Brim of incapacity

Eyes were left parched long after
The heart sank and drowned
In flash floods, filling
And exceeding the depths of trust,
Breaching the brim of incapacity
Submerging horizons of confidence
Dissolving sheer volumes of passion
Into a saline slag of stunned silence.

So Must Yours

Did I throw you in the cup of coffee
Where you float, as scenes
From your life flash before your eyes?
That beverage is not mine
This guilt isn't mine
Mine is this poem
To honour that last breath
Which was yours.

Looking for an unknown truth
To the point where I must invent it
With words, time and rigour
That truth which I see
And I alone can show you
My truth, is accepted
Because so must yours be
We live the lives of our collective truths
Commodified wisdom - the truth.

The theory of the big nothing

You take a walk with someone and do it as the most routine of human actions. Some walks are as forgettable as their routes, and some stay with you long after the scenes have dissolved into impressionist brushstrokes. What makes them unforgettable? Sometimes it's pure silence that makes the walk memorable. Sometimes it's what's left unsaid. It could also be the words and ideas you discuss with animated excitement, and then there's that conversation which becomes the very definition of randomness. What's said merges with what's seen and mimics the randomness of the experience. The walk is the conversation, which in turn is the place. Each gets woven with the other into a pattern of casual lightness and slow comfort.

On a walk today I talked with my friend Sophia about the "theory of the big nothing". (Sophia and I share the copyright for this term, so don't try to lift it from here!) It's the idea that we're all eventually the same person in a different time, which in turn means we could very easily find ourselves in the circumstances of another person. Not a very challenging metaphysical concept but it seemed to find ways of manifesting itself even as we spoke of it and observed Tsim Sha Tsui - and that made it surreal... maybe ethereal.

For example, near Chatham Road, on one of the tributaries linking it with Nathan Road (was it Granville... or maybe Kimberley?), we saw something quite unnatural. First, a place called "Bread and Butter", which one would expect to be a bakery or cafe or such. Then "Lamb", which could quite easily be a fashionable restaurant, sandwich shop or deli. Next in line - "Salad".. and then "Chocolate"... and they were all fashion boutiques. And then a t-shirt with "Sugarman" on it. It was like talking about the difference being more imagined than real, and then finding difference vanish altogether. Everything is the same thing. Big bloody nothing!

This, by the way, is not evidence for the theory or anything like that - this is what made the topic worthwhile and the walk, one to remember. And then Sophia made this observation, "...in Tsim Sha Tsui you never really know where you are, but you can hardly get lost." Brilliant. I'm tempted to suggest that it might be true for Hong Kong in general. On that walk, however, in front of the 'Bread and Butter' boutique, it made sense of the theory of the big nothing.

What's not to love?

Someone asked me why I loved Hong Kong. I said it was because people don't care about you here. My friend's contorted face suggested the answer seemed somewhat curious. It was not a prepared or rehearsed response. I was not really sure why I chose to phrase it quite like that. Having thought about it for a while, I feel I might now be able to explain why.

The expectation of social life in big, loud, multicultural, metropolitan, globally-networked-locally-contested cities has now plunged to the level where being left alone and accepted without overt prejudice may, by itself, be considered a valuable experience. So "not caring" roughly translates to "not bothering".

If I'm not pulling out all the stops trying to highlight every unique marker of my identity, others will not beat me over the head with my difference either. Actually, even if I were brandishing and embellishing all aspects of who I am, I would be treated, at worst, as an oddity. Now and then a passer-by might even toss me some change for trying so hard and to show appreciation for the entertainment I had provided him or her. The point is that too many people and places judge others. Hong Kong doesn't. Hong Kong accepts all sorts of consumers.

Everyone in Hong Kong is anonymous, or at least can be. Maybe Hong Kong is blind. Everyone is not equal in Hong Kong, but everyone is the same - a consumer wandering through a maze of commodities. There is no need to be anyone else if you can be a consumer. And if you can't be a consumer you're a nobody anyway.

Is this utopia? Probably not. I don't want to be a deal-hunter in city of malls, but Hong Kong doesn't really offer alternatives. What it does offer is an opportunity to get truly lost. And I mean that in the best possible way.

An Instant Gone

A memory needs to be buried
With honour, resolve and solemn grace
Lower it and cover it up
With today, tomorrow and every next day.

Bury it deep, so no ghosts remain
No vengeful spirits may ever return
No invisible sighs in the depth of the night
To remind you of what isn't anymore.

Don't mark the spot for none should know
The instant you've lost but will not miss
Leave it there and never return
It won't haunt you if you let it be.

Mourn it before you let it go
Expel its last shadow from you
Scream or spit or pour it out
And then you may continue.