5

九份的咖啡店

这里的景色像你变幻莫测
这样的午后我坐在九份的马路边
这里的空气很新鲜
这里的感觉很特别
仰望这片天空
遥尽我对你的思念
窗外的星空像你嬉笑不眠
这样的午夜我坐在九份的咖啡店
这里的街道有点改变
这里的人群喧闹整夜
望着朦胧的海岸线
是否还能回到从前
昨日的单纯今天的实际像你
而你也早已不是你
想问你也问问自己
是否还会记得从前
怀念着往日的坚持和现在你我的改变

6

告诉我

看沉默的电话它什么都不说
看电视的画面它无声的闪动
看街上的行人跟我擦肩而过
整个世界太冷漠 我没有力气再往前走
看你紧闭的嘴唇它什么都不说
看你飘忽的眼神它无情的闪躲
看你和我的回忆跟我擦肩而过
你的改变太冷漠 我没有勇气大声地说
告诉我你不是真的离开我
你也不愿这样的夜里把难过留给
我告诉我你不是真的离开我
你是要惩罚我的爱让你失去自由

7

旅行的意义

你看过了许多美景, 你看过了许多美女
你迷失在地图上每一道短暂的光阴

你品尝了夜的巴黎, 你踏过下雪的北京
你收集书本里每一句你最爱的真理

你累计了许多飞行, 你用心挑选纪念品
你收集了地图上每一次的风和日丽

你拥抱热情的岛屿, 你埋葬记忆的土尔其
你留恋电影里美丽的不真实的场景

却说不出你爱我的原因
却说不出你欣赏我哪一种表情
却说不出什么场合我曾让分心

说不出离开的原因
说不出旅行的意义
你离开我就是旅行的意义

Sky

Lonely Tree says:
I know I can never give you your blue skies.
But how about some stars instead?

Bottleneck

Alone is not loneliness?

I spent a large part of last night and today wondering what it really means to be alone. After all, a solitary flower has its own beauty, just like in Chez Mondrian. Coincidentally, I chanced upon a passage which just about summed up my conclusion "Because as much as we want to share our deepest secret we also want to keep them hidden, as much as we want constant companionship we also want privacy, as much as we want to be vulnerable we also want to protect ourselves, as much as we want to share our lives we also want our freedom, as much as we want to give ourselves away in selflessness we also want to keep our lives and our possessions for ourselves, and as much as we want the stability of deep commitment we also want the freedom of opportunity." If life really is no more than a series of ironies, where does one strike the balance necessary for the sake of having a fruitful existence? A yearning for company makes me human but the longing to be alone makes me who I am.

Craftsman

Reflections; Maestro, Autocord.

"Inarticulate does not mean stupid; indeed, what we can say in words may be more limited than what we can do with things. Craftwork establishes a realm of skill and knowledge perhaps beyond human verbal capacities to explain; it taxes the power of the most professional writer to describe precisely how to tie a slipknot. Here is a, perhaps the, fundamental human limit: language is not an adequate "mirror tool" for the physical movements of the human body...

One solution to the limits of language is to substitute the image for the word... The images, in other words, illuminate by clarifying and simplifying movement into a series of clear pictures of the sort the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson called 'decisive moments'...

It might be possible to imagine an experience of enlightenment strictly as a visual experience following this photographic procedure, one that enables our eyes to do the thinking about material things. In silence, as in a monastery, communication among people would be reduced to a minimum for the sake of contemplating how an object is made. Zen Buddhism follows this nonverbal path, taking the craftsman to be an emblematic figure who enlightens by showing rather than telling. Zen counsels that to understand the craft of archery you need not become an archer; instead, silently compose its decisive moments in your mind."
~Richard Sennet, The Craftsman

Wall

ps: the writing's on the wall
but i choose to ignore
yes. tho i try to stand tall.
young man,
the world is your oyster,
for the price of pork
and all you can muster.
yes sir,
to normandy on d-day?
no. i think its v-day.

Queen

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds
She'll beat you if she's able
The queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones you can't get

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

鱼

Three, one too many.

我坐在椅子上, 看日出复活
我坐在夕阳里, 看城市的衰弱
我摘下一片叶子, 让它代替我
观察离开后的变化

曾经狂奔舞蹈贪婪的说话
随着冷的时代幸福花
带不走的丢不掉的
让大雨侵蚀吧

Mask

The masks we wear

Sometimes, it is just easier to put on a mask and to play the part. After all, each person's life is a narrative, in which the author does not know how the story will turn out.

Calendar

My nights.

I left my window open yesterday and the rain soaked the books that were lying on the floor beneath the window. In my haste to save my books from drowning, I knocked over another pile of books and this is the resulting mess. As I stood in the middle of the mess, it suddenly dawned upon me that at my feet lay my nights for the past couple of months. Discounting the books that I've already stacked in the study, these bound sheets of paper are like a calendar, but charting nights instead of days. It was a poignant moment, standing there with the rain beating against the window pane, recalling all that lay at my feet. After all these were my numerous escapes when I could not forget and had to settle for not remembering.

and let they feet
millennium hence
be set in midst of knowledge
~ Tennyson

Skewed

D: It is written

Up to very recently, I never thought it was possible for someone to be in love with two people at the same time. I used to think that such a feeling was something akin to a subtle form of greed or perhaps an indecisiveness or sorts, anything except love. Maybe like Shah Jehan, I thought love should be monumental. The reality is that love is more like the city streets than the Taj and it all depends on which side of the street you are on. Although I still have not experienced such a feeling, I no longer think or feel the same about it. Not everything is binary or couched in absolutes. I say that so often. But people often give the advice they need the most.

Feeling guilty, worried,
waking from tormented sleep
this old love, it has me bound,
But this new love cuts so deep.
If I choose now, I'll lose out
One of you is gonna have to fall...

Fall-guy

Rembrandt

original independent creation

Originality is a marker of time. It denotes the sudden appearance of something, where before there was nothing, and because something suddenly comes into existence, it arouses in us emotions of wonder and awe.

Decision

[Insert Caption]

As I was deciding on the caption for this photo, it suddenly struck me that although a caption can do nothing to alter the photo, its impact is significant for it gives the photo form and purpose. Like most things born out of a decision, a caption provides a sense of direction by making certain essentials explicit. Unless I tell you so, you will probably never know the meaning this photo has for me by simply looking at it or reading this post. Perhaps a caption is like a streetlamp on a dark lonely street, illuminating that which passes below it, turning them from shadows into subjects with form.
And so it is, just like you said it would be...

Sinai

Bedouin Guide, in the Sinai.

This month's issue of National Geographic magazine has a feature on the Sinai. Thumbing through the pages brought back fond memories. Has it really been that long since my visit to the Sinai? Two and a half years on and everything's changed yet still the same. There are still killings in Northern Ireland, bombings in Cairo, fighting in Baghdad and sabre-rattling in Korea. Two and a half years on. Where did all that time go?

Rain

I don't quite know if I like rainy days.
Then again, there's a lot I don't know.
Rainy days are melancholic yet cathartic.
After the rain, the sun.

灯光也暗了
音乐低声了
天下起与了
人是不快乐
我的心真的受伤了

Vindue

Last Supper

I remember this evening.
A window frames everything. The summer sun that refused to set, the smell of dinner on the stove, the chatter of friends in the background. A strange mix of joy and sorrow brewed within; a strange brew. Time passes when you're not looking.
All things must come to an end.

Even those without a beginning.

Rådhus

Happier times; Arne Jacobsen and the yellow bus.

So many things I don't understand,
like why happiness is a dead end.
Often I wonder, if to hope is a sin,
for some things can never begin.
Streetlamps cannot illuminate,
all the words that were left unsaid.
Will you give me a guiding hand?
I am tired of circling, I need to land.

Shadows

Scatter the light,
in black and white.
For shades of grey,
need space to play.

Tuesdays

Probable Possibilities, Postscript Postmortem

Shrouded from the light
A shadow yearning for form
Beneath a streetlamp

TIme

Come up on different streets...

"Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet, and you exploded in my heart
And I forget, I forget... the movie song
When you gonna realize,
it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?"

Kebabi

Mirza, downtown Tehran.

I met Mirza at a kebab shop near Imam Khomeini Square in southern Tehran which is the poorer end of Tehran but where all the historical sites and cheap hotels are located. It was late and I was starving after a long infuriating day of trying to arrange my onward journey. As I was walking back to my hotel, I saw Mirza standing outside calling out to customers. He smiled at me and I decided to satisfy my hunger at his little shop. I sat myself down and thought I ordered a kebab but I must have thought wrong because minutes later, something very un-kebab like was served up by Mirza. Even though it was not what I thought I had ordered, it tasted much better than a kebab. Mirza lingered around my table, eyeing me with a nervous curiousity as I wolfed down my dinner. I smiled and introduced myself and we soon began chatting. The whole conversation consisted of about 5 words in English and lots of frantic flipping through my Persian to English dictionary but it was a heartwarming conversation. Just what I needed to lift my spirits after a long day.

After a couple of minutes, more customers started streaming in, partly to catch the soccer match that was showing on the little TV in the corner and so Mirza had to get back to work. I finished up my drink, paid and left. The next morning, I decided to detour by Mirza's kebab shop and saw him mopping the floor. I smiled at him and asked if I could take a photo. This is the photo from that morning. He was a bit shy or unsure of himself and his body language shows it; the way he placed his left hand behind his back and the other on the metal tray, his thumb clinging on to the familiar. In the morning light, I noticed that he looked a lot older than his age and had a matured weariness in his eyes. Maybe that comes with working at such a tender age. This is the story of my encounter with Mirza the Kebabi, one of the many brief but meaningful conversations that I'd experienced in Iran. This is what traveling is all about, a journey and a string of meaningful conversations, reminding you that there is a common thread running through us all; Humanity. But like I said yesterday, we humans always find a need for a narrative. So this is my story, but don't take my word for it. Experience it for yourself.