Friday, June 20, 2014

Reminiscing My Life in Fragments

I was just messing around looking at the documents I have in my files, then I came across and old poem of mine and decided to put up a post on it since I haven't written for so long due to time constraint and my old friend Ms Depress visiting.

When I was studying Critical Appreciation for my MA English Literature with Dr. Noritah Omar, she made us read and analyse T. S Elliot The Wasteland. One of the assignments was to either write a paper on it or write a 5 cantos poem of our own. I chose to write the poem of course, in a way I cheated, because I just wrote the first and second cantos and then cobbled together the rest of the cantos from my previously written poems and added here and there for sake of continuity. Because it was for an assignment, it wasn't dated, and looking at my transcript I can say it was written between May to August of 2000. It was titled Life in Fragments.

Life in Fragments
        
          I
An Introduction

It was a fairy tale beginning,
a nightmare of an ending.
An open and shut case
in life’s highest court,
(or so I think)
but the jury is still out,
undecided!

My life now has been bared down
to mere facts.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury
let us start over.
And this time, I will colour the fact
with my emotional reality so you could say
unanimously
that a life with promise has been
wasted
on trifles of indignities.

That I am guilty
of buckling down when the pressure is greatest,
and I am guilty
of not learning life’s lesson.
So let us examine my
life in fragments.
  
     II
Innocence

Beloved child of two loving parents
given everything I would ever need
given love and support by two adoring siblings.
And I grew with glowing hope
that life would be as rosy a bed
which I have lain all my life.
The values I have learned,
the encouragements I have received,
was my anchor for life.
And I gaily laughed and set sail
into the unknown,
with mistaken belief
that the sea won’t be rough,
and the storm won’t torment me.
Will my anchor hold?

       III
Masquerade

Life is a play put on
for the world to see.
It is ironic that I should
find that out
while putting on a play literally.
Rehearsals after rehearsals,
I find out that we really are
actors and actresses
never revealing our true selves,
I found out who my friends are and
who are acting as my friends.
I found out that as in a play
we each has a part,
and we play it to perfection.
I found out that it all has
been a masquerade life is
putting on for me.
Then,
       the show must go on.
And the trust I held inside
began to wilt
like a rose in a vase without water.

       IV
The waiting

Dreams that formed
in the illusion of the night
turns into shattered nightmares
in the clarity of the day.
In the interlude of reality and fantasy.
Dreams.
Nightmares.
Are just another play of an entrapment of a soul.
It feels like an eternal slumber
the stillness of silence
and in the silence
everything seems frozen
in time and space.
From the moment the knife drops
I’ve been bleeding slowly inside
waiting for death!
But death is a tardy friend
And pain is a constant companion.
If only I could wake from this painful
dream
or is it
nightmare?
Or if only everything would end
suddenly
swiftly
until I could finally be laid to rest!
Sleep come quickly now
take me to that place where
nothing is better than death.

       V
Conclusion

There, my life
coloured to the best of my skill.
But still I see the blank faces of the jury.
The jury is still out.
Undecided.
But I do not need their verdict any more.
Because now I know
my life is made from the
reconstructed ashes of my dreams.
Dreams that have been
burned by the fire of defeat.
Each time I with my bubbles                                   
of hope gather the scattered ashes                       
and the  remains form     
new dreams                 
not stronger                         
renewed!                                


rya
May-August 2000