kusempurnakan kitabmu
dengan tinta emas dan sampul kulit manusia-manusia kafir

lailahaillallah muhammaddarrasulullah
biarkan aku menyulap mukjizat atas nama-namamu.

hasil beradu pedang dengan ney di sini

Mari Jadikan Maret Desember Lagi

dan biarkan hati

bermultiply

di ujung jari.

ditilik dunia sastra nyata

Start:	Mar 12, '08 7:00p
End:	Mar 12, '08 9:00p
Location:	Teater Utan Kayu, somewhere off pramuka

MGR (mohamad guntur romli) posting ini di apsas (Apresiasi-Sastra@yahoogroups.com):

Undangan Diskusi TUK: Menilik Sastra Dunia Maya
Rabu, 12 Maret 2008, 19:00 WIB
Diskusi MENILIK SASRA DUNIA MAYA
Narasumber: Akmal Nasery Basral & Hasan Aspahani.

Dunia maya (cyberspace) adalah dunia tanpa batas dan bisa memberi peluang kepada siapa pun untuk berkaya. Sastra di dunia cetak sangat relatif dan terbatas hadirnya: seminggu sekali di koran, sementara industri buku tak jarang mesti berpikir seribu kali untuk menerbitkan karya sastra. Berbeda dengan di dunia maya: ruang mahaluas yang disediakan cuma-cuma. Meski ada yang menganggap dunia maya semacam “pelarian” bagi mereka yang sering dikecewakan oleh dunia cetak, komunitas sastra dunia maya terus tumbuh subur, blog dan website pribadi tak henti bermunculan dan secara rutin menampilkan karya-karya sastra si empunya. Lantas, bagaimana menilai karya-karya sastra yang tumbuh di sana? Apa sumbangannya terhadap khazanah sastra kita? Benarkah fenomena ini bisa dianggap sebagai “pelarian”, atau pencarian ruang yang lebih luas? Adakah corak dan karakter karya sastra yang khas di ruang maya bila dibandingkan dengan media cetak? Ikuti dan ramaikan diskusi yang menghadirkan Akmal Nasery Basral (wartawan, novelis, pengelola milis Apresiasi Sastra) dan Hasan Aspahani, penyair, wartawan, pengisi blog “sejuta puisi”).

wawan eko yulianto (berbagi-mimpi.blogspot.com) posting ini:

Re: Undangan Diskusi TUK: Menilik Sastra Dunia Maya

wow, TUK merangkul sastra cyber :D. btw, kenapa nggak sekalian juga mengajak saut situmorang yang termasuk orang lama di sastra cyber, mas guntur? kayaknya, asyik2 saja mengajaknya. lagipula, ini kan tidak kontraproduktif terhadap saut situmorang atau TUK :D.

btw, saya kepikiran begini: kalau kita membicarakan sastra dunia maya tapi masih memikirkan "bagaimana menilainya", sepertinya ini akan menjadi diskusi orang sastra daratan memandang sastra cyber. kalau memang sudah diresap-hayat-nikmati, sepertinya sastra cyber itu menerapkan benchmark yang berbeda dan penikmatannya juga ... yah ... harus berbeda. ya, kita sendiri yang mengandalkan pada google.com atau blogsearch.google.com untuk menghantarkan kita pada karya tertentu (atau langganan milis agar ada karya2 yang diantarkan kepada kita), dan setelah itu, tinggal kita saja menikmatinya atau tidak. kalau menikmatinya ya... sebagai apresiasi mungkin bisa kita masukkan comment, tapi kalau tidak ya langsung saja cari karya yang lebih asyik.

itu sih menurut hamba. nggak tahu lagi ya yang lain ... benua ketujuh ini sangat luas, seperti buku yang halamannya sejumlah butir pasir di pantai (dikutip dari siapa hayo? :D), seorang redaktur adalah kemusykilan yang memiliki wujud (halah!). ya... kalaupun untuk mengatur lalu lintas di satu "negara" tertentu di benua tersebut, paling-paling hanya bisa dilakukan oleh moderator ... tapi ya... itu cuman untuk satu "negara" saja. kalau untuk keseluruhan benua ketujuh ... yah ... semuanya kembali kepada diri kita masing-masing. :D

from malang with salam hormat,

wawan eko yulianto

saya posting ini:

Re: Undangan Diskusi TUK: Menilik Sastra Dunia Maya

god youre such a liar mgr. saut (cant u even say his name?) tidak 'benar-benar mengerti, mengamati, terlibat langsung ... di dunia maya?' who do you think youre talking to? idiots? ah ya, youre the idiot. kalau anda bisa berpendapat begitu, andalah yg sama sekali tidak mengerti tentang dunia maya indonesia. saut sudah jd redaktur cybersastra saat enda nasution jg belum mulai ngeblog, puisi2nya sdh dipajang di authorsden sejak 2002 dan tentunya esei2nya sudah lama memenuhi inbox penikmat milis sastra indonesia.

gue tahu kalian di tuk punya kebiasaan—meminjam kata yg sering dipakai saut—asersif, tuan mgr. mungkin lu bahkan udah gak sadar lagi lu lagi melakukan ini. coba lu baca lagi surat lu di bawah, sudahkan anda memberikan satu pun bukti untuk semua pernyataan anda (terlepas dari benar tidaknya sebenarnya pernyataan anda itu. hahaha im being generous here.)? let me answer that for you, just in case youre too much of a nob, NO.

mikael.

sekarang saya jadi pembicara menggantikan HAH (sejuta-puisi.blogspot.com) yang tak bisa datang. HAHAHAHAH.

dan teaternya tidak ada wi-fi, bgmn sy bisa memamerkan add-ons terbaru browser flock sy!?

datang yah, cd be a potential bitchfest. or it cd be totally lame. im all bitched out.

Pas l'éducation sentimentale

- now i can live without this this distilling of a day thru the cheap (less than aus$10,000) coffee machine of me brain. no more waiting waiting waiting for the splotch splutter swish of dirty brown half quarter no truths into the cracked coffee single-serve cups of me minimum opus.

- i can live without this. we used to hate this whole thing didnt we. it used to hurt even on good days. even when you were writing something true it felt like you were lying thru yr teeth. none of the Hem smugness you wanted so much.

- it was like Flaubert in Madame Bovary. there was no meaning in my life (i shdve really just killed myself) so i tried to create another world in order to destroy what i had (whatever meaning it had left).

- it was like, 'mme bovary put an extra corner on her husband's dilapidated tricorn hat.' this line is extraneous (like the extra corner). 'tis written to convey to you a nothingness the emptiness of life in Yvetot (or wherever) the feeling of breathing in a vacuum. how cd such things exist? how cd it be written without emptying the soul of the writer (assuming he did have at least a half one)? but even if he did he wdve lost it now gone forever in the very act of writing that goddam sentence.

- it feels like the sentence shdve been written in chalk and rubbed off after reading.

Notulensi pertemuan antara Komisi Perempuan Indonesia, Jurnal Perempuan, Duta Besar Norwegia, dan wakil Kedutaan Swedia, Smoking Lounge, Hotel Nikko, Jakarta, sometime sore-sore 2007

- tell me ms hanna, where did you get yr accent, harvard or yale?

- accent is nothing my good man. its the things you say, do you have anything to say to the world-at-large?

Credible Sadness, Inc.

sadder than boys with ponytails

are boys with pony tales

Crise de la conscience jakartanaise

SEBUAH PASTORAL

PENUH SENDAL

Misreading of the day, 13 January 2008

'Choose the right pain believers'

- on a pack of Neuralgins

Menulis dalam gelap, Blue Bird JU 1261, 13 Januari 2008, 03:31 WIB, Pakubuwono ke arah Ciledug

Hanya kota ini yg bisa membuatku
merentang busur sekaligus
mencium tanah.

—> DUA SEPUR —>

everywheres provincial
when youre poor

Radit Hearts Jani

Rating:	★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Romance

BUT WHAT MEANS HEART IN THIS HEARTLESS CITY?

unlike other crybabies i didnt shed a tear watching radit and jani (midnite at megaria 1, 13 januay 2008, rp 15000, A9, alone). not for lack of want or trying, i just broke up with my boyfriend and i was all too ready for a tearjerker. i was all too ready for any jerk.

but by the gazillionth time vino g pleaded for more forgiveness more patience more love from the i find it hard too admit surprisingly subtly moving faharani, since he was such a weak-willed ubas junkie, i thought no upi, no, please dont overdo it i beg of you!

it was only when the characters (mainly jani) had to lie and cover up their real feelings like when radit asked what jani was craving for when she got pregnant against all better reasons (they were dirt poor though her parents live in what looks like either menteng or bandung) and she almost told him but then she held back and looked him in the eye and said, 'bener kok bodoh (thats just their nickname for each other), aku nggak pengen apa2,' that ok, i was ready to reach for the man next to me, but then radit replied, 'kalau kamu pengen apa2 kamu bilang ya, bodoh,' and i wondered if the man next to me wd mind being vomited on.

its not like upis lost her touch with little quirks that we humans do when sad, little funny things that make things even sadder, like when in realitacintamatiku vino gs kid brother sent him what looked like a cloying letter begging him to come back but then when he opened the envelope there were only three dirty creased rp 1000 notes, or here when jani complained she was hungry and radit u resourceful quick-thinking junkie u, without blinking an eye started a word game (d, guitarist, deddy dores!) and lo and behold jani forgot the growling in her stomach and i felt like i had to hand it over to u upi u really know how under duress we silly bodoh humans can quite often be perfectly capable of genius.

radit and jani are married, live in a kontrakan in a rumah susun, no aircon, the walls are customised by tembok bomber, polaroid photos of the happy indie couple everywhere, lucky strike pepperita menthas strewn on the floor, are so good-looking and perfectly scruffily dressed in hot pants, leopard print boots, skinny leather jackets, skinny black jeans, vintage def leppard hysteria t-shirt, handmade t-shirts with digital prints of each other's pictures at the front and 'aku cinta bodoh' scribbled above them in snowman, radit a struggling musician who had just pawned his guitar for more smack and is waiting for an answer from a record company about the demo tapes he sent them many moons ago (bodoh obviously too wasted or, haha, too stupid to realise the power of myspace) and jani just got sacked from her waitressing job at a café because radit is a jealous bastard and nearly killed her boss for daring to flirt with his totally hot(pants) wife.

in the beginning of the movie i thought, theyre too good-looking and her parents too rich for me to believe that their fears of getting evicted from the kontrakan because they were 2 months' behind on rent, and eletricity and water bills, their fears of LIFE, were real. after all she cd always go back to her parents. radit wore a black vintage senen t-shirt with a picture of a pink cadillac and the words in neon pink: cadillac dreams, and i thought, well if you just swallowed yr struggling musicians pride and moved in with her parents they wd buy you a cadillac. but thats kinda unfair. because my parents offered to buy me a cadillac yesterday but life in this city does still freak me out every now and then. this city can turn on you, against you, any time, or i think at least thats what this city makes you think.

so this is the crux of the movie, and perhaps of all recent indonesian movies set in the urban concreteforest of jakarta: not to put too fine a marxist point on it, just how much of an individuals angst, anxiety, fear, economic, relationship-wise, existentially, is caused by his/her self-pity or the unforgiving, bourgeois, dog-eat-man less-than-human nature around him/her?

and of course this film doesnt offer any answer to that question. upis got at least one finger on the pulse though, her message to radit and jani seems to be, unite and take over! but shes too much of a realist to let that happen. spoiler alert: radit surrendered to the historical materialism of this former VOC port and tricked jani into an ice-cream date at café au lait cikini/the waiting toyota vios of her dad.

that was another scene where a character this time radit perhaps for the first time had to lie and vino g hitting himself on the head leaning on the mouldy walls of an alley in cikini raya the old artery of this city and trying hard not to watch or hear jani's i'm-a-woman-abandoned-hear-me-roar cry, gave his best performance, this time, without saying a word.

The air hot

Like dirty blankets over yr face. You asked who knitted my jumper. Who the eyeless woman flicking her hair Farah Fawcett-style. Yr fringe blunt, shot, blonde. Who are you? Yr palm coarse, I was surprised. The peeling, cracked skin felt like lies, seen next to the baby-pink of yr skin. You dressed in a period outfit. The Eighties. Eclectic. White perforated pseudo-oxfords with leather laces that trailed behind yr ankles like dog-tails. The laces refused to stay put in their butterfly knots. Baggy pants with the MC Hammer-Bollywood DNA you bought this afternoon (so you said). You were happy to see me, patted my shoulder and asked me questions in an accent I hated. Pale Englishmen who wore bespoke suits in summer. You were pale too, though nothing seemed wrong with you. Until I shook yr hand and the rough skin made my heart jump. You smiled and you smiled, gap between yr front teeth, the rest white tombstones on the pink earth of yr gum. You smiled at everything: my idea for a man purse made of accordion leather, the indie kids fucking in the girls' loo, the balding disco jockey. You smiled, told me you liked me. I like you too. I asked where you were from, what did you do, why you came. Grey London, fashion at St. Martins, for the sun. You said you were going to the zoo tomorrow, see the white leopard tanning its spots, sniffing its own urine.

The world priced two digits beyond purchase

see pictures thru words

pasticheur

rococo

chiaroscuro

transitoriness

pointilism

divisionism

primary colours

so what if the land is less pretty
no more seagulls frozen in mid-air
no more dry harmless rust on sharp corners of rubbish bins
no more uninterrupted carvings of easy-going open-armed sandstones
no more so what!