days and days

there is no darker territory than the no man's land between life and death..

photo by Adrian Kirkegaard at Unsplash


days and days


should i say that the clock in the ward
has stopped working? that someone should fix it?
that the people in the beds don't care,
because the days that have passed
are all but dim memories and time is
meaningless, or all of everything?

my mother, she is asleep in that hospital bed
holding a half-eaten biscuit. i cannot bear
to wake her, i am tired from a day's work,
i want to feed her the porridge i brought
and i look at this frail woman, my mother,
her fingers curled stiff like talons and
the dried bits of rice on her bedsheets,
there is an ache in the heart
the pain i cannot understand.

should i say that this is not fair,
that the day would carry on its usual
business as i walk out of the gates?
should i tell that she woke up and
tried to call my name, that the smile
she gave me broke my heart?



18/06/2020
**********

Update 16 July 2021 -
I wrote this as a submission for an anthology of poetry about palliative care (open to 26 Asia Pacific countries and territories, in 15 languages). Yes, it made it into the anthology. 😃

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"in my eyes my mother is dying and yet all i am thinking are the numerals stenciled on the oxygen tank and all the while the night is still raining,"

- dsnake1, mother (it's about not giving up)

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2020

or else

I am trying my best, but there are missteps...

photo by Pezibear at pixabay



or else


mother used to say

be good, don't tell lies
else the Thunder God
will strike you with his hammer
and lightning rods.

& we cower under sheets
when a thunderstorm arrives.

also, do not talk to strangers
they will abduct you
cut off your heads
and use it to support bridges.

& we would view strangers
with a suspicious eye.

remember, do not do evil
else you will be banished
to the 18th Hell
where you suffer forever.

& we try to be good boys
finish off every grain of rice.

then in time we learned

lightning is electricity
Jap occupiers hang heads on bridges
and as for Hell
we have been through many.

& how can we laugh at her ignorance?
for what she give us was love?

so the next time we see lightning
arcing across the sky
it is not the Thunder God's anger
it is mother's beautiful smile.


27.12.2005
**********

To my mother, who lives in a better place.

---

蘇芮 Su Rui - 親愛的小孩 (Dear Little Child)

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2019

mother (it's about not giving up)

I cannot forget the day I lost my mother. I was in the ambulance with her, holding her hand, and all I was feeling was just helplessness...





photo by arvydas
image from morguefile




mother (it's about not giving up)





mother,
there is pain
in your eyes
hold my hands
hold me tight

outside this
ambulance
in the
rain drenched
streets

the heartlands
the city
a world going
about
its living

which you are
leaving

the pathetic wail
of the sirens
drowned out
by the babel
of the evening

rush hour
the wipers groaning
on windscreens
tail-lights red
in the rain

make way you bastards
my mother is dying

i could not
look at her
lest she sees
the tears welling
the fear

in my eyes
my mother is dying
and yet all
i am thinking
are the numerals

stenciled on
the oxygen tank
and all the while
the night
is still raining,

the rain drops
splattering
scattering
on the windows
the air in the cabin

suddenly
very cold

and still
she was
holding on
fighting

while i
all weak
was about to
give up.


written 10.05.2013
revised 09.03.2014
******************

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“You don't know who is important to you until you actually lose them.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

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©cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2015

days

Mothers are strong people. Most of them are. My mother never failed to smile when we, her children, visited her. Despite the stroke that fell her. She didn't walk again, she had passed on, many years ago, but she never gave up.





image by dsnake1
done with Sketchpad




days



the doctors say
visit more often
not many days.

my mother
asleep
holding a half-eaten biscuit.
the day is dying
and so is she.



20/07/2013
**********

---

“Perhaps it takes courage to raise children..”

― John Steinbeck, East of Eden



Shared on Poetry Pantry #159 at Poets United.

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2013

my mother and the moon

Over at The Poetry Pantry, the call was to write a work about mothers. I wanted to post this on Mother's Day, but I was totally zonked out after a day's work. (yes, I do work on Sundays).

Initially, I wrote something gritty and grim. Perhaps it was not too appropriate for the occasion. Then I wrote this. But I am really not too satisfied with it, it's kind of long and naggy. Maybe I will do some editing to it one day. :)




photo by semiross
image from morguefile



my mother and the moon


Mother, whenever I see a full moon, I would be reminded of you. You see, you were like the light on a dark night that guided me. You were the Weaver and Dad, the Cowherd, as you so lovingly told us, your children, those folk tales, about the moon and humans and gods and deities. But what I remembered most was, you prayed to the moon. Yes, mother, you prayed to the moon! On every Mid-Autumn's night, you filled a tray with fruits, three cups of tea, bowls of jelly, moon cakes, areca nuts and betel leaves, a box of rouge and a bottle of florida water. These you offered to the Moon Goddess, after you have lighted the candles and joss sticks, to pray for health and safety for the family.

"But mother, the Americans have landed on the moon!", I would say, and she would silence me and beg forgiveness from the goddess for this ignorant son. It has been years since I last eaten those jellies, mother, how I wish I could eat those jellies that you made on Mid-Autumn's day again. They were delicious and sweet. But now, you are up there with the moon too, among the stars, and as I gaze up at the night skies, I missed you, your wisdom, though you did not attend school, your compassion, your faith in us, and I thank you, knowing you will guide us on in the darkest nights.


12/05/2013
**********

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Shared on Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

---

© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2013

Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital, 6.15 p.m

Here's a re-post of a poem I published in this blog earlier. It is something I wrote for my mother, she has since passed on. I thought I will write something less dreary, but the darn muse is still missing.

This work is part of a batch I submitted to a poetry competition.


photo from : www.freeimages.co.uk
image was enhanced.


Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital, 6.15 p.m


i hate it.
who likes the stench of dried spit ?
the stuffy air of ageing wards
the stares of the old pitifuls
eyes blank as lost memories.

but can't leave Mother.
she lies helpless on that bed
the stroke was that horrendous.
have to change her sheets
bits of rice still sticks to it,
the attendants are so careless

she smiles when i come.
there can be joy at such places
light in darkness.
i hold her frail hands
smiling my plastic smile
the grief in my heart
all bottled up
seeing her wasting, bones and all,
like that peeling paint on the wall.

who likes the stench of dried pee?
not you, not me.

--- 1998 ---