fields of loss

Hello, field of loss. You’ve been a story of so much waste.

*
from “A Theory of Windows” by Jessica Bixel

I was inspired by the lines from the above poem (and some pretty wild thoughts). This is a prompt from the Bibliomancy Oracle. It can work in heart-breaking ways.

pencil sketch by dsnake1



fields of loss


cat excavators are lifting soil and
bones and gun cartridges
teeth and fragments of clothing
workers are measuring the ditch
they wrap bandanas over their noses

this field
this field where the grass now grows over
slick with dew
this field where the dust is blown from
the bombed houses
it is cold when it rains
it is colder then when the men
and women
were mowed down
like grass.

their names whispered in anguish
like a cursed chant
auschwitz wounded knee babi yar my lai
the tears like rain could not
stop on cheeks to grass
the rain slipping off fatigues
the rain dripping off rifle muzzles
the terrified gaze of those
about to embrace the

earth

so long, fields of loss
you are a story of so many excuses
you are the mouth of so many lies
you are the child who knows no love


28/05/2021
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Rosemary at Poets and Storytellers United would like us to "to share something of your own landscape with us". I wouldn't know if the above poem can qualify as a "landscape". What also prompted this poem is a historical marker erected at the side of my former work place. It marks a massacre and mass grave site of civilians during the Second World War.

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Dragon's Dogma : Dark Arisen -- Main Title Theme

Dragon's Dogma is a copyrighted video game published by Capcom.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

dark side of the moon #7

sometimes love can transcend other worlds...

photo by Alexas_Fotos at pixabay



dark side of the moon #7


Somewhere in Palestine, 2021

The children were playing Hungry Hungry Hippos when the soldiers stormed into the house. They stopped & watched the soldiers searching, knocking over things and do not understand what they were looking for. The elder boy tried to calm his sisters. Earlier, their father had gone out to the market to buy the hippo game, when the children said they wanted something to play. He had came back an hour later with the game, told the eldest son to look after the sisters, and had gone out again. And then, the soldiers came.

★ ★ ★

We are in body armour, helmets, loaded rifles. Spare magazines. Man, they are just three kids playing a Hungry Hippo game. What are we really searching for? There was really nothing much in the house. Except our boot marks. Wait, this new box for a children's game, where have we seen it before? Why yes, half an hour earlier. They had shot a man who had ignored an order to stop. He was carrying a same boxed game in a plastic bag.



03/06/2021
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This post was inspired by a video made by a Palestinian man. He made a video of how a simple magnetic fishing game, which he went out to buy earlier, could take his children's minds off all the shelling and the rockets outside. He was also seen comforting his daughter when a blast hit a building nearby. Tragically, the man was shot and killed a few days later while out in the streets...

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David Gilmour - In Any Tongue

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

flare

Some days are worse than Mondays. Especially if you think the world is out to get you...

photo by pedrojperez at morguefile.com




flare



some days the sun is a magnesium flare
the people in the streets wipe sweat
off their noses, seeking shadows
to hide in, this town, and you
expect the walls and roads
to crumble and collapse.
you duck into a cafe
hoping there's cash
left in the pockets
for a set lunch.
you are surprised
the air-con is cold
the tiles clean, spotless
the clientele polite, making
just small noises, forks poking
at plates, you take the day's papers
the headlines, the black ink staring back

Paris Peace Talks Stalled
North Vietnamese negotiators walk out.

who cares about U.S. air raids when you just
want to look for the jobs vacant pages?
and then the girl brings you your food
she is plump, her hair tied in a bun
her thighs in a short short skirt
ravishingly creamy, fiery sexy
and you really thought of
making hot love to her
and outside the sun
just screams and
shines blindly
belligerently
an exploding

ball of
hegemony.


02/09/2016
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"and all i could do was
sweat out the summer,
dripping with rage
while the days ran hot
and the rain trees bled
dead brown leaves,"

-- dsnake1, peace


Shared on Poetry Pantry #327 at Poets United.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2016

only the dead have seen the end of war

I wrote this during the Chinese 7th month, otherwise also known as the Ghost Month in the Chinese calendar. My mind can act in funny ways, it wanders. Like those spirits.

Or maybe I have watched too many wuxia or Sengoku period movies.

image from imageafter.com



only the dead have seen the end of war



when i returned in the dead of night
to our little house
you were sleeping, holding our child
your eyelids trembled, just slightly
that cold draft of air
that ruffled your hair
is the howl from my throat
as an arrow pierces my breast.

you rose in the smoke-filled dawn
when the sun had not yet risen
over the rice fields,
the tiled roofs of the town.
you went to the Wall with our child
scanned the stone towers
with your eyes still red with pain.
you read every weary face
every returning warrior
and with each passing day
the smoke rose higher from the rains.

only the dead have seen the end of war.
only the dead see what your tears are for.



written : 26/08/2010
revised : 16/04/2014
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The title is a quote often attributed to Plato, but possibly written by George Santayana.

Shared on Poetry Pantry #319 at Poets United.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2016

rick mobbs' image prompt (4)

This is a painting by Rick Mobbs. Way back in 2008, Rick offered on his blog a weekly image prompt for us wannabe writers to ponder over it. He calls it The Storybook Collaborative. Those images are paintings that he has done, and out of the project are some interesting and excellent poems.

Back to the painting below. What does it tells you? A war machine! Look at all those guns firing, that clenched fist! Of course it could be about the military industrial complex, but war is easier to write.




painting by Rick Mobbs




bleed



and since the first
smash of a neolithic
axe
blood still runs red
and bones pile on
      bones
on forgotten
battlegrounds
rust bleeds
on
spear tips in museums
this arrowhead
could have pierced
a skull
at Hastings

and
what have been
learned
from the
blood letting?
   nothing
   nothing
but
the mounting
body count
and more
ingenious ways
of maiming and
   terrorizing

and so
metal tanks
    entangled
in barbed wire
at Flanders
    armoured choppers
       spitting metal
    rain from
miniguns
whirling blades
    over roof tops
vapour trail
of a
    stratofortress

ICBMs
riding
on a
tail
of

f
 i
  r
   e




written 11/11/2008
revised 01/06/2009
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"My brother's dreams once here did soar
Until he died at the hand of needless war."

― Uriah Heep, The Park.



If you want to read my other poems that were inspired by Mr. Mobbs's paintings, click on the links below :

image prompt (1) : on Icarus' wings
image prompt (2) : the lights of my heart
image prompt (3) : i see a raven in the sky

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2015

i am the grass

This is one of my favourite works. Call it anti-war or what, but when I wrote it, it was intended as a perspective from the ground. When it was first published on this blog many years back, it elicited a good number of comments.

digital sketch by dsnake1, done with pencilmadness




i am the grass




i am the grass
the hard boots
of the troopers
trampled upon
going on recon
on ambush
on patrol

but today

i feed on their blood
and brass cartridges
as they left
in alarm
calling for choppers
for medic
for God.

i am the grass
i do not take sides.


03.01.2007
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“A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.”

― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried



Shared on Poetry Pantry #226 at Poets United.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2014

a space & time

I was going home from work, listening to Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms on my mp3. The rain was heavy, but it was the sky that was truly frightening, greyish dark, blanketing, not a hint of white or other colours.

With nothing better to do, the words just formed in my head, there and then, listening to that song. The muse strikes at odd hours. And nothing much to offer this week except this odd piece.



image by dsnake1


a space & time


Outside
      the rain was slamming
      against the bus
      from a sky that had fallen
      to confront the world
      on the ground.
      raindrops slip streaming
      down frosted glass
      like tears for those
      who had fallen in wars.

      the metal arms
      of windscreen wipers
      grunting, arcing,
      relentless arachnid limbs
      trying to erase
      the guilt of thousands
      of bloodstained years.

Somewhere
      a sentry in a
      lonely watch tower
      bothered more about
      the damp on his rifle
      than enemy intruders,
      watched the rain
      lashing wires and sandbags,

      despairing

      as did a Roman legionnaire
      watched in helplessness
      on a hill in Golgotha
      nearly two thousand years
      before.

      their voices
      crossing
      through space & time
      reaches a dreamer
      in a bus going home
      in a rain soaked city
somewhere.


23.03.07
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