9:10 (what if)

9 is supposed to be forever, but it isn't.

photo by dsnake1



9:10 (what if)


And I turned my head and there she was.

The winter rain , like cigarette ash dropping from lamplights.

Can you count all the colours in a sunrise?

All the road signs, none pointing you the way.

Just a damn simple job and you screwed it.

Think of a million excuses but none will stick.

The winter roads, bare trees all, look the same.

My world has turned a shade of battleship grey.

Cigarette butts trapped in pools of water beside me.

I turn my head expecting her and she wasn't.



written : 04/02/2023
revised : 30/10/2024
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If you have noticed, there are exactly 9 words in each of the 10 lines. What are the numbers supposed to mean? A significant point in time? September? Eternity?

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Elton John - Your Song

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

Tampines Ave 2, 11.35 p.m

Sometimes you work some ungodly OT hours and you are hoping not to miss the last bus home...

photo by dsnake1



Tampines Ave 2, 11.35 p.m.


in the rain
the city walls
shuddered
with the sudden cold

the last
of the late night
stragglers
huddled at bus shelters

caught out
in the storm that
hammered
the sidewalks the trees

and jerky
vehicle headlights
skidded off
the glassy wet asphalt

on store fronts
limp banner ads
fluttered
in total surrender

as traffic lights
blinking angrily
protesting
their cyclops eyes mad

at the rain
and the wind's
brazen
intent to claim the night.



written 28/11/2010
revised 24/10/2011
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The prompt at Poets and Storytellers United this week is to write something "inspired by the idea of storms, literal or metaphorical". How convenient to have one sitting in my hard disk. :)

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"There is peace even in the storm"

- Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

37℃

In a recent prompt at poetry writing group Poets and Storytellers United, admin Rosemary Nissen-Wade wants us to "rewrite one of your not-quite-working pieces by transcribing it backwards, and then following wherever that leads you."

photo by Pitsch from pixabay



37℃


by my feet
           the asphalt,
           sunbaked,
dead leaves crispy,
yellow painted lines
          cracked,
          flaking,
          the sighs
of vehicle tyres rushing by,
turning, churning,
          a chain gang
          herding
dust, paper, plastics
          to the kerbs,
the mynahs hide in the shades
not bothering about food,
the tired leaves
of July,
      keeps falling
          and then
          hesitant
      again,
the air
      unmoving,
           hot,
still silence.



26/02/2025
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And this is the original poem, posted on this blog 15 years ago, that was used to "write it backwards". It is reproduced below.


Spring


still silence
the air
hesitant
to move

the leaves of spring
are not green
not yet
like sighs
sun crisped
they drop
from boughs
to the asphalt
by my feet.



written 14/02/2010
Chinese New Year
revised 07/03/2010
******************

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So dear reader, which poem do you prefer? After writing the new one, I still think the original is better, sharp and to the point. What I like about the new one is it goes like a single breath.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

a point in your life

This was written for a NaPoWriMo day.It has been posted on this blog before.

No, it has gathered many comments before. I am reposting it because I think it is a good look at ageing.

photo by dsnake1



a point in your life


so you come to a point in your life,
you feel cold, you feel old, booze
no longer excites, instead it plays punk
with your sphincters, the doctor sees you
and no longer asks what is bugging you
but tells you to keep off the oily stuff.

you watch weeds grow and wonder who
or which is more unwanted, the streets
growl at you and fumes and dust gets into
your eyes and coffee, children look at you
in fright and not merely because of your stubble,
and you don't rage anymore.

and so the best exercise you had in days
is to turn your head to watch that woman
in the short shorts walks by in the sidewalk
her full hips moving with a beat that
nearly stops your heart.

you watch the sun sets over the highrises
at the quay, someone mentions a drunk had
drowned in the river a couple of days back,
just a few paces where you sat, the day gets more
unsettling as a crow caws and tugs at a roadkill and
you fear your number may be up.



Written 06/04/2013
Revised 27/09/2024
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Each stanza is a one sentence poem, and I am wondering if each stanza can exist as a stand-alone mini poem by itself. 😁

image by dsnake1
generated by a game console with Soul Calibur V

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With age comes some wisdom. And a lot more pills. - dsnake1

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2025

our universe

This was an entry for an international haibun contest in 2018. No, this haibun didn't win anything. I thought it was pretty well written and would like to share it again here. On hindsight, I think there was no seasonal word in the haiku part of the poem.

photo by Paulina Milde Jachowska at Unsplash


our universe


After we have packed our hammers and saws and nails in the toolshed, and our daily wages have been tallied and registered by our foreman, we gather outside the doorway for a final smoke. Someone lights some incense to the earth god, giving thanks for another safe day. Another feeds the black guard dog, stroking its beastly head as it eats hungrily from a dirty dish.

It is mostly like this, the end of another day, the smell of sawn wood still clinging to us like a scab. Sometimes we drink some tea, over a stove fire, like our forefathers did, building railroads and harbours in America and Hong Kong, half a lifetime away from home. The red glows of our cigarette tips flare, taunting the stars that are coming out in the gathering darkness, over the bulky silhouettes of the unfinished buildings behind us.

We stub out our cigarettes, grunt some goodbyes and jibes, and start our trucks and motor bikes, for the journey home, the tires churning out a cloud of dust on the unpaved roads. Tomorrow we will be here again, the dog's barks, loud in the early light blues of our universe.

dusk descends
the cirrus clouds sing
of a flat earth



13/01/2018
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Huang Jia Mei (黄家美) -- 爱拼才会赢

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

Please

Please aim all kicks at the ground.
Address all blows to the air.
We are to be barely mentioned if at all in the moon’s memoirs.

*

from “Ledgelife” by Bill Knott

This is a prompt from the Bibliomamcy Oracle. It can work in frustrating ways.

photo by dsnake1



please


please, let us not talk about
what the numbers we should have
scratched on the betting slip
how the other plans didn't pan out
if there are plans in the first place.
just be glad that we are
still drinking beer
and binge surfing tv
on 31st december



31/12/2024
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photo by dsnake1

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Rod Stewart - Auld Lang Syne

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

the pigeon minding its business

There is an informal understanding that we will ignore each other...

photo by dsnake1



the pigeon minding its business


the pigeon quietly waddles away
when I step on the sidewalk.
it is just minding its own business.
it does not want to look at me.
it is wary,
that i may wring its neck
or wrap a cable tie around its leg.

i will not do that of course.
i am too minding my own business.
i am just thinking of
what numbers to buy
for tonight's $10 million TOTO draw.
it will think of food, not numbers.
i will think of numbers, and food.

i reach for a betting slip, and hope.
it pecks at a grain of rice in the grass.



12/06/2024
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TOTO is a lot like Lotto. You know, the lottery. :)

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"Do you ever ask your goldfish for their views on goldfish poetry or politics. Does a termite thinks that a woman's place is in the house? Do beavers prefer blondes or brunettes?"

-- Robert Heinlein, Goldfish Bowl

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2024