I

You are a fish. You live in a pond. You know only water. One day you jump out of the water. You see a different world. You see trees. Humans. Dogs. You do not know what they are. Then you drop back into the water. You want to see more. But you cannot live in that world. It will kill you.

pencil sketch by dsnake1



I


I
a man
homo sapiens
now sits and belches
does not believe that I have
as my ancestors a fish! A fish, Ha!
homo pisces i scream, I on the apex of
the pyramid of living things could not have
begun my reign as a fish, or an amoeba for that
matter, until then till wars raze the world and armies
and trebuchets and arrows fly and black choppers
scatter metal rain, war drones unleash hellfire
and black sticky rain fall thickly every day
and then the words of life are rewritten
from chance and carbon and flames
salt & water homo sapiens will
remain a fish, and on a dark
desolate scarred hillock
in a second coming
in the rubble
will stand
another
man.
I



undated, quite old

revised : 08/11/2021
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A Perfect Circle - So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

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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
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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

dark side of the moon #10

and the moon comes crashing down...

Clipart by OpenClipart-Vectors at pixabay



dark side of the moon #10


i am thinking about the noise that lifted up
all the buildings like thrown lego bricks
still, like faraway dreams, i faintly
see strangers, walking, tripping,
calling names but i woke up on
what was once a street, dim
in the grey fog. faintly
i see a paramedic, the
man walking away
hey you can't
leave me like
fucking this!
he turns his face
he appears to be crying
perhaps there is too much
death and misery for one day
far too many awkward questions
a fine rain of grey ash is falling
just ash, flaky, dry, stinging lungs
to my right a dirty, naked mannequin
missing most of his hair and a
                                  mouth


25/06/2021
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The prompt at Poets And Storytellers United was "to burn". I think this comes close.

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A Perfect Circle - So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

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
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A Perfect Circle - Eat The Elephant

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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

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

Little Boy

"The world is a very different one now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life." 

-- John F. Kennedy

ink/pencil sketch by dsnake1

Little Boy

the day
it dropped off
the enola gay over a city
with a white flash instantly
frying 80,000 poor humans
the day
will be
etched in
coagulated
blood. we
have the
means to
extinct our species.
we live in fear of the
black mushroom cloud delivering
evil evil evil evil evil evil evil

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"A bright light filled the plane.We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud ... boiling up, mushrooming."
-- LTC Paul Tibbets

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2018

starship

A re-post from my 2012 NaPoWriMo attempts. Too much sci-fi perhaps? :)

Didn't post anything the past two weeks. Was following my country's General Elections. Sigh..

photo by rosevita, image from morguefile.com





starship




light
   years
   away

      from a past
      that was a murky
      distant memory was
      the dust of stars and
      generations have lived
      propagated warred killed
      loved and died on this ship
      carrying rain forests and
      oceans and an armour of
      air and treasures and
      myths and species
      hurtling through
      its destiny
      this ship

   we
   called
Terra




06/04/2012
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"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

― Neil Armstrong


Shared on Poetry Pantry #269 at Poets United.

P.S. Do you like the new blog header image, which I designed myself?

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2015

shape poem : gecko

Trying to have some fun with shape (or concrete) poetry today. This piece was written and posted some time back on this blog. I did some minor revisions and thought I would like to share it again. :)

photo by stefanomas
image from morguefile.com




gecko



it waddles
        on
         the
         dust
        coated
        wall
      defying
      gravity
   taking its sweet
       sweet
        time
         then
        it turns
         its head
         its black
     beady eyes seem to
           l o o k
           m o c k
         we survived
          millions of
            years
             you
           reptile







and all i can do is blow a fuse
and wave a rolled-up newspaper at it.



wri 03/08/07
rev 18/08/13
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Shared on Poetry Pantry #163 at Poets United. The problem with shape poetry is that sometimes it does not displays well on a monitor. I hope there's no problem here. :)

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2013