where thoughts materialise.

So we're into the sixth version of my blog after the last version hung around for a year or so.

Now, a bit of info on this image. This photo was taken one lovely spring afternoon, featuring the iconic Old Well from the UNC Chapel Hill campus. I would like to think of this image as a tribute to my time in UNC Chapel Hill, the awesome friends I made and the memories I now hold dear.

A milestone in my life indeed.

I've dropped the tagboard cos its useless and taking eons to load. But thanks to Angela who helped me set it up, I still do like and will miss the pink interface.

So yeah, it's the sixth one you fellas!

Yours.

27 April 2008

you know you miss my older entries

October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008

Monday, October 25, 2004

It came totally unheard and all too sudden.

I was grabbed so tightly in his forceful arms i could hardly retaliate. In fact i knew right from the start i would lose, i had no choice but to bow out and conceit defeat. He didnt stop there, his grip and firm grasp got tighter as i struggled so helplessly. He just wouldn't let go.
My mind raced and attempted to outwit the antagonist. The tears would have give forth if it were brave enough to leave my being, the pain was sheer hell.

I tried to catch a glimpse of my assailant - I wanted to see what face controlled those impetuous fists, I wanted to see the adversary in the eye.
Yet i couldn't. Everything was a blur and obscure.
His presence was beyond a physical existence. Unfathomable to my eye.

I scuffled on and the more i tried to fight back, the more i was tormented. I was ensalved and eminently not his match.

I only knew this familiar stranger by his name -
Fear.

You've won.

But now i know your ways,
the tatics you employ, the flaws in your approach.

You'll never win again.

Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse -
The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off or unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

nimgnoy let the night fall at 7:50 PM

2 comments

2 Comments:

At 11:11 PM, juice.susceptible said...: yongmin you might totally whack me on the head for this seeing as it's a completely different slant (i.e.: amusing vs. depressing)from your post.. but hey you know aubade's a foreign brand (methinks french) of lingerie? hehehhee. go to www.aubade.com

yesh. all in the name of enlightenment.
At 9:48 AM, Anonymous said...: -hani-
wad e hell happened?
relation to e poem? or not?
ur head works in mysterious ways..
i cant fathom..sometimes.