dark side of the moon #11 - part 2

You can never know what type of people the person you just accidently bumped into is...

pencil and watercolor sketch by dsnake1



dark side of the moon #11 - part 2


She is lying, of course. She will not fight. She knows I came prepared. The vampire gives a scream so loud that glass bottles shatter, packets drop off shelves and the room shakes. In an instant, she has morphed from a woman into a hideous giant bat-like creature. I reach for my shotgun, she wanted to lunge at me, changes her mind, and instead flies straight up, punches through the thatched roof. I let off a shot as the roof started caving in. Through the hole I could see her silhouette against the grey sky getting smaller. I waited a short while in case she changes her mind and returns, but did not. I had to go too. The military patrols could have been alerted and I do not want to stay around answering awkward questions.

**

The businessman was on his way home to his villa on the outskirts of Bangkok. He has just attended the launch of his new hotel at Pattaya. He was almost dozing off in the car when his driver braked suddenly. There was something on the road in front of the car. In the bright headlights of the car they could see the outline of a person. A woman. There were no other cars or vehicles at this time of the night. The normal instinct is to start the car and roar off. But the businessman ordered a bodyguard to get out and investigate. The bodyguard went out, his pistol drawn. After a while he came back. "Boss, it's a young woman, and she's alive. What do we do with her?"



270 words

10/10/2021
**********

The End. Maybe a part 3, let's ask the Muse.

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Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

dark side of the moon #11 - part 1

You can never know what type of people the person you just accidently bumped into is...

photo by xusenru at pixabay enhanced with Nik Collection


dark side of the moon #11 - part 1


Tonight, the weather is balmy and humid, not a good time for work. I stopped the jeep just outside the shop. It is a nondescript, dimly lit small wooden structure just outside the village, among paddy fields and banana plantations. A large coca-cola sign was nailed to the door, and I push it open and walk in, and I smell it immediately, a faint pungent scent with hints of plumeria. She sits at a table, close to a refrigerator, writing on a book, with neat shelves of dried food and condiments around her. This is a general store, after all. She unfolds her legs and stands up, her light pink ao dai flowing with her curves. She smiles and says, "what took you so long?"

"How many were there?", I ask, referring to the bodies buried behind the house. "Ten, maybe. I have stopped counting." She smiles, then sighs. "In a different time we could even be lovers". In the low light of incandescent bulbs, there is no doubt that she is a beautiful woman. A beautiful creature. "I have to get their lives, their chi. I need to live", she says matter-of-factly.

I have been hunting her for decades, and have put down some of her kind along the way. But she is elusive, her trail winding and long. Amsterdam, Singapore in the 30's, Tokyo, just after the War, and now a village near an American camp just outside Saigon. "It took you some time, this chase, I was beginning to worry for you, but you took out our sister Matha in Amsterdam just after the First War ended". She continued, "I will never forgive you, I will try to kill you and maybe today I will get my greatest prize."

292 words

10/10/2021
**********


to be continued...

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Saori Hayami - [Awake] - ending theme for RWBY:Ice Queendom

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Death

The Pale Horse.

image by dsnake1,
generated on a game console with SoulCalibur V



sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Death


ah, is there a chill down your spine
and no words escape of your mouth?

wrap in my dark shroud then and
lower thyself into the stygian waters.

no one sees me and expects to return,
take this as a new journey.


2014
****


SoulCalibur V is a copyrighted video game published by Namco Bandai Games.

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Strawbs - New World

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Famine

The Black Horse.

image by dsnake1,
generated on a game console with SoulCalibur V



sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Famine



the ones with the means have so foolishly feed me
but i cannot get fat

instead the bellies of the children are bloated
their ribs poked at skin

eyes blank as wasteland their spirits cracked
as the ground at their feet.


2014
****


SoulCalibur V is a copyrighted video game published by Namco Bandai Games.

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As many as 828 million people were affected by hunger in 2021.
- UN WHO Report

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : War

The Red Horse.

image by dsnake1,
generated on a game console with SoulCalibur V



sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : War


you ask how many battles i have fought?
Masada, Nagashino, Inchon

soon the names will mean nothing,
it is all senseless slaughter

weary will be me, my blood-stained blade
goes to another battle.


2014
****

SoulCalibur V is a copyrighted video game published by Namco Bandai Games.

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Ride of the Valkyries (Apocalypse Now version)

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Pestilence

The White Horse.

image by dsnake1
generated on game console with SoulCalibur V



sijo - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse : Pestilence


they know me by many names
but i only want them to know fear

for the gifts my minions bring
burn like fire, multiple like locusts

what is the black plague then
when i have new terrors to unleash?


2014
****


SoulCalibur V is a copyrighted video game published by Namco Bandai Games.

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BAND-MAID - The Dragon Cries

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

this is not the right time to think about dinner

Fear is not evil. It tells you what weakness is. And once you know your weakness, you can become stronger as well as kinder.”
– Gildarts Clive (Fairy Tail)

photo by Marjan Blan from Unsplash



  this is not the right time      to think about dinner


my boots sank into the mud     (space enough for one more )
  a carcass of a dog nearby     one more war number          
       half sunk in the mire     some fur or hair broke free
purplish belly, bloated     sloshing in the slush    
and the flies, the flies     more flies, squadrons  
buzzing buzzing     circling, looking  
like orbiting choppers     to drop their eggs      
       the rain still falling     little droplets glisten cold
on man, trees and grass     the weeds thick on boots
       this jungle trail     slick and treacherous
of crushed ferns and twigs     spears of dead bamboo      
this is an orchard with      jaws of razor teeth      
     no promises of life     silence & quick breaths
then the point man yelled     and was then silent          
         we froze     someone curses
   guns hugging bodies     we try to stay silent     
        raindrops dripping     fear dripping off helmets
    off the muzzles of rifles     clicks off safety catches     
       we lift our wet rifles     aim into the half darkness
   arms numbed with cold     and prepare to fire           


25/10/2021
**********


Are you enjoying your war movie?
I am afraid that the poem will not display well on smaller screens.

Twin cinema, which this poem is written in, is a poetic form written in two discrete columns. Each column can be read individually from top to bottom. It can present correlating or differing images. It can also be able to be read across the two columns. When doing so, each poem (Column 1, Column 2, and across the 2 columns) may tell a different story. The first twin cinema poem was created by Singaporean poet Yeow Kai Chai.

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The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

dark side of the moon #9

that smile could hurt...

photo by Ventus17 at pixabay



dark side of the moon #9


1.
She said I was a special friend. I wondered what 10-year-old children meant by special friends. We laid in the long grass in the fields just outside the village, watching the clouds, the sky a shade of gloomy blue. She was holding a doll close to her body. The doll was naked. I pointed out that one of the clouds looked like a bunny. She said there was another bunny behind it. I looked long and hard. The clouds seemed to have merged into a ball of candy floss.

I turned my head and looked at her. She had pulled down her dress. She was naked.

2.
The villagers were baying for my blood. Disgusting child! How can you do such a thing! A couple of the villagers had suddenly chanced upon us in the field. Incensed, they dragged me and the girl back to the village without giving me a chance to tell my side of the story. In the village square, despite my parents' pleas, they whipped me with canes again. As the village was deciding what to do with me, the girl, who was quietly standing at the sides watching, came over and looked at me.

She gave me a smile. Or really a smirk. She was holding her doll. The doll was headless.


08/05/21
********

because Halloween...

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Alessia Cara & The Warning - Enter Sandman

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

a poem from 3 book titles

Asteroid 2020 LD, with an estimated diameter of 120 metres, passed within the moon's distance on June 5 but was not actually discovered until Jun 7 because the sun's glare masked its approach.

photo by KELLEPICS from pixabay



a poem from 3 book titles


             baby.
      one last good kiss
     these final minutes
     on this river of stones,
  of dancing waters, of golden
    light through the tall trees,
   this last planet we will meet,
amongst the willows, the songs
of birds, the wing beats of dragonflies,
   and the silence of regrets
                 before
                   we
                   go
burning in water drowning in flames
as the asteroid breaches the stratosphere.



written : 05/04/2011
revised : 13/07/2020
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This was a prompt from the 2011 edition of NaPoWriMo. The first prompt, in fact. It wanted us to "write a poem that incorporates the titles of three books you have in your house."

Going through the shelves, I randomly took out 3 books :
1. The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley
2. Burning In Water Drowing In Flames by Charles Bukowski
3. pay attention: a river of stones edited by Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2020

valkyrie

Boredom needs a distraction.

pencil sketch by dsnake1



valkyrie
lim chu kang, mid '70's



they said she could floor you with a punch
if you make her just this mad.
so we were expecting her to leap
and somersault over the tables
like some wuxia swordswoman
or slash her way across the coffee shop
an unstoppable medieval amazon.
but she just sits quietly at the counter
looking at us like a wary hawk

we wave for another beer
she saunters over
bottle of cold beer in one hand
bottle opener in another.
she counts out the cash
pops the bottle expertly
we watch her walking back to that counter
her hips too wide for that pair of shorts
have to watch out for her dad though
he is the local triad enforcer

so we just look quietly at this valkyrie
she in her long black hair and tiny t-shirt
measuring her, trying small talk with her
drink our beer eat our carrot cakes
and prawn noodles smoke our cigarettes
sometimes sweating out the night
thick with rumours and gnats
waiting for our night transport
to take us back to the shithole
a couple of clicks away
that is our camp.



03/06/2016
**********

To the tough lady (sorry, i missed your name) who manned the counter at that coffee shop near our base at lim chu kang, thanks for the beer and coffee and conversations, wherever you may be.

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"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”

--John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

homecoming

There is no spare...

photo by darksouls1 at pixabay



homecoming



We sit by the side of the lake, taking in the cool breeze, the chirps of the birds, and the sight of the single sun high up in the blue sky. It is a fresh change to hold the meeting outdoors.

The Chairman holds up his hand to start the discussion. The issue here today, he says, is to look for another site, to stay here and make here our home ourselves, or to stay and propagate with the natives. The natives are another issue again. They talk in a language we cannot understand yet, but our translators can decode later. They cannot write, which until now, we are sure of. They have clubs as weapons, which our guns can handle easily. But they are fairly intelligent, they have tools and utensils and dwellings. And clothing.

The issues are to be put to a vote, and the Chairman wants a firm consensus. There is no going back to where we came from. Even with plasma ion propulsion, our spaceship will take some time to reach our home planet, dying from the excesses we have made on her. Thus the expeditions in the first place, to preserve our species, to look for a new home planet. And this blue planet is a lot like home.

The Chairman raises a finger. "Any hands to look for another site?"


07/07/2019
**********

226 words. Can't believe I wrote this in one afternoon.

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“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

autobiography of a minor hood

Sometimes you look at a picture, and it screams "prompt!".

photo from morguefile.com



autobiography of a minor hood




well, you look like you were constipating.
you think i stole and ate your fried chicken wings?
today is a saturday, you hate calendars, remember?
we don't mess around with tequila on saturdays.
moreover the blackbirds have flown the pie.
yeah it looks bad on you, klutzy and all
but really you should saw off that shotgun
makes it easier to conceal you know.
however you still look like a mafioso with a bad eye.

now let's go get a drink.


07/05/2016
**********

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"One thing is for sure though. Trouble is trouble, no matter where you are."

--Felix, Felix the Cat: The Movie

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

action movie

I had to admit, the following "poem" was heavily edited from the original (like done with the said melon knives in the ...)

One truly bored day, I stumbled onto a site, Language is a Virus, and its generator threw up some crazy lines that I had no choice but to, er, chop it up (but i tried to retain as much of the trash as possible).

Yeah, if you really need some inspiration...

image by James Jester at pixabay



action movie


really i have never investigate the crazy stunts
the gorillas, and your dark ravens nod their heads, conspiring
i am at the end of my teeth oh shit! these things which creep me,
and which i cannot put a finger to it, because it's sliced nicely

so you send your dinosaurs, bandoliers full, to outgun me
but arquebuses are slow, the stench of betrayal hangs heavy
my vultures will pick them off, heavy by heavy metal
sharp in their black suits, at home in them grungy cliffs

or if your rats were to ask me, i would say
go eat cake and they wisely nod their heads
and roll over dead when the gorillas from chicago
come in from the door with their streetsweepers, oh god!

go ask the hapless foxes their feet in cement blocks
the silencer or the cold blades: your choice, the rottweilers
their eyes popping as the grenade roll across the dirty linoleum
ripping apart weeds and shells and blood with each shrugging

don't stare, hide your baseball bats, look constipated
as the tigers from hong kong unwrap their melon knives
not fine steel really and plastic handles but it gets the job done
better than the claymores of your ravens dripping dark blood.




2017 (or sometime in 2016. look, let them hangovers run off first, okay?)
****

Oh, this piece was written in 4-line stanzas. If it appears odd on your monitor, blame it on the blog's layout. 😁

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"I used to think if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't be able to make it to heaven. But now, fuck. I don't care where it goes as long it ain't here."
-- Chef Hicks, Apocalypse Now

And a video for the day : The Doors - The End

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

autobiography of a reluctant scarecrow

A picture that shouts "prompt!".

photo by Jim Semonik at pixabay



autobiography of a reluctant scarecrow


Say, do you know a place for a good bath? No acid, no sulphur, no coca cola. Some WD40 welcomed. Nothing fancy. I have been standing in for those damn scarecrows for the past ten years maybe. They went to town for a drink, chase some barmaids, eat some steak, promise to be back by ten, and never came back. The sun mocks me, sending its best cavalry of sharpened lances, the moon just laughs, sometimes so hard it chokes stars. Last heard, the sheriff found turfs of straw that reeked of alcohol on the interstate. I think it is time to move on. Say, do you know a place for a good bath?


26/03/2019
**********

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“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

the wind will sweep me by your side

sometimes i look up at the stars to search for you, but there are the street lights and those lights shade into darkness, and i can't see pass that black hole in my heart.

photo by Vlynn at pixabay



the wind will sweep me by your side



soon i will be but ashes
the wind will sweep me by your side.
through the distances, the ages
and our date no darkness can hide.

the gears of time will turn
the tears have since long dried.
galaxies will collide and burn
the wind will sweep me by your side

i wander from sea to steppes
where new stars will born and die
when light years are mere steps
the wind will sweep me by your side

the wind will sweep me by your side.
the wind will sweep me by your side.



06/07/2015
**********

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winters

twenty four years, another winter.
i touch her photograph again.

--dsnake1


龔玥---明月千里寄相思

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

apocalypse

inflated egos and nuclear codes...

photo by MabelAmber at pixabay




apocalypse


in the time when the stars fell on us
and two suns shone in the morning
and after that perpectual dusk followed
and black rain fell, sticky, smelling of metal

in the time that locusts ruled the skies
in clouds larger than bomber squadrons
and the rats and snakes fled in fear
from their burrows
and the crows flapped tired wings
resigned to surrender

in the time that boils and sores
and skin peeled off like wet parchment
and scorched lungs hungered for air
and hair dropped off like dried weeds

i look for you
in the fallen ruins
screaming your name
crawling over rubble
on bleeding limbs
as smoke & flames rise

like burning offerings to the dead


29/01/2007
**********

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Do we still remember this song then? - Pink Floyd, Two Suns in the Sunset

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

dragon

Imagine one dark night in a medieval English village, a strange, unidentified object hovers in the sky...

photo by kellepics at pixabay


dragon



                   We draw our longbows waiting
                 for the beast to come. But the
               dragon just hangs there in the
             air, above the poplars, exhaling
           fire. Its scales of metal glisten in the last of
         dusk's light, its two fiery eyes
       glowing red with anger and alarm.
     Our horses are nervous, stamping
   their hoofs, the village hounds
   run around in circles, barking.
     The braver of the villagers stand
       watching the rings of smoke and dust
         through the trees, some with swords
           and staffs. The beast seems to be wounded, swaying
             in the air, but soon it steadies
               itself, flies around the village in
                 a wide circle, and climbs back into
                   the clouds. Fear grip our hearts.






We could have caught a dragon today.



written : 02/07/2014
revised : 05/09/2018
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Uriah Heep - Tales

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

the trenches, somewhere in the future

Science fiction is one genre of literature that I like, and read widely. So it is only natural that I do a science fiction poem. This was written originally for a prompt at dVerse, a poetry community, the theme being "Where in the World?" and it asked the reader to "write a poem that creates or evokes another world". Then it squatted in my hard drive, like an Alien egg waiting to hatch. I wonder how many more "sci-fi poems" are still lurking there. :)




photo by chelle

image from morguefile.com

the trenches, somewhere in the future


we watch
the deadly arcs
of the ICBMs
curving over
the clouds
like a scimitar
on their way
to pulverise
a city

then get back
to the grisly task
at hand
tossing
the enemy wounded
into the ditches

no crosses
for the fallen
we sweep
a flamethrower
over them
for good measure

the black oily clouds
from their plastic
and metals
cling to the trenches
like a dark shroud.

and then

we sit in our
assault vehicles
check our weapons
send out
the spy drones
and wait
patiently
for the next wave
of enemy androids.

war was never the same again
since the humans sent us out

robots

     against

robots.




written 25/08/08
revised 09/06/12
**************

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“I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Once humans develop artificial intelligence, it will take off on its own and redesign itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

-- Stephen Hawking, in an interview with the BBC


Shared on Poetry Pantry #417 at Poets United.

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©cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

rendezvous

This installation : Illumaphonium by Michael Davis of the United Kingdom.

photo by YunPing




rendezvous


She said, "you should
come up here more often,

it is quiet and chilly
and i get a bit lonely",

but i am not too sure
because the boy Icarus

dropped into the sea
the other day while

we were trying to
fly to Mars.


09/05/2018
**********

My daughter was at the recently concluded festival I Light Marina Bay, and took pictures of the light installations there. She asked me if i would like to add some words to the photos. These 5 were the results. Not much, I know from more than 20 installations.

Simultaneous publication at my other blog, i write too. If you want to see the other installations and read the accompanying haiku, click HERE.




© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2018

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