names

For GloPoWriMo 2025.

No prompt needed. Just wrote this in the middle of the night.

AI generated image by dsnake1 at Fotor



names


what is the pub's name again?
the one in the east coast?
a live band of Filipinos
with a lovely lady singer.
remember, you always walk up
to that singer with a slip of paper,
your neat handwriting,
for a song request.
there are always wolf whistles
because your skirt is so short,
and your legs so long.
we drink our brandy,
the band plays your songs,
at times we sing along.
sometimes we leave early
to catch the last bus home,
other nights we don't,
we walk under the stars,
the street lights glaring jealously,
the old rain trees sigh,
but now
after a lifetime,
i cannot remember that pub's name
but i remember yours clearly,
because
it is carved
in gilded letters
on a marble slab.



04/04/2025
**********
qingming

---

Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

the first time we talked

a long time ago, in a galaxy nearby...

AI generated image by dsnake1 at Fotor




the first time we talked


was at the staff canteen. during a break.
she smiled.

just a coke? there are curry puffs. they're free.

her eyes shone with a light like stars
or was i just too tired?

what's a nice guy like you doing in a joint like this?

what's a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?

there is an informal understanding
that we would not talk to each other at work.
but we are not very understanding people.
and this is just a short break at work.
i took out a foul smelling beedie and light up.

at least better than ang hoon, she says, and laughs

and lights up a marlboro.
the air is bad outside on the club floor.
it is worse here.

she stubs out her cigarette

see ya, i have to return to my station

she gets up. her skirt is short. her legs are long.
she gives a short wave and smiles again.

i wanted to tell her
we should go for supper after ...

but she had disappeared back
into the vastness of the club.



27/05/2025
**********


"What’s the most important step a person can take?". The prompt at Friday Writings #189.

---

Scorpions - Send Me An Angel

---

© 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
**********

---

Huang Jia Mei (黄家美) -- 爱拼才会赢

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

gangster movie

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

- Mary Oliver

photo by Sammy-Williams at pixabay



gangster movie


The pool hall is dark except for
the lights at the beige tables.
Two very bulky military police
guys push open the doors
and saunter into the hall
their eyes sharpened
for army deserters
their polished helmets
gleaming in the dim lights
their .45s automatics
in their holsters.

Boys, keep drinking your beers
don't get us into trouble.
The chatter dropped to a whisper
the clatter of ivory balls stopped
as they walked across the hall
steely eyes fixing on every face
every twitch of taut muscle
every curl of cigarette smoke
and there and then
i felt like a useless extra
in a gangster movie.



written 29/04/2009
revised 30/11/2012
revised 06/07/2021
***************


Note the revisions. A very longish poem came to this...

---

SiM - The Sound of Breath

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

September

She used to wear an anchor pendant on her necklace. Perhaps this is the one thing that is weighing me down.

There was once a prompt at Poets and Storytellers United to write about October. Sorry, my poem is about September.

photo by dsnake1



September


September seems like a meteor dropping from the sky,
once bright, then gone.

Like you too.

Remember we stand at the parapets of our block,
smoking cigarettes, bitching
about money and our jobs,
you a seamstress, me an odd-job labourer?

Life gets better.

But then you are gone, those memories hang
like van Goghs on my dusty wall.
Starry nights, irises, sunflowers,
cafes, tears and labour.
But I am too afraid
to follow you and so I linger
and I sit in dark corners
and wait for

September.



written 26/09/2023
revised 28/09/2023
****************

---

"what matters is that I still have
after all that has preceded
poems left
me left
and these walls that I have always
loved
in all the cities and in all the
places I have lived, these walls are still here and
my radio plays,..."

Charles Bukowski, luck from a kitchen

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2024

happening at a riot near you

Rosemary at Poets & Storytellers United would like us to be inspired by the phrase, ‘broken glass crunching under the boot steps', and write a poem or story about it.

digital montage by dsnake1 with GIMP



happening at a riot near you


             Juan get back into the house!

but Juan watch the sergeant raise his baton
a row of riot guns raise like palisades
the arcs of the smoke actually graceful
the cartridges snaking, rolling
between cars
                sneakers
                 trash bins
       barricades
and
    run ning feet
and courage is not a word to say
when the air wants to tear out your eyes
your lungs.

the soldiers raise their shields and batons
their boots in step
                 in step
the phalanx rolls on
metal teeth of a meat grinder

swish cruch crunch bish craack

Juan wants to be a man
but Juan is still a boy

I am a boy! I AM A BOY!

even the blackbirds rise like shrapnel and flee

broken glass crunching under the boot steps
blood faithfully follows the cracks in the asphalt.



06/07/2023
**********

---

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Ohio

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

every morning the sun looks in (#2)

in limbo in the city, and in grief...

photo by dsnake1



every morning the sun looks in (#2)


Every morning the sun looks in with the gaze of a bored child.
The dust on the linoleum is thick but what is another million motes?

I am just waiting for that grenade to roll across that linoleum floor.
It's not that we like to argue but the words are lost in translation.

But now I would give anything to hear us argue again, no translations.
You say I am handsome in a dumb way and is probably not a virgin.

You are beautiful in a dumb way, the way you look into the future.
Everyone said you are a Japanese but the only word you know is sayonara.

Kyoto, sakura, Harajku, but the only word I said to you is sayonara.
Anything that occured on this planet, passes us by, the planet crying.

They say the Paris Peace Talks stalled, but the planet is nonchalant.
I watch young kids grow up into gangsters but you didn't watch with me.

Remember that kid yelling, fuck!, and you go to him with a pair of scissors?
Every morning the sun looks in with the gaze of a bored child.



21/04/2023
**********



This form is called a duplex poem. It is a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal and the blues. It has 14 lines, arranged in couplets, in which the first line of the couplet repeats words and phrases from the previous line. For the last couplet, the last line repeats the very first line.

---

A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

on this day

fairy tales have sad endings too.

photo by Nikita Tikhomirov at Unsplash


on this day


on this day
we would be drinking
of course
her cocktails
my cheap beer
maybe even pub crawl
throw some darts
bath in bright sexy neon
sing the birthday song again
and later
grab a burger
at MacDonald's
light our cigarettes
blowing smoke rings
into the frosty night
then to a 7-11
for more beer
my hands on her
slim waist
whispering into her ears
and she would giggle
her girlish giggle
the street lights
shine a little brighter
and we would wish
the night would not end.

but city tales
have a way
of turning nasty
and so
her birthdays ended
too soon.


undated probably early 2000's
revised 06/07/2021
***************

Rosemary at Poets & Storytellers United would like us to write about "darkness and light". Perhaps this piece can qualify?

---

Versailles - DESTINY -THE LOVERS-

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

what are their names

We are drinking our beer and eating hotpot under the stars. The street looks vaguely familiar. We know we had never been here before. But we knew we had been there before.

photo by dimitrisvetsikas1969 at pixabay



what are their names


how many towns did we missed
some up in the hills?
What are their names?
these towns, these streets
that we passed through
like a whirlwind?
why do the children cheered
when our armored vehicles
stop at their shops?
because we pay in greenbacks
but the cities
the big ones
we know their names
because well,
R&R
and where we catch
our jetliners home

we don't care
how paddy grows,
this way
or that
why hogs roll in the mud
as we marched through
poor villages
rifles drawn
old grandmas look at us
with fire in their eyes
spooning plain porridge
into their mouths
home is a hut plastered
with red paper
with golden words asking
for blessings
and
everyone is glad
to be alive

I wondered how those kids
have grown
munching on giant fish balls
and wild boar meat.
how they will miss
our greenbacks

and I still do not know
some of their names.



02/06/2022
**********


We trace a line across the map and it leads us home...

---

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

ROC '76

We train for war, so that we may live in peace.

photo by Pexels at pixabay.



ROC '76


In stony silence,
in fits of exhaustion,
we hunched & huddled
in the blood-red mud
& watched the 81s opened up
punishing the hills beyond the ridge.
Not for us the adage of glory and country
but faraway images of home,
a beer, a shower, & a woman to cuddle.

We hunched together
waiting, in a fine drizzle
that coiled around the blue hills,
the final manoeuvre of the battle,
as a haze of gun-smoke and diesel
washed over our tired bodies.
Somewhere to the east,
defiant GPMGs chattered.

As rivulets of rain
flowed down dented helmets
to sweat stained brows,
we struggled with a last smoke.
(have you tried lighting a wet cigarette ?)
We heaved ourselves up
laden with packs and
weapons and fatigue
and coaxed tired limbs
in mud-caked boots
to trudge a final kilometre to base.



written 09/04/1988
revised 05/10/2011
******************

Rosemary at Poets & Storytellers United wanted us to share our musings on war and/or peace.

---

U2 - Bullet The Blue Sky

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

path

This poem is about choice. A fork in the road. Strangers coming together. How someone can changed your life, and things could have turned out very diferently

photo by dsnake1



path


were it
not
for
you
coming
to me
on one
sweet summer's night
(
my path would have been lined with knives
(
no soothsayer would
i need
to tell
me
how
my
world
would collide.



30/04/2011
**********

Rosemary at Poets And Storytellers United invites us to write about "a choice you made (large or small) and tell us what followed – or to imagine how things might have been if you'd chosen differently".

---

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.”

― James Baldwin

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

the problem is money

it always is, isn't it?

photo of a wall mural by dsnake1



the problem is money


you think sleeping on it
it will go away?
what are the chances of
one striking the lottery?
and then losing it
the next day.
or shall we wait
like withered flowers
in a vase?
that's very unlike you
bringing it up
a couple of parang hacks
will do the trick?
come on, let's get a beer
while we are still breathing
how long can you live
staying in cheap dorms?
the problem is money
yeah
and that freighter to taiwan
too
one day a lady in red
will sell you out
for some coins
when you are having
your morning coffee.


12/05/2021
**********



Does this looks like a character out of a TV show? No, it is partly based on some real life gunmen and gangsters.

---

The problem is no one plays the difficulty.

*
from “Three Problems” by Noah Eli Gordon

I was inspired by the lines from the above poem. This is a prompt from the Bibliomancy Oracle. It can work in criminal ways.

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

routine jungle training

Keep calm. Carry on.

artwork by saydung89 at pixabay


routine jungle training


it is still raining
in the jungle
not heavy
but the dink dink dink
on the helmets
drives you crazy
and it's damn cold
even with the ponchos
and the rifle's gonna
get very screwed
and we can't light
a cigarette
even if we wanted to,
trash the rules
should have just
abort this patrol,
haul us back to base
or to the orchard
we passed yesterday
where we stole papayas
off the trees
and the irate farmer
came rushing at us
with a machete
and we ran
like kids caught stealing
(we were)
past a laughing village lass
a very well-endowed one
and if we had time
we would probably
exchange name cards
but we are taking no chances
with a farmer swinging a blade
so you see
it's one bad shit
after another.


15/11/2010
**********

This looks like a one sentence poem, hey?

---

Dire Straits - Ride Across The River

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

photo#1975

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door."

― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

photo by The British Museum at Unsplash



photo#1975


what fishes?
there are no fishes

the big boys with the nets
have trawled them

and what remains
are miserly opportunities

that are slipping by
slippery beyond grasp

me, i get by
with small fry.


undated. prob. 80's
***************

Found this old piece in an old (read angry) journal, sighed, and let it loose on the internet.

Rosemary at Poets and Storytellers United tells us "to bear witness to these times we are living in, and how it feels to be living in them." I am posting one that is not about these present times but about a certain year, and a rather pivotal one.

---

The Vietnam War ends with the fall of Saigon. One of the lasting images of the war is that of a helicopter lifting off from the roof of the American Embassy, evacuating. Over in nearby Cambodia, the Communist Khmer Rouge had captured Phnom Penh earlier and begins a genocide of anyone who looks smart. In the space of slightly more than two weeks, US President Gerald Ford survives two assassination attempts by two women wielding handguns, both times in California. Perhaps the girls have been in the sun for too long. Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft and Jaws opens in cinemas, frightening us off the summer beaches. Back home, amendments to the law are made to introduce the mandatory death penalty for some drug trafficking cases, and the Area Licensing Scheme is launched in a bid to control traffic into the city core, the world's first such scheme. And I complete my conscription service in the army. All these in 1975.

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

a coming of age

Magaly Guerrero at Poets and Storytellers United wanted us to " take a poem or story you wrote many years ago (preferably, one that wasn’t exactly awesome), and rewrite it."

So I took out some old journals with yellowed and crumpling pages, picked a less offensive "poem", sat down, did some cutting and adding to this 44 year-old work, and hey, here it is...

photo by dsnake1

The original -

A coming of age


Like aging cognac
I seem to have matured
Or at least I have thought I have been.
To have waded through the tide
Of uncertainty
Of the 60's and early 70's
Stumbling and drenched
With the foam and spray of confusion
And battered by the waves of failure.
Now I stand on a beach,
The deep sea,
And the flotsams of disaster behind me.
And like a new-born child
I have sandcastles to build...


20/07/1978
**********

The rewrite -

a coming of age


We see the sea, raging, and we wade into it.
We are youths then, we thought we could not die,
Not the reckless 70's, not rock music, arcade games.

We have our heroes and they carry knives or guitars.
Later we dig foxholes and wait for the enemy to come.
The enemy is Time, endless as hell, and his ally Age.

We see dreams fade like a mist, our pockets empty.
Good friends die or walk away and failure throws us
Like cigarette butts and spittle by the wayside.

Now I stand on a beach, the gulls lifting off the pier,
The deep sea, and the flotsams of disaster behind me.
And like a new born child I have sandcastles to build.


06/05/2022
**********


I think the rewrite is more 'visual' in a way, and the original suffers much from clichés. Also, it has been cleaned up in a format for easier reading. Which do you, dear reader, prefer, the original or the rewrite? 😃

---

Heart - Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin - Kennedy Center Honors

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

an oasis in a desert of ennui

pick an ace, man, pick an ace...

photo by mrganso  at pixabay



an oasis in a desert of ennui


as i am sitting in this bar waiting for the world to end
a gecko is crawling on the opposite wall
checking out the posters of happy people drinking beer.

if you are thinking of pretty girls look for another joint
there are just us, a dozen or so of ugly slobs
that people want to punch and cops like to pull in.

there's really nothing much we can do, a desert of ennui
lift some bottles, light a fag, people die in wars
and accidents and that gecko would still be on the wall.

the bar-keep stares at me, looks at my army crew cut,
goes pour himself a drink, he probably
has a parang under the counter to ward off evil.

i stub out the cigarette, drink the last of the beer,
the last bus to my camp is due soon, can't miss it,
though the bus-stop is conveniently outside

i wave a salute to the barkeep, the fucker smiles,
as i push out the old-west saloon doors,
and walk out to a loud, unforgiving night.


07/01/2021
**********

---

Pink Floyd - Have A Cigar

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

you are stronger than you think

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

photo by Jills at pixabay



you are stronger than you think


your life is a plant of dry yellow leaves
an apartment chock-ful of hoarded junk
of boxed lunches canned drinks
it will slam you, kick you
arm-locks you to sobbing
utter total surrender
it don't take much
a little switch
a little straw
of dry powder
it drags you
like a beast
into a cave
but know it
you can beat it
take that smile
off death's face.
you are stronger than you think
ask what your gods can offer
grow wings
grow claws
light a fire
draw a line
and
watch
the beast slouches back to its cave.


26/04/2021
**********

---

A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

R.O.D.

That was a really long time ago, but it seems like it was only yesterday...

photo by yapo-zhou at Unsplash



R.O.D.


just a tired wave to the guard at the gate,
no words, not one needed
those days of running in the sun, humping hills,
cold rain in dark jungles
half forgotten, gruff sergeants, muddy tracks,
sweat, curses and comrades'
faces and names i thought i really remembered,
goodbye godforsaken camp!

their bitching still clear, in hokkien, mangled
english, honest, unapologetic,
fuck the army, as the sergeant screamed of big
elephants in rifle barrels,
and now on this bus ride home to a change of clothes
from fatigues to polyester
the sounds and smells of the streets vaguely familiar
like home to an old place.


06/06/2021
**********


The title refers to the last day of conscription service, when you return to civilian life. On that day, some laugh, some cry, some spit, some are indifferent. I am not sure what's the acronym these days.

Posting this on the eve of our National Day.

---

Roger Waters - The Gunner's Dream

Shared at Writers' Pantry #82 at Poets and Storytellers United.

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

if time could stand still

Time is a ruthless herder.

photo by Dariusz Sankowski at pixabay



if time could stand still



if time could stand still
just for a while, for us
in a fine restaurant
sipping champagne
a name we could not
pronounce
and later
hand in hand
at the esplanade
the waves gently
slapping breakwaters
we are
looking for falling stars
hidden in the
warm glow of moonlight

but time
is a ruthless herder
it makes no compromises
heeds no pleas

and so
it is not to be.



28/09/2013
07/11/2013
**********

---

“It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”

― John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

Tai Seng

He sat across from me. He said, "I will bury him." I thought, this guy is very unhappy and crazy. "Look, let's have another beer and I will take you home. Where do you live?". "Tai Seng", he said.

photo by Darius Bashar at Unsplash



Tai Seng



talking about
                 Tai seng
when we were watching Hard Boiled on the CD
you know, you can wander into that place
and never come out again.

taking another
                 swig of vodka
she in her teddies just bored
i have been there a couple of times, told her
the guys there are quite friendly

once i went there
                 to play cards
and when i left one of the guys
lifted a zinc sheet off the wall and outside
was a tiny alleyway with cut steps

just follow it
                 to the bus stop
just so casual, like old friends
the other time we went there to get grass
we found out what a labyrinth means

the dealer took us
                 left and right
we went through someone's house
the people didn't bat an eyelid, just nodded
like it was another day in the office

her silk dudou
                 a distraction
on the screen Chow Yuen Fatt
was shooting up the gangsters in the teahouse.
but i didn't seem to hear the gunfire

this probably is not a good time to talk about
                 Tai Seng


03/08/2020
**********


Ask any old-timer where are the most dangerous 'hoods on the island in the 70's and they will rattle off names like Tai Seng, The Gasworks, Geylang and Redhill. And in most lists will be Tai Seng.

---

Band-Maid - Thrill (スリル)

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021