The Angel Sitting on My Chimney

The Angel Sitting on My Chimney

Smoke and soot filled the room,

“What is blocking my chimney?!” I fumed,

So out of the shed I pulled out the ladder

And up the side of the house wearily I climbed,

Breathing heavily and regretting my dinner,

Wondering what will i finally find,

Lo and behold who I found on my roof

But an angel sitting pretty on my chimney top,

Absorbed utterly in a book on his lap,

Oblivious to the evening rain,

Reading under a column of light

Falling through a heavenly gap.

……………………….

Good morning, sunshine. Why are you here today, when I have for you nothing but a whimsical drawing and a whimsical prose?

I would not advise you to spend your time reading on top a chimney though, unless you don’t mind your buttocks being burnt and blackened. Angels have no worry of such worldly problems of soot and smoke, you see. Created in light, neither blackness nor dirt touches them.

God bless the angels, blessed servants of God!

I wish for you the finest of days today, whoever you are, wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Beauty and the Beast - a whimsical musing on women, men and vanity...

Yup. Cut the chin a bit. The model is hideous. Sheesh, can you believe this...

This billboard came up just down the road from my house. This reminds me just how thankful I should be for being born a man, and how I empathise with those who are opposing the image industry for women. This is just one billboard, but in the newspaper, in the magazines and the internet, we are inundated with billions of pictures of drop-dead gorgeous models. Then we wonder why women are so particular about how they look. If men had their skull drummed with the constant stanza of "must be beautiful', 'must be skinny', 'must have abs'... let's face it, guys, we would also be just as paranoid.

Happily (for men), we are not. Of course, there are some adverts out there promoting the media specialist's idea of the ideal male beauty (which presently seems to be metrosexual and feminine, akin to the K-Pop boy bands... boy, do some of them look prettier than the Wonder Girls!), but most of us just chuckle and admit defeat - a gut, a balding hair and a face only a mother could love, but so what?

K Pop boyband 'Beast'. Never has a band name been so inappropriate...

Not that we would not benefit from some grooming discipline. For myself, my maxim is 'more than one minute combing my hair is just wrong'. So I reckon that a visit to the Spa would undoubtedly improve my looks. But that visit is postponed and I procrastinate ad infinitum. We men are simply too lazy to pander to our physical beauty. Yet we do have our vanities, but they manifest in the strangest of things - our cars, our toys, our LEGO and comic collection, our mountain bikes and our 'high brow culture', our tattoos, cellphone and laptops, our books and our music collection. For you see, the train for Perfect Manly Beauty left our station a long time ago. So we simply took another vanity train, that's all.

It's 3.30am, sunshine. Just finished work and I thought I would write a bit before I sleep. Have a wonderful day!

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way

Sue the Bastards - Pictures with Stories

Before being called to the Bar, I was a pupil-in-chambers to my Master who was the head of a labour and administrative law unit. This essentially meant litigation work, and I bought the little barrister above in those heady days of assisting my learned friends in court. But I guess ‘I am a lover, not a fighter’ as sang by Michael Jackson, and so I drifted to drafting and corporate work where I still persist to earn my daily bread. So now my principle is “How do we make sure we don’t have to sue the bastards and they don’t sue us?”. Of course the answer is - we can never make sure of that.

My girl Friday returned from an expedition to the Cameron Highlands bearing strawberries which I always love. But she also plonked in front of me a plate of what included (I thought) either a candy, cake or some weird dessert. It must be, because there is no earthly fruit that could possibly bear that tone of green. It looked like an experiment in a radiation lab with its impossibly bright fluorescent green. But no, she said, it was a fruit which the seller said was “Guava Apple”. It was so sweet I saw stars twinkling in front of my eyes as my sugar-level catapulted pass the stratosphere.

I bring Mika to my office once in a while. Sometimes he likes to try my chair and table on for size. I do not however expect my son to fill my shoes and be a solicitor. He can be a lawyer, a doctor, a tax man, a rock star, a farmer or goat breeder. So long as he does something (and it is not criminal), he is happy and doing his level best. Right now I am not sure what his talent is, although he is irritatingly competitive and very financially aware for a 7 year old. I guess that is good whatever he does in the future, whether he wants to run a fleet of taxi cabs or sell the best burger in the world.

I picked up a snooker cue for the first time after perhaps 15 years. As you know, the snooker table is bigger than a pool table. And sometimes in trying to make some awkward shots there is no running away from straddling the table with one leg over the side. So I did it, but I had just about enough flexibility to bring my foot back down to earth again (a really close call). And I don't remember being so appalled by the cigarette smoke in the snooker parlours. Well anyway, my game is still the same after all these years – somewhere below mediocre-beginner. As for my opponent, Heche hit quite a few balls into the pockets, and I am sure some of them were actually intentional. After just one game I took Heche out of the poisonous parlour, much to her relief ("I am way better at pool", she says, "So don't judge me."). I am not telling her but I intend to go back again. But next time I better do some stretching exercises first. So let’s keep this a secret between you, me and the 4 corners of your computer screen, okay?

Have a photogenic day, sunshine.

Pax Taufiqa.

The Evil Queen & The Pearls of Wisdom

11. If all are beautiful
O’ love,
If it pains you to feel that I,
Your lover, has withheld something from you,
Know that it pains me more,
That you think I do it out of anything other than love.

Know, o’ love, this to be true,
If all are always granted gifts, there is no meaning to gifts,
If all are always joyous, there is no meaning to joy,
If all are always beautiful, there is no meaning to beauty,
And alas, happiness becomes an empty word,

A shell whose pearl has been stolen,
A fairy tale bereft of witches and evil queens,
Deposed of any wisdom.

....................

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EVERYTHING IS KNOWN BY ITS OPPOSITES. I read this truth somewhere, and now I cannot recall the book. I should really, because in the scheme of truths, this is what Yoda may call the Awesome Truth.

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EVIL? NO BIG DEAL. Evil likes to think it is special. Hannibal likes to think he is a genius sadly inclined to eat man-meat. But the sole purpose of evil is to define good. Goldfinger likes to think he is the main character, but no... its James Bond. The Evil Queen thinks she is the star in the fairytale, but no... its Snow White. The jealous stepmom dreams of glory and wealth for herself and her daughters, but no... the heroine in the tale is soppy Cinderella.

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PEARLS OF WISDOM. The pearls are there to be fished out from the Sea of Thoughts. But the most luminuous can only be drawn with the support and guide of the Prince of Pearls, the Sky of Mercy, the all-praised Muhammad ibn Abdullah. If wisdom is what you seek, go to him. And it would be good to bring something to barter with, and the wise normally recommend a commodity most precious above all the golden horde of tyrants. The commodity of Patience.

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Through the prism of love, whatever is granted to you, whatever is withheld from you, all is done or undone in the Name of Love. And if that is the case, my friends - why do we ever need to despair at all?

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I am just thinking aloud here. Heche is busy tending to her garage sale, leaving me to my thoughts and fancies. Thank you for accompanying me on this balmy Saturday evening here in Kuala Lumpur.

.

Pax Taufiqa.

No to Angel Cookies, No to Devil Cakes

I am tired of dreaming, so I am parking my soul here for the night. I hope you don’t mind. I tried to read your thoughts, but you are unknown to me. I am slipping, falling between the words that I write here. I am clambering up the paragraphs of your life. You say you are a footnote in my life, but I am neither a book nor a chapter. I am unwritten until you write me. I am lost until you guide me home to you. I am the bread you have yet to bake, the man you have yet to marry, the flame you have yet to spark. I am a friend unlike any other.

I am tired of waiting, so I am going to hide in your pantry. How cozy it is in here. You say you don’t like pickles but I see you have dozens of jars stashed. You say you don’t like living, but I see you have enough instant noodles hoarded to last you through at least one lifetime. You say you are hurt, but when you passed by the pantry door you looked graceful as ever. I smiled wondering how you did not hear me snoring. I am sleeping in this second paragraph, and wondering where my words will take me now. This is the end of your pantry, but below is the beginning of a new journey. We are going places!

I am tired of crying, so I am going to empty my lake of tears. And I will fill it up with premium chocolate at reasonable prices. I shan’t take what the Angels are offering as they do not understand the value of money. And I shan’t take what the Devil is offering, as he tends to burn all his cookies. Oh no. I will wait for you to open your stall in my heart. And I will pay whatever you desire for your chocolate candies, even if I have to ransom the Kingdom of Shams in a golden fleet. Do you not see them already? They are at your harbour, anchored between the forested hills of old Kentucky and Mount Kinabalu.

Death is near, but my birth is nearer still. I saw a light and it was veiled. I came to it and drew the veil away to reveal the source - And it was a rose of many endless petals. From the leaves radiated beams of light of many hues. Within the rose is a blackhole with a sign posted on its entrance. The sign says “Sigh, for this is before the creation of Time’. The tail of my turban unfurled further than I could reach, and it fell into a sea of clapping waves, but the sea was green, not blue. I tried to hold back the light, but it came upon me all the sudden, and my reason was undone, my sanity kidnapped. I have nothing left to hold onto but you.

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This is not a dream, but merely an exercise in writing. Nor is my life any more real, being only an exercise in living. But it feels oh so true. Especially when I am with you.

Pax Taufiqa.

Footnote:
Sketch #1 is from Amir Adam Mohd Zahurein
Sketch #2 is just done yesterday but only scanned today (network scan been buggy of late).

The Canemaker, How Ironic, How Apt, How Fated.

16. Make me a Cane
Canemaker, Canemaker, make me a cane,
Make me a cane true and strong
As stout and straight as the day is long,

By sunlight or moonlight
Shall I carry your cane,
In morning and twilight
Through hail, snow and rain.

Never to be parted shall we ever be,
The polish of your wood staying bright unstained,
Often shall people see me, smile and exclaim,
"Yea, there walks the boy and his Canemaker’s cane!"

.

..............................

From chapter entitled 'The Red Baron', finished 27th July 2005

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Around 2004 - 2005, I picked up a hobby of making walking-sticks. And despite the poem, if you ever ask for one of my walking-sticks, I cannot guarantee the quality or strength but rest assured the shape shall always be bent and crooked. Like me, it is perfectly balanced, but in a twisty-turny sorta way. How Ironic.

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The black walking-stick in the picture was made in 2005(I think). The height is tall enough to be a shepherd's staff. It is not in fact finished yet. While waiting for me to attend to it again, there it must patiently stand, in the company of Mika's luciferian pitchfork and my dad's canes. Three generations in an umbrella stand. How Apt.

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It's the end of a long-working day here in my office. I am a tired but contented sinner, safe in the present, graced by the prayers of my ancestors in the past, and the yet-to-be recited prayers of my descendants as they huddle over my grave, sometime in the far-near future. As we all are. How Fated.

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Be good, sunshine.

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Pax Taufiqa.

Post Script - Really, I cannot be asking you to be good. Be however you want to be, good or bad, naughty or kindly, wicked or saintly. Whatever we do, and however good or bad we are living our lives, we are really just a ripple in the ocean, and a link between the past and the future. I cannot fathom how fortunate I have been in this life, to be given a caring family and wonderful friends. That is why, at the back of my head, I am always thinking, "Someone somewhere in the past or future, must have done something really wonderful and I am only riding on their karmic blessings". As we all are, I guess. So if we are good, we are only reflecting a little sunshine from their goodness. Drinking blessings from a stream that is passing by our threshold only for this moment. It was somewhere else yesterday, and tomorrow it will flow pass us like time. Talking about which, its almost 1am. There is no sunshine outside, but writing and sharing this with you, sunshine, makes it all good, even beneath the sleeping sky. Salams and take care.