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

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Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

what are you doing tonight?

The night seems long, and there is no place to go.

photo of a Kyoto street by dsnake1



what are you doing tonight?


the half eaten dinner
is still in the styrofoam box
on the table

perhaps the rice is too sticky
maybe the cook had a bad day
like me

stub out the nth cigarette
sitting in the darkness listening
for a heartbeat

the blue curaco in a tall glass
with borzoi vodka and ice cubes
cools nerves

i light incense to her at the altar
call out her name, see the smoke
like farewells

i clean the dust and oil off
the gas hobs, as she had done
so many years

until the cold steel shines
and my sobs tremble and echo in
the silence

sitting in the quiet dark again
trying to figure out how the years
were wasted.

you will figure out surely
what you are doing tonight
the night answers

then i fire up the power amp
slip a disc into the player
sit back

and wait for Mark Knopfler
and his guitar to take us
to nirvana.


written lovingly 15/09/2007
revised slightly 23/08/2021
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Dire Straits - On Every Street

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2024

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
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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.

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A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2023

minus one

This was a challenge on Day 2 of SingPoWriMo 2023 (Singapore Poetry Writing Month). It was to write a "liwuli". A what? Okay, description below.

photo by Samuel Ramos at Unsplash



minus one


It should not be this way of course, a hard cookie crumbling. It is unfair for both of us. And chemo is not cheap either.

It is now a night of waiting
quick footsteps
cold coffee.

Have you seen tracers firing into the night sky, are they like red ribbons?



02/04/2023
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A liwuli is a poetic form deriving from South East Asian rhetorical traditions. It consists of 3 stanzas:

• the first stanza contains exactly 31 syllables in the form of a prose poem, and should be phrased entirely in terms of instructions.
• the second stanza consists of 14 syllables, and is broken into 3 lines (the length of each line is up to the writer as long as its 14 syllables).
• the third stanza consists of 19 syllables, broken into as many lines you want. the third stanza should be phrased entirely in terms of questions.

When properly executed, it is a very beautiful form.

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The Strawbs - The Winter Long

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© 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?

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Versailles - DESTINY -THE LOVERS-

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

i thought i hear your voice in the wind

Okay. I thought I wrote a triolet. I was younger then and don't know much. It is not a triolet, at least not a true one. Can I call it a variant of a triolet? I even drew a new drawing for it.

pencil sketch by dsnake1 enhanced with Snapseed



i thought i hear your voice in the wind


i thought i hear your voice in the wind
but it was just me whispering your name.
though i have grown old and tired and bitter
i thought i hear your voice in the wind
through all the years, the static, the babble
and battles, without you, are not the same
i thought i hear your voice in the wind
but it was just me whispering your name.


05.09.2007
**********


"Grief is the price we pay for love."
- Queen Elizabeth II

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The triolet's form is pretty straightforward. The first line is repeated in the 4th and 7th lines. The 2nd line is repeated in the final line, which looks like there is nothing much to write. The first two end words are used to complete the rhyming scheme. Thus the triolet looks like this : ABaAabAB, the capital letters are repeated lines.

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© 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".

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“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

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

watching the sunrise

Sunrises are beautiful, and can be sad...

photo by Jacky Zeng at Unsplash



watching the sunrise


i hold you tight in the dawn
                        in the dark
i should have let you sleep on
but you wanted to see the sunrise
i should have brought you
to the beach, a hilltop, a park
maybe another day
but the view out of our window
is not exactly lovely
just some grey rooftops
the metal grills on our windows,
                                 rusting
and a carpark that's just
coughing to life
but just holding you
standing by the windows
the world just beginning to stir
blackbirds leaping off precipices
lights flickering on
in little squares
that are warm homes
and today's sunrise
is disappointingly dull
some red lines groaning
shunned by an overcast sky
but you still smile
through the morphine
the tumours
the pain briefly forgotten
and in that moment
your pale face briefly
                   do glow

i should have let you sleep on
but you wanted to see the sunrise
you said it could be your last
but i still have you today
that's all it matters
and i have to thank
the sunrise for that.


21/08/2013
**********

Rosemary at Poets and Storytellers United would like us to "share whatever sunset may inspire in you". I am writing about a sunrise instead.

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Metallica - Nothing Else Matters

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

when the night seems long

Rommy at Poets and Storytellers United invite us to write a piece inspired by a song lyric, and to include the song title.

"Live alone in a paradise, that makes me think of two" from Neil Young's song "Old Man". 😧

image by CDD20 at pixabay



when the night seems long


when the night seems long
and uncomfortable
and the questions
have no answers
is it supposed to be like this?
how do you deal with death?
tell it to wait, take a break?
tell it not to take her away?
old man,
he wakes up in the early dawn
crying
         looking
for ghosts under the bed.
he hears her songs
drifting with the wind
he looks for
her old cassettes
her favourite songs
just to hold in his hands
his eyesight is failing
his hands are shaking
he is the tossed coin
rolling into a gutter
he looks into the mirror
and sees another man.
an older man
he does not know.

and gently
dawn's light puts its hands
on his shoulders
and tousles his hair.


21/06/2022
**********

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Neil Young - Old Man

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

longing

Losing someone you loved dearly will break your heart, but they will live always in that broken heart.

pencil sketch by dsnake1


longing


We were night owls. We worked hard, partied hard after dark. We pub crawled, we drank. We loved the booming bass lines of live bands, the husky, sultry serenades of sexy songbirds. We loved bright shirts, loud colours, and sometimes we weren't sure which smell was stronger on our polyester, the cologne or the alcohol.

But above all, above us, we loved watching the stars. I tried to tell her that stars are just balls of fire, tried to explain to her about light years and the doppler effect and such. It's not very romantic. And she just smiled. To her, the stars are just jewels in the sky, mysteries not to be solved. So I just tried to point out to her, the Dog Star, the Big Dipper, and the stories behind the names, with what limited knowledge of the stars that I had. We would sit at the breakwaters, the piers, at the esplanade, the beaches, or the benches of city parks, looking up, sometimes her head on my shoulders.

But no more. She passed on, you see, a star herself, snuffed out. Is there a star less then? I can't tell, there are too many. Maybe the stars mirror us. A star extinguishes, someone loses a loved one. Maybe there are other star-crossed lovers like us, over the dark expanses, looking up at their night skies. Maybe there are wars being fought out there. Maybe the light I saw, was us a lifetime before.

if i could pluck the stars
put them in a jar
will you come back to me?


11/04/2013
**********

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Drop's - 月光 [moonlight]

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

love songs

she sat on a high stool
plucking away on a guitar,
plucking our heartstrings
as she sang of love
and wanderings

dsnake1 - the pub singer

pencil sketch by dsnake1



love songs


We woke up late on a Sunday morning and while everyone else is going to church or the supermarket, or to trade gossip at a coffeeshop, the first thing she do was to go to the kitchen in her teddies, boil some water, fry some eggs and bacon, make some tea and coffee, the stirring spoon on glass like a wind chime, bring all that greasy stuff before the TV while I was warming up the karaoke machine.

After breakfast, we put our feet up on the coffee table, smoking our cigarettes, debating on which laserdisc to put into the player, she insisting on her Mandarin love songs, me my rock ballads and finally we agree on Andy Lau, slot in the heavy disc, and as the images flicker on on screen, we clutch our microphones, wave to the air audience in front, and wait for the tune to blast out of the speakers.



21/01/2022
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蘇芮 - (sorry, link broken) / Su Rui -- Whether or Not

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

quarrel

now I just want to hear her voice...

ink and water colour sketch by dsnake1



quarrel


like a rush
of arctic wind
that scutters over
a winter pond
dusting hoarfrost on reeds,
we sat, stiff, cold
as strangers

no words, no words pass between us today.
no words, no words she said.


revised 07/12/2008
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Shared at Friday Writings #9.

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BAND-MAID - start over

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

such

the seven sisters, they shine so brightly
oh, but look again, one is still shy.

pen & water colour sketch by dsnake1



such


such is the void i wander
shaking with grief on cold nights
shards still pierce the heart lightly
sweet persimmons thick with ash
softly sits on her altar
summer's gone with her passing
she takes her place in the stars.


12/11/2021
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Shared on Friday Writings #4, where the prompt was to write about pain, psychological or physical.

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Pleiades is a poetic form invented in 1999 by Craig Tigerman.

There is only one word allowed in the title.
The poem is followed by a single seven-line stanza.
The first word in each line begins with the same letter as the title.
There is an added requirement of restricting the line length to six syllables, but that is optional. In my poem, I used seven syllables in each stanza

The Pleiades is a star cluster in the constellation Taurus. The ancients named these stars the seven sisters: Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Electra, Maia, Merope, and Tygeta.

The poetic form The Pleiades is aptly named: the seven lines can be said to represent the seven sisters, and the six syllables represent the nearly invisible nature of one sister.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

child

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is one of my favourite bands. Their song "Teach Your Children", from the album Deja Vu, inspired this poem that I wrote. Although this song is seen as an anti-war song, i wrote the poem with my daughter in mind.

photo by Patrick Fore at Unsplash



child


children
rein them not
with a mailed fist
but mould them
with the gentle touches
of a potter's fingers
for they are like clay
absorb
all the love
we can give them

and more.


27.05.2007
**********



first published in i write too, June 2011

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White Lion - When The Children Cry

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© 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
**********

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“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

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

white lilies

on the other side will i find you?...

photo by Mathew Schwartz at Unsplash


white lilies


because i saw a bed of lilies
last night
white and glossy and rain kissed
i kept thinking of death

how it should be life and joy and
our home
new floor tiles and italian furniture
and perhaps wines on rainy days

because it was eighteen years ago
one night
the tunnel lights throbbing heartbeats
and i, holding a bouquet of flowers

white lilies baby breath laces
pure scented
for my bride the next big day
to match that glorious gown we selected

and the lady who sat opposite
nodded smiled
knowing what the flowers were for
that the night will be forever

had it been so many years then?
her joy
when she took the lilies that day
and even her name was Flower

and i could not touch those lilies
so white
so delicately alive that my body
shook and not from the chill.


written : sept 2012
revised : 16/04/2019
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theme song from movie Spirited Away - Always with Me

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

50

is it that long already?

photo by Karen Zhao at Unsplash


50


you could be with me today
but i am all by myself
in the train
watching little squares of glass
coloured paint
of apartment blocks
tessellated
rushing by
and the evening sky
threatening to weep.

we could be in a restaurant today
maybe not a fancy one
but nevertheless one
we wanted to try
because i can afford it now
and a couple of
working class beers of course.

but now i am all by
myself
in the train
with anonymous faces
with the sad masses
going home
their rush hour hands
pushing at my shoulders.

and coming out of the tunnels
i wanted to call your name
but the words
the words
they never come
because

the evening sky
had started to turn grey
and
about to weep.


written 21/09/2010
revised 21/09/2018
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Pink Floyd - Time

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

candles

some things, we don't forget.

colour pencil sketch by dsnake1



candles


we lit candles
on birthdays

drank wine
kissed lips

night walks
star maps

now i bring wine
to your altar

trying to smile
wiping tears

telling you
how i am coping

as i light candles
on your anniversaries


written     :   20/06/2015
expanded :   27/10/2020
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BAND-MAID - Endless Story

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2020

without you

Love can have a leaf of madness.

photo by andrewhaimerl at pixabay

the garish fluorescence
screaming in bursts of neon
offers no comfort to

he sees colours
in shades of metal grey
he was just looking for

food to calm his hunger
maybe a beer
and then move on.

the night is acrimonious
angry, the tables greasy
who can dine on such

a patchwork of spilt coffee
dried gravy, cigarette scarred tops
the chatter of the diners

becomes a taunt.
if you will just so look
me in the eyes

i would stick this bayonet
in your innards
it was that angry

without you.



Feb 1994
********

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Dire Straits - On Every Street

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2020

Flight

the molecules of air are charged with grief...

photo by joelpapalini from pixabay



Flight



gone
as if you
have taken flight

quietly left
not even a goodbye
in the night

left me with
just the air
i breathe



15/11/2008
**********



sweet, sharp & painful.

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Black Sabbath - She's Gone

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019