8. Maheen Haider & Zulfadli Rashid

Self Through Scenery: Ground Zero

This scene of slick clean green:
Where running to (running from?) I
Find a creature approaching peace.
As much as peace can be an absence
Sitting in the mind like open-heart
Surgery – as much as I can spit roots and
Marvel at their circuitry.
Rusty taste in the mouth now, but the landscape
Stays whole. Stale sweat on my heart now, but
The landscape won’t flinch at the stench.

I am farthest from words when I am here.
I am sensation.
In the haze of heat, there is only the weight of peace.
A wary animal that slinks to me, keeping me mindful of
The beats where normally I would speak.
I break the rules which normally
Keep me cognizant. The word “cognizant” wouldn’t dare
Seek me here.

Hear for a moment this memory
Without sound. I walk here, self and other like phantoms
That breathe step-by-step. It is
Not beauty I walk towards.
(Spitting roots, rusty taste, stale sweat)
No, this scene wasn’t made with something so kind
In mind. I walk towards something uglier.
Something that demands I become sensation,
A vivid expression in the spaces
My body would rather keep distant.

I am not a child of nature so I brace
For the burden of nurture.
This scene of slick clean green:
Its yellow hues, stagnant blue. Its
Movements delivered with the touch of lullabies;
Mumbled phrases, all heart.
I have known this stage
More wholly than I have known myself.
Still, I can not describe it, only me.
When I say this is my favourite place,
I stop at slick clean green. When I say this is my favourite place,
At times I cannot recall anything
But that slick clean green.

When I say
This is my favourite place, I mean:
A reckoning of self in a home
That never sought custody. Understand this: I come here
Knowing it can hold the worst of me.

by Maheen Haider

A longing

Close,
It comes close.
And then fades,
evaporates
Like cold water 
On a hot wok.
Screaming,
promising
violently; 
riotously even,
are these scenes.
Bittersweet,
cold tone.
Almost purple.
Mostly gray.
Memories.
Sounds,
energy,
hopes;
residual
yet eternal.
A longing.
Jordan Road,
Kowloon Cricket Club.   

by Zulfadli Rashid

Sedetik Kedu

Begitu saja
terkedu jagat raya 
sentaklah kita,
bahawa semesta   
tetap bertingkah
tempo unrelenting
kukuh berentak
walau telah
nafas, kita tarik
tersorok di balik pelitup.
Alam degil melangkah,
tugasnya masih banyak
Yang hitam
harus dikelabukan
sebelum menjadi putih
hijau bakal tua
kemudian lasat
tanah menuju kayu
langsung ke batu dan besi
dan kemudian...
sang kosmos kaku,
sebuah layar terbentang
melantun sejarah
bersuara lunak lipur lara
meraikan kedewasa ini 
mengakur maut;
mengagungkan
sebuah ketidakpastian
di sepanjang lorong lopong
tiada hujung
Semuanya
dalam sedetik kedu. 

A Pause

It took 
a whole world’s pause
for us to note,
that the universe 
never stops
even as 
we hold our breaths
refuge behind masks.
Nature trudges on, 
still has work to do. 
Black must
becomes grey
then white, 
green scheduled brown
then decay
earth to wood 
to stone and steel
and then… 
the cosmos catatonic,
a stretched-out screen
projecting history
with a chirpy narrative
celebrating the present, 
acknowledging death;
glorifying 
an uncertainty
in this long corridor
unending. 
All during,
a pause.

by Zulfadli Rashid
translated from the Malay by Zulfadli Rashid

CORRIDOR WITH(OUT) END

Eyes ever-expanding
At a green so warm.
An embrace underfoot
As if the earth were ready
To cushion your fall.

Away from concrete jungles
And the clatter of its junctures,
Towards a blooming metropolis
With the promise of a blossoming.
The healing of a rupture.

Escape and oasis,
Words that spill free.
No tinted lenses now,
Just yourself in company
With the trees.

Greenery like a beacon that shoulders
Your walk through their wires.
A corridor leading somewhere,
Nowhere, anywhere; a path
Seeking nothing but to inspire.

In this journey for sanctuary,
You let yourself loose
In a vision unsmudged by human hand.
In this journey, you find
What you were walking for;
A moment worth turning back.

by Maheen Haider