it's almost the same every year
I have become a weekend writer. After a day at the office, there is not much time or energy to do anything else. Just hope the weekend is free.
I wrote this in response to the the Mid-week Motif at Poets United, where the theme was "Newness". Yeah, I know today is Monday already. Today, i traveled the island from end to end in the course of work, and am surprised I still have the time to post this. Not too satisfied with this piece, seems incomplete. That's what you get when the muse goes AWOL.
photo by nrb, image from morguefile.com
it's almost the same every year
thin light over the harbour
tiptoes gently on
discarded beer cans and wishes
where hours earlier
the new year was ushered
auld lang syne mangled
but now on the edge of dawn
our heads ache
from the smoke of gunpowder
the cajoling of sleep
as we wait in exhaustion
for the first train rumble.
12/01/2014
**********
54 words only
Strap yourself to some roots in 2014 :-)
-- ZQ
Shared on Poetry Pantry #184 at Poets United.
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2014
I wrote this in response to the the Mid-week Motif at Poets United, where the theme was "Newness". Yeah, I know today is Monday already. Today, i traveled the island from end to end in the course of work, and am surprised I still have the time to post this. Not too satisfied with this piece, seems incomplete. That's what you get when the muse goes AWOL.
it's almost the same every year
thin light over the harbour
tiptoes gently on
discarded beer cans and wishes
where hours earlier
the new year was ushered
auld lang syne mangled
but now on the edge of dawn
our heads ache
from the smoke of gunpowder
the cajoling of sleep
as we wait in exhaustion
for the first train rumble.
12/01/2014
**********
54 words only
Strap yourself to some roots in 2014 :-)
-- ZQ
Shared on Poetry Pantry #184 at Poets United.
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2014
posted by dsnake1 at 10:15 PM
11 Comments:
Great mood to this. Nice one.
thank you, Anthony!
great to see you're back. :)
I can taste the tiredness and feel the forlorn hope. This has a sad but lovely flow.
Alan, thank you!
i did not intend the poem to be sad. tiredness and nonchalance, yes. but that's the point of poetry. the reader can see and feel emotions which the writer may not. :)
Strong images here. I too feel the tiredness, despite the fact that this was not your intent. The words 'our heads ache' and 'exhaustion' contributed to that feeling for me. Always good to see you in the Poetry Pantry.
Well I loved it, I would not have thought it incomplete, but now you've left a hope in it but I can't quite see where. I like the end very much.
Mary,
thank you. i will try to "raid" the Pantry every week, there's so much good stuff there. :)
glad that you can feel the tiredness in the poem.
Pealogic,
thanks for the visit!
that's the nice thing about poetry. the reader can form different opinions from those few words. i was trying to write a 3rd stanza, but it doesn't seem to add to the above two, so i threw the whole thing away.
...very asian like poem... in fact, it feels like a short war poem for me.... one can tell the roots & geography of its author---that's how tangible & real your words here are... i enjoyed it, thanks... smiles...
kelvin, great to see you here!
yes, i am asian.
"it feels like a short war poem.." : ah, another view! i had to go back and read it again, and yes, it can be interpreted this way. :)
when i was in the military, on new year's eve, my buddies and i would go to the sea front to watch the fireworks, drink and do silly stuff. this "tradition" continued even after i left, when i would go there with my wife.
The urban feel in this piece is great.. really captured the hopelessness of aspects of living in a big city..
thank you, Bjorn.
one of the objectives of this poem too. :)
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