shield of lies

we made love in beauly
of loneliness. a perfect shell
protected us from reality
firing thunders

we still had the time.
it would be enough to kiss
my dreams goodbye


--- teaching rinus to like dancing in thunderstorm---
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Light

I painted meadow on the walls
in my heart, fresh with colors
and breeze from the mountains

One day I would take you
there, just put a smile on
For it's the light to help
you see my painting

25/11/2012
(We'll survive)
© Era Fiyantiningrum

no title for despair

at night i heard cries
of the unanswered hopes
disolving in the wind

perhaps once they were
blown with grand ceremonies
flown from great balconies

perhaps.

09/09/2012
days of embarrasing myself
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Obscured

the garderner's away
I still kept taking care
of the trees and flowers,
sometimes pretended I don't see
our dreams fell one by one
off the stage, lied to myself
you were eager to smell the roses
one day

16/06/2012
© Era Fiyantiningrum

shipwreck #3

... keep rowing, o, shipwreck survivor
any island is nowhere
to see, and piers are memory.

even if you die rowing,
it will be a sane soul leaving your misery

-----
21/5/12, holding rinus
© Era Fiyantiningrum

one pm list

prices hike up
storm in the dark
desperately need a break
or anyone tells 'it's okay'
hold tight the plushdoll
its fur absorbs thunders' rage

(6apr2012/thunderstorm kills)
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Broken #3

I still dream about the meadows and river,
drink its sweet water from your palms
but I am awake and cannot betray the taste
on my lips is salty sorrow from my eyes.

(17/03/2012, being a south nation citizen)
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Little Girl, Me, and the Night

I was sleepless last night. Sobbing,
the little girl in me said she was tired
of being cold under frayed veil,
and she was longing for the delight
of dancing on my pleasure's tip

I didn't know how to comfort her
for I had no consolation, no solace
to offer. It was me and the night,
held her shaking dreams for a dear life
we were worn out empty at dawn.


17/11/2011
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Halves of a Night 5

After the evening storm, it was icy
calm in your room last night.
I saw you trembling and a mongrel, wounded,
listening to your cries like a mother did
licking its scabs cautiously unnoticed.
She knows they will be yet other scars
as kind gifts from the life, memento
from the many battles she survived

© Era Fiyantiningrum

Broken

For once I know the time is coming to take my dreams
off the night screen, then fold them neat. Perhaps,
some will need extra handling. Roll them tight.
Separate them carefully from socks and underwears.

I too know, flowers and rivers should be in the same box
with green lake and hazy mountains. Shady pathways,
giant trees, all the green lanscapes should be done
in other luggage.

After that, in the wee hours all I have is quietness;
a broken mind to console.

11/11/11

© Era Fiyantiningrum

--untitled--

At the end of conversation
sentences unraveled into letters
dropping one by one from the words,
falling apart.

I could hear the crashing sound
echoing long after the last dot vanished.
Then all was wrath of darkness
lashed fire from the sky

I wished someone hugged me from behind
when my mouth fumbled over prayers,
but there was no way I could call you.
The conversation was gone off our hands.

after storm, Oct 31 , 2011

© Era Fiyantiningrum

28/11/2011, revised. Special thanks to Jademoon 

(no worries, many more still need your touch, lol)

Story of My Love Letter

I wrote my poem and flew it through the wind.
An outcast picked it up and recited my longing
     for you easing his homesickness

My loneliness was beauty. Even the moon cried
hearing the lucid poignancy of yearning,
lovers embraced each other,  warmed their hearts
in the midst of cold tears shed from the sky

My precious solitude was now heavier with hope,
but the same rain faded your address on the map.
My poem lost track of the road signs to reach you:
words ended up filthy in big city ditches!

13-18 January 2011

© Era Fiyantiningrum

No Title for Sorrow

I thought about you yesterday,
there was nothing new about that.
I thought about you all the days before
when I plucked roses from the garden
     in the morning,
when I blew off the lamps before sleepless
     demons came at night.

I thought about you in silence,
     arranged the most enticing bouquet
     of good news, smiles, and kisses

(But we were only imaginary pictures,
     fading from my mind as maggots multiplied
     amongst wilted roses, and through broken
     windows nightly demons raped my body.)

13 Jan 2011

a happy birthday

© Era Fiyantiningrum

In January Wind

I dared not to raise my hand to tap on your window
For fear the sound would be too sharp
      tearing the chrysalis you were working on
      (Why you were so hard trying to hide
      the loneliness, why you were so hard trying?)

If you, drying your hidden tears in the dark,
      hear held breathing outside your door,
      turn on your lamp, push open the door
You would see me there,
      trembling in January wind
      waiting by your door

                              Metro, 09/01/2011

© Era Fiyantiningrum

You and Her

For fear it would sound as a fake,
I dared not to let you know
      how deep you cut through her heart
      when abruptly you drew back,
      frightened of being more alone

Ah, dear one,
No one's life was free from carrying the baggage
Why should you try so hard to weighted yours?

The Pictures You Sent (vi)

VI. An old Woman in Paradise Island 

     : Rambu, Bali-Lombok-Alor

      of the pictures you sent, an old woman
      handed me a basketful of her offerings
      for the gods who dwell the shrines.

      “Thank you, but I am not another new god planted
      by the commercials.” I could see her eyes learned
      my face. She gaped, disbelieving words from my soul.

      “An outcast I am.” I let her read my nakedness,
      touch the scars that screamed stories in a language
      she recognized. She listened to the splashing sound
      of waves in my youth, to the voyages in my past.
      Then she saw a burning plain, my childhood playground
      was scorched by the fright nobody care.

      The old woman rubbed my dried tears with her thumb,
      hers had long been gone. Then she left without a word,
      the offerings on her head, she continued to look for
      the gods who dwell the shrines. I saw her walk
      sliced the smoke on the ground, her traces revealed
      the bleeding earth of Paradise Island

The Pictures You Sent (iii)

III. Patience (of West Papua) 

      of the pictures you sent, the underwater garden
      absorbed my restless nights into its cleafts.

      I could remember mothers dropped their tears
      into the sea, wound by wound, salted its water
      with silenced loss and rage. They had searched
      for our brothers throughout the land, forced
      themselves to be contented with whatever remains
      they could found. They planted the bones
      at the edge of horizon, it grew as corals

      I could remember mothers chanted their whispers
      to the ocean, pray by pray, herded the ripples
      to dance with their sons, the undying souls beating
      tifa drum. It was the voice from colorful layers
      beneath the surface, “You made us swim with the fish
      but you cannot stop the ancestor songs we sing.”

      Waving the deep, the spirits shake the land.

Metro, 03-5/06/2010

© Era Fiyantiningrum
Sort of explanation: 

The Pictures You Sent (ii)

II. Nightmares and Dreams 
    (Nemangkawi in Mount Cook Picture)

     of the pictures you sent, there was one
     entrapped me in obscure ambiguity.
     It was quiet snowy flat on mountains peak
     I saw you. Silhouette lonely behind the tourists,
     looked shabby, perhaps chilled in your thick jacket

     I could not read your face, “Were you lost
     in your thoughts?” There was roaring howl
     escaped your mind, it was the muted cries
     of children in third world countries,
     echoed through mountain slopes then ended
     tearing my heart. Conscience.

     I wanted to touch your eyes, shift the gaze
     from where you were looking into the empty air
     because while you curled embracing yourself,
     the gentle breeze came out from the picture.
     Caressed our drying wounds, it brought white
     feathers for our once broken wings. Spirit.

Metro, 02/06/2010

© Era Fiyantiningrum

The Pictures You Sent (i)

I. Memory (of Dried Marsh at Merauke)

     of the pictures you sent,
     my heart is torn before
     scattered spinifex in the desert

     at night it shows an endless landscape
     of silvery peace reaching horizon.
     Moonlight envelopes it. The stars
     fades out, leaves only the brightest
     sparkling

     during the day it reveals my house
     standing lonely amongst nests of snakes,
     you can see it beyond the end
     of the road. Rows of burnt trees
     along the edge, trailing off.

     In that ancestral property, the ground
     marooned by the blood of our fathers, a girl
     curled in childhood space she never leaves:
     beaten by the fears, raped by time

Metro, 02/06/2010
© Era Fiyantiningrum

Halves of a Night 3

I've done packing today: savannah and horizon folded
inside the box, neatly arranged amongst sealed mugs
of lagoon, sand, and salty wind. I was everything of a journey,
had to depart while my heart still the soil to grow other dreams
of this archipelago, without children clothed poverty or misery

But my palms are no longer the map. Years and tears had mixed
its scratch with scars, "Please help me read the road signs,
before Time comes devaluing price of the broken plans."

But then the night was down and you never came. I saw myself
curled against demons of the open window, too numb to stop
scavengers sneaked in, busied themselves picking anything
scattered on the floor: pile of desolation, stack of vain,
even words leaked from damaged paragraphs, "No, don't take them.
The lines are mine. I search and gather any piece of lost paradise,
I am one of you, vagrants roaming landfill of prophecies"

09-17/06/2010
© Era Fiyantiningrum