#robert liow

[silkpunk]

She loved this part, working intimately with the flesh and blood of her components, feeling each cell sliding into place and knowing the intended purpose she had given it.

Robert Liow, “Spider Here”, The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia

[silkpunk]

Next, she reconstructed a venous and arterial network that would keep the casing alive and mobile without her intervention, coaxing the cell-matter to shape itself into the blood vessels it once remembered. This required some prodding, stern jabs and a little thread-pulling where the cell-matter was stubborn or not entirely present yet, but Dai Ji could feel the blood vessels branching and spreading throughout the casing. She grinned as she felt a flicker of life taking hold.

Robert Liow, “Spider Here”, The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia

[words-in-progress-blog]

5 Minute Poetry 4 (Robert)

Title: Admiration

When we were young They seemed giants Towering with cane and chalk Shining statues, paragons For adulation, imitation.

We stopped looking up But they still looked down. The camera angle shifted. No longer backlit by sunlight They seemed normal like us But aspired to more And vicarious we left them.

Title: Confessional Poem: Lie

Why am I not on stage Acting (Like someone else) When the mirrors in my room show Me, but they’re the only ones in this house Who know the truth Because they cannot hear? Screw them. I deserve a Tony For the sheer skill and effort Of a year-long performance.

Title: Fond Memories

I once kept a scrapbook Of everything I did. Little things, insignificant Like chocolates, or pieces of cake Crushed between the covers Refrigerated and preserved So I could eat them one day; When they put my mind on a diet And gave it a paper-tube enema I could put the washings right back in.

Title: Descend

You put my head on a cradle And lowered me from a bough Asking me to rock myself So I could go to sleep And not be a nuisance anymore, Not pester with persistent “why”s (Even though you said I was brilliant) Nor tell you no (Even though you said I was determined) And I swung happily.

Title: Cup

I like my coffee with half the water They usually add Three heaps of powder And just a bit of sweetened milk Just to make it brown. Like how they make it in the coffeeshops Only better. What wakes me up is the curling of my tongue.

Theme: Corrupted Nursery Rhymes

Four and twenty pigeons baked into a pie When the dish was opened the king began to cry Precious little pigeons never learned to fly Someone broke their eggs in need of things to fry.

Mary loved her little lamb It really liked her too. In winter Mary slit its throat So she could make lamb stew.

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way Santa couldn’t come because the jets shot down his sleigh.

Title: Smileys

You say you can cheer me up But you look dead Eyes crossed And no body sees yours. You’re just a head. Perhaps if you were a certain somebody’s And not just a yellow face On his shirt, I’d smile.

Theme: Something Annoying

When you talk it’s like pepper spray And not to the ears (Your voice is something altogether different) Like a soft drink spiked with nails The irony of you Is that you’re magnetic Until you open your mouth And I can see (and smell) the rainbow On your tongue.

Quit telling me I’m wrong If you say that’s right the next day And then say it’s not afterwards Countless drafts like wind past your ears Hovering between correct And rejected

Theme: Animal+Song (Bee, Owl City - Honey And The Bee)

Fuzzy balls Of black and yellow Somehow flying, as if their minds Had computers to stabilise them. Perhaps they are robots Collecting nectar from flowers A thousand trips for a spoonful of honey None of them have ever seen a drop Except when they were insensate white balls of lard. Now they slave away For supposed long-term goals And for the chosen children of their queen (But they’ll never savour sweet success Because they’re always working For the future)

Theme: Mashup: Robert Liow - Vanilla Twilight X Can You Feel The Love Tonight

You’re whining About the distance Between you And I Separated by three letters, miles wide: S-e-a

Let me tell you, it was not my idea; It was yours, that night, in the rooftop gardens That you’d wait while I left For greener pastures Away from the cows and pigs. And the paddock gates I opened Wide enough for you to follow

But you’d rather stay, forever branded In your 5-room state-funded cage To lay golden eggs For a farmer who doesn’t care You’re a caged chicken And that’s why you’re singing In a voice that nobody wants to hear.

So don’t tell me you’re free tonight Because you never will be.

Theme: Any Song: The Postal Service - Clark Gable

When I take photos of us I’m not just capturing light Or even memories I’m capturing those moments in time When we’re editing our thoughts.

Cropping out everything we don’t like Brushing over it with parts of somewhere else Changing colours, changing scenes Until we like the result And then we save it And set it as the profile picture Of our faces

That is what I preserve These moments of insincerity Which post-processing brings closer to the truth While we ourselves fade into the background Like silhouettes.

[words-in-progress-blog]

Recipe For A Sausage

eat this sausage you have guts? then show me the way you fill them with trash with what you’ve cast off; dig deeper, hollow the inside dirty, smelly, but still “fit for consumption” place it in transparent binding and bake/roast/smoke now present: eat this sausage