“那些消逝了的歲月”
(trans. “those vanished years”, from In the Mood for Love)

Surreal evening
sinking soft hues
mid-autumn lanterns
candles lit, idyllic
hours swanning by

You, open with ‘Sembawang
CD’. I say ‘HMV’ ¹
‘Tower Records’
then, no more …
back in the 90s, when the mood

for browsing music
was for passing through,
in dedicated music stores
a quality of the past,
some-‘thing’, people used to do

Out of habit (or love) for
transcending time
These days, we
finger digital screens,
descend into oblivious beings,

as if 21 st century
disembodied,²

instead of brushing past
without touching,
your glance here
enlivening this
atmospheric space, did eyes meet

Like the rising dawn,
greeting blue
twilight skies,
thumb and index
caressing musical spines

A finger pausing on rewind,
a song on a loop
earphones in –
to slip between
two stanzas on a blank page

Take me back, eyes begging,
to bygone hours
listening for
the latest album releases,
the ripping of compact discs –

spinning fancies
silvery bright
lovers’ last
breath
kingfishers’ flight

…

Janice Sim is a reclusive writer living on the Gold Coast with husband and three boisterous children. She is a sessional academic at Griffith University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and the author of Parents Killing Children: Crossing the Invisible Line. She has poems and pieces in Fahmidan Journal, Lavender Lime Literary, Spellbinder A Quarterly Literary and Art Magazine, Erato Magazine, One Imperative, Singapore Review of Books and Native Skin Literary Magazine, and tweets @lishen_sim.

¹ His Master’s Voice (the HMV Shop) now Sunrise Records and Entertainment (UK)
² reaching for, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OZDaRhHHyM (music composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, 1983)