To you.

There's a whole lot to me than what i tend to let surface. One cannot truly engage in conversations of desires and identity out of hues of blue. One waits for the right time. And that time did not come. Perhaps it never will.

There's not much you or I need to know about who i was, who i am or who i want to be - because i am not defined by all that -- not even by my name. not anymore.

My name does have some form of bearing to my life and legacy here on earth. But what is in a name? Countless times i've failed it's meaning. Countless times i've acted adversely out of spite, immaturity and folly. What is my name? Do I really want it to matter to you? You, who've walked with me through all shapes of my sorrow and grief. and you, who've shared my laughter in times of childishness. Or you, who've sat with me under the tree of imagination and dreamed of higher heights no human have yet tread.

My identity now lies in someone more wonderful than I. He gave so much to be with me. So i choose him. And he will always take precedence in my life.

So no, i'm not interested in any other person, any external relationship, any developing bond that may threaten to sever this budding tie and usher me into distraction, into the comatose.

I cannot yet engage myself in another. Not till i'm ready. Not yet, not now. For i have awakened from twilight's tight grasp and have now seen the sun at the end of that tunnel. I will not turn back. You can't make me.

True, i may meet someone on my way out of that tunnel. But it is not Now. And you are Now. Therefore, things cannot be.

There's just very little time. Too little, in fact. It's too early for me to be wandering about sorting issues of companionship.You'll find someone who is and will be ready for you.

But i am not. I come through those doors later. You finish before me.We are still running our races simultaneously. But Parallel and not Together. You will always be a cherished brother.

Fret not. Our hearts are made up of more than just cells and tissues, and it pumps and works with more than just blood or its platelets.

I can only hope you understand, dear old friend. I can only hope.

Sincerely,
Phoebe Lee Mathius
p/s Phoebe : radiance

When Wednesday Met Thursday

Darkness.
...was all I could see when Wednesday met Thursday. My timepiece indicated an incredibly foreign hour of the morning. Couldn't really understand my body's enthusiasm to meet the day. Neither could i comprehend why an ingenius and divine concept, such as sleep, could ever be this elusive. Pure in-

Sanity.
...is what I have in moderate amounts these days. A shame, that. 'Tis sanity that keeps most of us afloat, even in the most deplorable of conditions. And this very same trait, I lack. Retarded, i seem to be, for the better part of the day; and all thanks to the tiny men at war in my already delirious grey matter. Why all the strife, you ask? I'll never really know for sure, but i have some -

Ideas.
...Conformity, for one. To feel safe, to belong and all that balderdash. We've been taught to follow things blindly and we've all wound up stuck in waist-deep sludge. I sullenly watch as my fingers drummed the table in an unsettled fashion. Still uncertain. Did the muck around me ooze out from my very own pores? Or was it just there all along, waiting innocently for some poor cretin to step in it, yell a string of inaudible curses - break into melancholy song ( i.e. Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen) and contemplate suicide simultaneously, whilst painfully submerging into the bottomless, tar-like puddle at a disgraceful rate of one centimeter per minute? Either way, I only have myself to blame for being here. Nevertheless, everything in me, the very essence that survives me, cries out to escape the System, to be my own person, to be contrary; different to the reeking normalcy of today's stale-tuna-sandwich culture. Tiny men at war in my head. Conformity Vs. Individuality. The bugle has sounded. The battle is -

ON.
...The bold word returned my blank gaze. I'd been fumbling around in the dark and a bump or two later, the lights had flickered on, swallowing the darkness that once engulfed my personal space. I remained in the deafening silence, eyes still getting accustomed to the shocking brightness that now illuminated every nook and cranny. My finger, still on the switch, lay motionless; frozen-like; as I stood stupefied at the single-syllabled word: ON. Right below was it's regal antonym, in similar print. OFF. ON.

OFF.
ON.

...How feeble our faith. How feeble our lives. How great the Creator.

OFF.

ON.
OFF.

Darkness.
... was all I could see when Wednesday met Thursday, and when Thursday met Friday, when life met death, when train met tunnel. Just spaces void of -

Light.
... was all I could see as the tunnel approached its end - when life met eternity, when men met God.

-Written in 2006
-By Phoebe Lee Mathius

Are you not Mine?

These dreams I'm having
Are not mine
These doubts that control
Do not belong
This joy I’ve found
Is not for keeping
This love I've stumbled upon
Cannot be owned.

I cannot hold you
Even though I want to
I cannot hide you away
I am in deep greed of your attentions
That sometimes I think
if the rest of the world should fall away
that'd be okay.

Gah, the tribulations of
my human soul.
my Human, flawed...
self-absorbed soul.
Why do I keep you
I know why i want you
but why do i hold you
clenched in a fist
strangling what you can do
with me.

gah.
gah.
GAH.

First Day of School

A poem I found on YouTube earlier this year... I came across it by accident then, and i stumbled upon it yet again today. It pulled up so many fond memories....I absolutely love this one. but then, all good videos are most pleasant when least expected.

smile.

Nothing

A new song I wrote. Music by Haeman Teo.
http://album.timothylarson.com/displayimage.php?pos=-2584
(click to listen)

The constant nagging of quiet surrender
persistent pelting of silent thoughts
who knows what goes on behind the eyes of another?
smiles and tears; clues are all we've got

Hidden dreams that are lost forever
Forbidden bonds that are hard to sever
But what do we do with our displaced observations?
Shake our heads in deep frustration?

We've nothing more than what we've brought
What we have is what we've got
Nothing less than who we are

Stop being something we're not.

'Cause we build and break
and break and build
And we try and try to be free but still
Remain in invisible screens
Like movies in gray

Happy Mother's Day!

11th May, 2008

Happy Mother's Day, Mom (and to all the great mothers, I know!)

Love,
Phoebe Lee Mathius

BRAaaaAAggGGH!

It flew.

Again.

In little or no time at all.

My temper.

Pointless justifying it.

I ache so when i type this.

My weakness, my fury.

I'm sorry.

Reality Check

Hey, broken pride
Did reality and nightmare finally coincide?
did you ever imagine that the day we died,
I'd never, never be his bride?

O dream, short-lived!
Each breath, you sting!
Why were we convinced? I believed!
How did we end up a blasphemous fling?

Butter fingers, butter fingers
how quickly our hearts intertwined, released
Its desperate final grasps of hope
nothing lingers, nothing lingers
Broken pride, I'm dead! Are you pleased?

Are you pleased NOW? Or am I?
Now, in thick darkness,
I grope...
I hope...
you DOPE!

MEND! I charge you! Mend!
You broken thing of the past!
My hatred, my friend.
You shattered thing in my rib-cage
Barely beating; barely.....barely AGED!
Mend! I charge YOU!!!!

You're bigger than this, I tell you.
You're stronger than this!
Love as you perceived it was pure bliss
But where are we now? What is this?
WHAT IS THIS?

Foolish, foolish
broken pride.
Foolish, foolish, foolish.

The Star Online Newspaper

Sunday March 2, 2008
Slammin’ time with poetry
By AHNAF

Malaysia’s first ever Poetry Slam was held in a trendy nightspot, cool people turned up, and fun was had. Who said poetry’s only for tortured souls with no social life?
YOU know, I rather enjoyed telling people what I did last Saturday. When they asked me about my night, I’d say, “Oh, I went to the Poetry Slam.”
Then I’d casually mention that it was held at The Loft at Zouk nightclub and watch their eyes bulge disbelievingly. Ahnaf? Club? Huh? Ahnaf doesn’t have a social life!

A high score from Phoebe Lee Mathius, one of the judges randomly picked from the Slam audience.

So ... on Feb 23, Malaysia had its first ever Poetry Slam, organised by Dram Projects with the support of Singapore-based literary organisation, WordForward. And by the end of the night, I was definitely noticing a pattern in people’s responses.
“So how was the Slam?” I’d ask them.
“Good,” they’d say. “Good ? very good ? good?.” Well, there was also an “excellent” thrown in for variety.
Slamming is not reading. In a Slam, poets compete against each other for up to three rounds. There aren’t any professional judges; instead, audience members are randomly chosen to give scores.
Given our kambing culture, I was expecting Malaysians to shy away from this kind of involvement. Well, I was wrong.

Malaysia’s inaugural Poetry Slam winner, George Wielgus, aka Mighty Jah-J, showing the rest how it’s done. – Photos by IBRAHIM MOHTAR / The Star

Things did start slow – the event was supposed to start at 7pm, but with typical Malaysian savoir-faire the poets waltzed in after 8pm – but by nine-ish the crowd had swelled to almost 200 people. It was a tight squeeze, but judging from all the talking, laughing, and cheering, no one minded.

Nine brave idio– er, individuals joined the first round. The Slam fell on the anniversary of poet John Keats’s death (if you went, “John who?”, shame on you, look him up on Wikipedia ? like I had to), so every poem in the first round had to use a line from Keats.
Strangely enough, the three girls in the group put on rather limp shows: Sheena Baharudin, 25, gave a ho-hum reading; Nurul Hamizah Muhamad, 20, put on some rather half-hearted sass; and an elegantly-dressed 30-something Kathleen Choo failed to impress with a morbidly melodramatic love poem that had the audience impatiently snapping their fingers.
Which left six guys for round two. Joe Hafiz, 28, went from a cute rumination on his New Year weight-loss resolution to a more serious, introspective poem. Unfortunately, his rather muted delivery couldn’t carry him into the next round.
Hugo Yap, 19, followed up his earlier irreverent, whimsical verse with some short, raw angst. I liked its directness, but his nervousness was evident and flattened his delivery, torpedoing his shot at round three.
The four guys who made it to the last round had much stronger stage presences. Nick Green, 19, took fourth place with some brief poems that were more swagger than substance, but entertaining anyway.
Just a shade away from second place was See Tshiung Han, 27, whose long, meditative poems completely escaped me, but whose earnest, intellectual demeanour thoroughly convinced me of their quality.
First runner-up was Reza Rosli, 28, who played the sincere, oh-so-shy underdog. He had some interesting images and topics, like his first poem about crabs (the animal, not the disease).
The undisputed champion, though, was George Wielgus, 24. Wielgus’ poems (Wine, Women, and Weed, Word Porn, and Civil Disobedience) were a bit one-track – too many references to sex and booze and everything else people talk about when they think they’re being rebellious – but he was an outrageously gripping and entertaining performer. The man can certainly hold a crowd!
“I love people having a good time,” he said later. “People were laughing, clapping, cheering – I love being able to do that for people.”
Wielgus also said that he didn’t really care about the marks since it was all quite subjective, though he admitted that getting them was “nerve-wracking”.
For the audience, though, it was a completely enjoyable experience.

“I actually found it really, really fun,” said Phoebe Lee Mathius, one of the randomly selected judges. “You have to pay attention to other things, not just the words, like performance, the way they are, expressions.?”
What did she look for while judging? The “poet’s heart’s voice”, she replied, noting that sometimes you could really feel a poet pouring him or herself into the poem.

The people behind the Slam were certainly happy, with WordForward’s Chris Mooney-Singh calling it a “good opening gambit”, and a Zouk marketing employee saying that the club would definitely host the event again.
“What I was really happy about,” said the organiser, Dram Projects’ Daphne Lee, in a later e-mail, “Was that the audience wasn’t made up of the people I usually see at other local spoken-word events.
“It’s what Chris and I hoped for, that we’d attract a different crowd of people because of the venue and the nature of the event.”
The Point, as the Slam slogan goes, is not the Points; the Point is the Poetry. But really, I felt the point was actually Fun. People weren’t swanning around with lit degrees and dissecting every syllable, they were out to have a good time – and they had it.
So, if you’re looking to join the fun, or if like me, you need the illusion of a social life, look out in April for the next KL Poetry Slam – and invite me along!

This story may be found at *click!*

(Star Online Newspaper)

What A Friend I've Found

Written by Martin Smith ©1996 Curious? Music UK

What a friend I've found

Closer than a brother

I have felt your touch

More intimate than lovers

Jesus, Jesus

Jesus, friend forever

What a hope I've found

More faithful than a mother
It would break my heart

To ever lose each other

Jesus, Jesus

Jesus, friend forever

~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~

Forever.

ever glad that my Lord never changes.

his love, his hopes, his amourous promises,

his dreams and ultimate plans for me

- has never changed; he is eternity

regardless of my frailty,

despite my immaturity.

ever comitted for the long haul

even though his plans, i tend to stall

even though i've built, around me, a wall

he breaks through, the moment i call.

regardless of my frailty,

despite my immaturity.

Never been afraid to call me his

he holds my hand, Oh what bliss!

ever beaming at my every progress

ever present in my times of distress

regardless of my frailty,

despite my immaturity.

"...Jesus

friend forever."

- Written by Phoebe Lee Mathius

(A Simple Note of Love and Thanks to my Lover, Friend and Savior.)

Remnants

"I'm still not used to your absence
everywhere around me
lips move yet mouth nothing but silence
i tune out visually
everything else pales at the remembrance of you
you're with me each time i exhale
and i, in turn, inhale remnants of you." (-Phoebe Lee Mathius)

Round and round
like a broken record
Unsettling sounds
Like when sharpening swords

Unsettling thoughts
Leave me lost, never found
Unsettled heart
Like a ripple, drowned

Unsettled mind
Prostrates me to the ground
Round and round
my delirium abounds.

Exhausted, I am
beyond comprehension
Writing now
to ease the tension.

Yet...
You see me, You hear me
i have Your attention
You always stay with me
my divine intervention.

i'm never alone. Stay with me, Lord.

Whispered Repentance

I wrote this in 2002.

You came to me in a whisper,
Like a stranger, yet so familiar
My heart pounds louder and louder
Into my head; deeper and deeper
Your voice I seem to know; I've heard it once before
From you I've turned away
Yet you came to me today
In your presence; I'm awe-strickened
My body weakens
I feel myself fall into your embrace
I look up and see your face
It shone in deeper ambience
How could I have endured your absence?
My eyes cloud into a torrential downpour
I feel emptied right down to my core
Faceless and impure; I didn't know who I was anymore
Reality sweeps me over
All I wanted was to be like you
So here in your cover
My new skin breaks through
My old self dies as you take me into the skies....
I remember you coming to me in a whisper
Ah, yes, but yesterday seems distant; today I'm different
I'm becoming You.

When tired, sleep; When tired, write

I'm a little exhausted today
My world's in a daze
This ache --
Oh, this despicable ache!
It gnaws at my pumping heart
in morning's melancholy blaze

I'm a little exhausted, today
My state is inexplicable
Driven on with impossible dreams
Chastized by consequences of whim
Constantly, constantly
remembering constantly
tortured by sorrow, disdain bred
still I strive to keep my sanity sacred

My head it hurts
I have no words
It always leaves me
breathing hard
i feel my lungs
being teased by shards
of glass - as
it strains
to sustain
my limp, beating heart.

18th March 2005
Revised: August 2007

Haiku

Sculpted on: 3rd of March, 2005
1st Revision: 23rd November, 2005
2nd Revision: August 2007

i'm trapped in you
it's getting harder to turn-
getting harder to move my feet.

i wait for you
my heart would burn
impatient; anticipating our meet.

So awed by your story
till everything around me
....stands still -

i tend to forget
every wound, pride and glory
wolves may come; i smile still.

i'm breathing you in
drinking you so deep
i resist you but cannot win.

you - make it impossible to sleep!
make trees sway in absent wind
make blood run cold under the skin.

i just sit here
'tis just too hard to move my feet
help me find you here

I want to be complete.

I wish

I wish the plans i'd made, could somehow, sometime come to pass.
I wish the dreams we had could just somehow, someway, last.

I wish i was a little stronger to stand this gaping void.
I wish we were more stronger than just end up numb, like droids.

I wish i was less arrogant, less pumped up in my pride,
I wish i could forget the thorn that's digging in my side.

I wish to catch a movie with two good friends, maybe three,
I wish to laugh and smile and talk; please say you will agree?

I wish to be all i can be, succeed in all i can,
I wish that they will hold me in high regard by then.

I wish my corner of the sky was a little more than dim,
I wish i could let my life revolve a lot more around him.

I wish to be a writer someday, though i may suck now,
I wish to keep practicing till i master the know-how.

I wish to be a singer, songwriter, and reliable band member,
I wish to be able to pass on messages, all can remember.

I wish to keep on praying, hoping for the best for you,
I wish i could get over the fact that roses can be blue.

I wish to know how tears can stop, how sadness can dissolve,
I wish to know how hearts can mend, how problems can be solved.

I wish i'd known, i wish i'd known, how it all would end,
I wish to never regret the day i let you hold my hand.

I wish all the plans you've made will have their chance at human-reality,
I wish to see you do your work, show the world your amazing ability!

I wish and wish and wish all night, in hope it'd all come true,
I wish to be all perfect, the day, the hour i see you.

-Phoebe Lee Matthews, completed at 22:46
(I drew that picture up there using my little brother's cheap crayons one night, and found the simple doodle quite intriguing. I could just finish the "I wish" sentence anyway i wanted! And so that inspired me to write this spontaneous piece. Hope you find it just as intriguing. Write your own and share with me sometime!)

A Day's Demise

by Phoebe Lee Mathius
(My best friend's favorite)

The
lifeless
clouds
and
cawing
crows
Silhouettes
the
blank
sky
with
dark
shadows
The
aging
sun
swallowed
into
solemn
rest -
falling
asleep
on
nature's
chest.

The
daylight
has
lost
it's
youthful
prime
And
now
the
dark
has
smuggled
in
his
crime;
No
grief
would
suffice -
The
tragedy
of
a
day's
demise.

Written 24th February, 2005

Picture Sources:
http://www.tomdownload.com/desktop_enhancements/screensavers/aff-art-revolution-9-sea-sunset-screensaver.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_sky

A Nine Year Old's Heart

I wrote this yesterday. Dedicated to my best friend.

Where did the innocence go?
When did the turmoil begin?
Why did he have to go
Away to that hill again?

I said it wasn’t his fault
That eve was to blame
From my eyes came drops of salt
I couldn’t stop calling his name

Watching at a distance now
No more tears to cry
Royalty reduced to a bow
Why did he have to die?

Where did sense disappear to?
When will it return again?
Look at what he went through –
For me to live again.

Where are you now, my hero?
Are you still there in my heart?
Comfort now, my sorrow,
And let nothing tear us apart.

Ever again.

Phoebe Lee Mathius
00:44
11th April ‘07