Can't remember when
I chose the path you didn't take.
You two entwined vines,
the lone willow on my path,
all that's ever left of you.
Our roads crossed again,
briefly but seemed long enough
to look at your watch.
Blossoms dancing on your path
which's everything of you.
The thing growing in her
She did not understand
She watched the pregnant women
In the waiting room
She wanted to push them over
The window, the stairs
Each and everyone of them, Wiping out
That conceit from their face
That's some reason to be happy about
Instead of joy
Its tiny hands clawed at her, Twisting
Cold sweat, she started on her bed
She looked at the slump next to her, Dead
To her panting and growing fear, Lost
In his smug bliss of rubber of holes
She remembered staring at the surgical lights
Wide open eyes
The blinding lights did not hurt
as much as
When they emptied her
She broke into a run on her way out
Shivered despite the warm sunrays
She threw up nausea on the street
A nausea at her different colour
At not being a hero
At him who thinks it's her problem, not his
Nausea, she tattooed on her skin
She will never be rid of
Boy had a backyard filled with rolling hills
Few neighbours to play with time on his hands
He laid seeds of vision upon these land
Didn't forget to water dedication
At night he lied on bed thought of his seeds
In the day he perched on top of his hills
Watching seeds grow into green emeralds
Generous boy fed his neighbours these greens
Hustle and bustle soon became these hills
Happy with his hard work and its newness
The boy spurred his neighbours to follow suit
Seeing the sparkle in his eyes they nodded
Gifts of his vision conceived on his world
He now sat in his backyard with legs up
His children drinking coffee next to him
Had other ideas 'bout kampong expanse
Interestingly enough, nine years
Away from hometown of my youth
I still learn from the kitchen dance
Her slender graceful leg
Her divine hip -
The small-waisted spatula
She feels unseen rhythms of stir frying within her
and reverberates a ballon on the warm metal floor
Twirling around with her geometric lines
Her body is taken over by
Crescendos of translucent onions
Orbiting jumps in searing meat
She finally falls onto the bed of frying rice
As the lid of lights descends at perdendo
She bows, closes her eyes
And let the heavy curtain of water
Washes away her sweat
His new baby's eyes
Its mother's mouth
Crescent of laughter
A field of bliss
A designer of homes
He sleeps in on workdays
Society won't give him work
An outsider, invisible
Like a rock among rocks
Milk bottles
Rice bin
Mouths
Marlboro
Dark shapes of his duty
Swallowing his vows
It's the only thing to do
So it's the right thing to do
Thirteen tiles before his eyes
At Pong!
Dwindling money in the drawer
Has to be returned
The bristles on his neck, wet
He closes his eyes
At Kong!
His friends look at his hardship
Indentify with him
Just because it's not theirs
At Zimo!
Jets of blue smoke
flush pleasure through alarm
Selling out her love and hopes again
Doesn't seem the right thing anymore
How does he go forward now
Wake, from my dreams
The dried tears readied me
For today I escape, I escape
Clothed, in ten yards
Of red cocoon
Of golden phoenix arising
Pricking at my skin,
At the girlhood I now leave behind
Sit, in red sedan chair
A moving bamboo cage
To another empty walls
Breath, keep breathing
Sing, the rain and the wind
Before his white slab of stone
The earth receives me
In its furrow
Tapering away like my life
I bind our bones with red string
In the wedding of butterflies
(Neil Gaimen to Terry Pratchett)
Will you make me laugh again
As I fall, grasping
Time suspended in the air
Will you make me laugh again
And set it right
Wiping the gray from the sky
Falling into the world you have spun
I see you again in your black cloak
With all your white anger
Underneath those twisted trees
Angel and demon hand in hand
You take my arm and say
WE MUST WALK TOGETHER
Making each other laugh again
No
Likes No
Comments do not
Get depressed. This is
A challenge not a competition
Your opinion matters most. Of your
Own work do not be ashamed. A
Work in progress is every poem here. If
It is lost in the rush, remember those moments
When the lightbulb lits up, your racing heart and Sweaty
armpits. Exhaustion is like a perpetual hangover but passion keeps you
wide awake. You feel like dance after you hit the post button:
Today I wrote a poem and tomorrow I'm going to do it again
Chorus springtime water frosty
Behold hurry foliage tawny
Solstice transform bosom sorrow
Enshroud woodland allure borrow
Unfaze blossom scarlet scatter
Stratus maple crimson alter
Billow pinions swallows stature
Flimsy wing-robe winter endure
Ensue aster rampage advent
Seedtime rasure lotus absent
Golden ebbing Prunus boomer
Springtide arrest jailbreak never
Are the deities in the mountains
Really having a feast of peaches
Even as I burn midnight oil by the curtains
A ray flew by but it's the chalk of my teacher's
Look I am only having a gander
Charmed by the gleam of her tresses
Hemorrhagic Wulin is in uproar over Dragon Saber
Idiom of an inch of time is an inch of gold laces
Length of my ear flips out from the other
Detecting the start of quarreling voices
Hurry to hide in clanks of fighting swords under table
Only not from goose egg and cane lashes
On to battles my green plastic soldiers march
Do I yearn to grow up in every March
Chicken Rice
Green plate of greasy fragrance
Comes to the table without formality
Table with strangers and plastic chairs
Only food really matters here
Steam is rising from pale on pale
Sink teeth into tender gelatinous
Blesses the tongue of the moment
But lift legs suddenly
As roaches scurry past
Shiver runs down spine
Reminder of no place is perfect
Dress
Getting stares at the cropped hair does
Not mean frills and flounces are a must
Nor heels, skirts and war paint
Knees are still there underneath trousers
So are twin peaks too
Even with pinstripes and suits
Will be cool as Coco and Marlene
Genderless is the new black
Nothing needs to be cured
Lip Balm
The tissue wipes away the balm
Leaving dried twigs on the mouth
Like angry red ants crawling on fire
Biting to appease burning anger
Getting stares again at sausage lips
Off to the Chinese medical hall
For quick and old-fashioned relief
7:37am
Birds sing sunrise colours
But he drinks black melancholy from his cup
Staining his tongue with the bitter of another day
He takes a drag
He looks at the rope of smoke
He watches the ants with food on their backs
7:46am
The day scratches its head
A ball with no goalpost to aim
He stops looking at the photos
Putting his wife and daughter in the carton of his heart
Rain suddenly falls
Into puddles
Into thousand broken mirrors
Of his past and dreams
8:10am
Today looks the same as yesterday
The same as tomorrow and the morrows
Sliver of his sleeves peeking out from under his coat
One thinks he pines for a second spring
He takes a drag
He looks at the rope of smoke
The rope to hang himself
She cries for mama
A ripple on the night pond
Waking to the dawn
of these ! $ &* ( ) . , prompts
Met that girl
from the dream
A ghost from the past
More I do not want to ask
Typing limits his vocab so
Mo Yan only writes by hand
Th smooth of this digital paper
roughened by my hoarsing thoughts, damn!
An experiment of a long month
Gulping blood and sweat
Impressing eye circles
With it's silent mouth
These verses may not be serene
Mountain spring or pure
But my wings fly blossom
To blossom for nectar pure
Who gives us our names? We ask
Not angels, death or the gods
Listen!
Your name will be called
*Someone said, 'Don’t get drunk on the liquor of your narcissistic poetry.' And I am guilty as charged.
His body roars medicated side-effects, reeking of untouched cod
Her nose twitches at the white line of powder, they are the gods
The figures on the bills and debts burn red against fluorescent bulb
To the airport to find the soonest flight away, she is the gods
She washes two faces and four dirty hands, her gift in double
Unslept, her eyes are crescent of laughter, she is the gods
The old man curls on the bench of abandon, the memories his rooftop
She is cardboards and half-starved mouths, they are the gods
The fall accelerates, he surrenders to his grave in the mountaintop
The waiting girlfriend believes he doesn't leave, they are the gods.
I am Kartoffelsalat, Rendang and Rice, washed down with Oolong
Imperfect and faulted, but give me my glory. Hoon, are you one of the gods?
If silence is the golden sun
why does it fester in my fruit
bringing back the odour of doubt?
I won't say much
because I don't want to sound like our parents
You always hate how they nag, still do.
Remember? Upon hearing your retort,
I didn't ask you to wait up for me
Pa spitted, you will know when you have your own children!
You shrugged, stormed into your room
Those words will stalk you
The prophecy will come true
Parents do own crystal balls
and we think they are uncool
What they don't tell you
Fear sometimes comes in threes
You are rows of cereals, milk, eggs in supermarkets
The cups, plates and pots in cupboards
Either you spray it, like a cockroach, with Bygone
Or you bring it to bed with you.
It will become bearable.
Sometimes piece by piece you die inside
Under your blankets you invent worlds
And the pain of change fits into place
You wake up the next day,
brush your teeth and drive to work.
You don't have much left
So you search for strength,
stringing words
You go for a walk under the sun
and see a line of ants
then it rains, disrupting the army
You are glad to be alive.
The breeze traces its tongue around her curves,
she poses wantonly.
The dews gently bite her inner folds,
she feels damp and opens up.
As shudders run down her spine,
she moans into a blossom.
The sounds of distant traffic
lure him to his secret garden
jewel-strewn in spring.
The cool cement is
marigold petals to his skin.
A respite from the lonely heat.
The fresh paint is colourful Fatua
that clings to his body.
It fits his pride.
The silence of empty flats is
Bengali to his ears.
It's his songs and stories.
He stretches on the green grass
and closes his eyes.
I dreamed the dance of my uncle
as Ah Gong bestowed lashes of his temper
because from the poison needle
he drew grave mistake into his temple.
He floated away but storm raged in him
and he was arrested.
In the long queue of grim
for him Ah Ma and I awaited.
In her hand a tingkat merrily swayed
heavy with sadness, self-reproach but also love
At the aroma of the familiar and those days
His tears swamped with guilt and came in droves
Time travel is no pleasure
I want to go back to the future.
