Over a kimchi and spinach omelette, I think about yesterday.
Sunday afternoon was spent repenting for the past week’s birthday celebrations at a café in Sheungwan by writing with two friends. These two friends are publicly poets but covertly novelists. I know what you’re thinking. But, in fact, we start talking about poetry and do it in the most unpretentious way because we actually expect poetry to be understandable and, at best, relatable. According to the internet, this is a controversial standard to uphold in certain circles.
A few searches later and one friend discovers a genre of poetry called Flarf which is defined as “irreverent.” She reads us an excerpt from “As Dolphins Langour.” It defies us because it is not at all understandable yet somehow very relatable. It reads like a series of drunken google searches strung together with some sound effects and misguided advertising added for good measure. It is the poetic embodiment of drunk doom scrolling.
We each compose our own Flarfs. Mine features facts about the lifespan of elephants (60-70 years), a plug for Upwork remote recruitment (post a job for free!), and excerpts from a heated Quora thread on whether Karma really does apply to narcissists (the answer is yes, so take heed). We take turns reading out our Flarfs and laughing because the day has amounted to us ordering the absolute bare minimum to sit in a trendy café and read nonsense aloud. Irreverent indeed. At 6PM we depart for dumplings.