the pause button descends like a messiah for the half-crazed

Today was a blast — an awesome, much deserved ending to a crazy term marked by stress-induced periods of insanity and manic depression. I skipped soccer with Andrea today to walk around the tracks during PE, got picked on by my history teachers again, and had an absolutely amazing literature lesson that felt like a scene from Freedom Writers, much to the hilarity of Jamie. Save for the awkward silence at the end of chinese lesson, today was probably the best ever in my JC life.

Anyway, lit today was held at the recital studio, and we read out the poems we wrote that were based on the idea of "Wordless Thought" — a phrase taken out from First Hour by Sharon Olds. It was conceived in the moody darkness of the black box theatre while contemplating the thought of how we can even conceive the notion of colour without the sense of sight, and ended up spending today's literature period in the recital studio, sitting around and dying in the beauty of everyone else's pieces. I absolutely loved one line in Andrea's (female) poem which declared how yellow is the "feeling of a retriever's fur as it curls up to you", or something to that effect.

Sakinah suggested that we should read out our pieces without revealing what colour it was about. I'm actually relieved that mine was somewhat successful because the rest could guess the colour despite my use of imagery that was relatively-colour neutral. I'll post it at the end of this post for everyone to make a guess.

However, it was Bertram's piano composition which wowed everyone and cemented his virtuoso status. He explained that it was about the shades of blue that were united by a common chord, and Ms Nansi even swore she could hear a thunderstorm in the piece and dragged Ms Woodford down from her lesson to listen to all the immense and unbearable beauty that was going on. It bedazzled and brought us to utter stupefaction, and even more so the second time he played it.

Was chilling out in the marquee before choir started too, and I realised quite painfully how the moment would never last forever, so I captured the feeling and stored it somewhere in my head/camera phone. How poignant huh. Anyway Ms Tham brought the most delish organic cakes from Cedele — talk about rapture! Also, the new committee was announced and spontaneous phototaking sessions ensued amidst the bustle of farewell gift-giving; I realised how much I'll be missing my seniors because they have become so ubiquitous with choir.

I must also congratulate the new committee! :) I really can't wait to work with everyone and I'm looking forward to a hyper-exciting year ahead!

Anyway, my poem. Here it goes ––

Choreograph the clouds to the rumble of faraway thunder.
It is not only your fingers that dance that slow dance.
The hairs on your nape become agents for electricity, conducting a low
vibrato which undulates down your back, a brush down your spine –
a gesticulating wheat field.

That smell reminds you of washed linen bed sheets flapping against the wind,
the soft crackle of creamy eggshell breaking, freshly cut grass and pulling out splinters ––
all the laughing and the crying.

A wandering moth’s rice paper wings hit hard against the walls, with
the chicory and cornflower wallpaper you remember from childhood.

It is the sound of a fiddler tuning a mile away,
as you hunch in the wicker chair, feeling for a shoulder to
share the moment with.

I like the idea of setting up the poem's pace and rhythm with the image of a slow dance to the rumble of thunder, but somehow the opening lines don't quite seem to have a flow about them. I also dislike the ending, but still managed to veer away from the whole "shoulder to lean on" cliché that I feel quite good about :)