a point in your life

This was written for a NaPoWriMo day.It has been posted on this blog before.

No, it has gathered many comments before. I am reposting it because I think it is a good look at ageing.

photo by dsnake1



a point in your life


so you come to a point in your life,
you feel cold, you feel old, booze
no longer excites, instead it plays punk
with your sphincters, the doctor sees you
and no longer asks what is bugging you
but tells you to keep off the oily stuff.

you watch weeds grow and wonder who
or which is more unwanted, the streets
growl at you and fumes and dust gets into
your eyes and coffee, children look at you
in fright and not merely because of your stubble,
and you don't rage anymore.

and so the best exercise you had in days
is to turn your head to watch that woman
in the short shorts walks by in the sidewalk
her full hips moving with a beat that
nearly stops your heart.

you watch the sun sets over the highrises
at the quay, someone mentions a drunk had
drowned in the river a couple of days back,
just a few paces where you sat, the day gets more
unsettling as a crow caws and tugs at a roadkill and
you fear your number may be up.



Written 06/04/2013
Revised 27/09/2024
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Each stanza is a one sentence poem, and I am wondering if each stanza can exist as a stand-alone mini poem by itself. 😁

image by dsnake1
generated by a game console with Soul Calibur V

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With age comes some wisdom. And a lot more pills. - dsnake1

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2025

our universe

This was an entry for an international haibun contest in 2018. No, this haibun didn't win anything. I thought it was pretty well written and would like to share it again here. On hindsight, I think there was no seasonal word in the haiku part of the poem.

photo by Paulina Milde Jachowska at Unsplash


our universe


After we have packed our hammers and saws and nails in the toolshed, and our daily wages have been tallied and registered by our foreman, we gather outside the doorway for a final smoke. Someone lights some incense to the earth god, giving thanks for another safe day. Another feeds the black guard dog, stroking its beastly head as it eats hungrily from a dirty dish.

It is mostly like this, the end of another day, the smell of sawn wood still clinging to us like a scab. Sometimes we drink some tea, over a stove fire, like our forefathers did, building railroads and harbours in America and Hong Kong, half a lifetime away from home. The red glows of our cigarette tips flare, taunting the stars that are coming out in the gathering darkness, over the bulky silhouettes of the unfinished buildings behind us.

We stub out our cigarettes, grunt some goodbyes and jibes, and start our trucks and motor bikes, for the journey home, the tires churning out a cloud of dust on the unpaved roads. Tomorrow we will be here again, the dog's barks, loud in the early light blues of our universe.

dusk descends
the cirrus clouds sing
of a flat earth



13/01/2018
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Huang Jia Mei (黄家美) -- 爱拼才会赢

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

Please

Please aim all kicks at the ground.
Address all blows to the air.
We are to be barely mentioned if at all in the moon’s memoirs.

*

from “Ledgelife” by Bill Knott

This is a prompt from the Bibliomamcy Oracle. It can work in frustrating ways.

photo by dsnake1



please


please, let us not talk about
what the numbers we should have
scratched on the betting slip
how the other plans didn't pan out
if there are plans in the first place.
just be glad that we are
still drinking beer
and binge surfing tv
on 31st december



31/12/2024
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photo by dsnake1

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Rod Stewart - Auld Lang Syne

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025

the pigeon minding its business

There is an informal understanding that we will ignore each other...

photo by dsnake1



the pigeon minding its business


the pigeon quietly waddles away
when I step on the sidewalk.
it is just minding its own business.
it does not want to look at me.
it is wary,
that i may wring its neck
or wrap a cable tie around its leg.

i will not do that of course.
i am too minding my own business.
i am just thinking of
what numbers to buy
for tonight's $10 million TOTO draw.
it will think of food, not numbers.
i will think of numbers, and food.

i reach for a betting slip, and hope.
it pecks at a grain of rice in the grass.



12/06/2024
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TOTO is a lot like Lotto. You know, the lottery. :)

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"Do you ever ask your goldfish for their views on goldfish poetry or politics. Does a termite thinks that a woman's place is in the house? Do beavers prefer blondes or brunettes?"

-- Robert Heinlein, Goldfish Bowl

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2024

black sheep

Numb with disbelief, sometimes.

image from morguefile.com



black sheep




i am a sheep
i whine
i fear when
         the next meal
             will not come
i really dread
         the sky falling
             clouds and all
i could not
         use it like
             a blanket
             anymore
i may not
         pick myself up
             from a fall
i see my
         tired feet
             slouching on
             dry asphalt
and i am
mumbling what costs have skyrocketed
but who listens?
who understands?
and when we had the chance at the poll booths

we threw it all away.


29/07/2016
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“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

― Leonardo da Vinci


Chao Chuan [ 趙傳 ] - I'm a Small, Little Bird [我是一隻小小鳥]

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2020

gangster movie

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

- Mary Oliver

photo by Sammy-Williams at pixabay



gangster movie


The pool hall is dark except for
the lights at the beige tables.
Two very bulky military police
guys push open the doors
and saunter into the hall
their eyes sharpened
for army deserters
their polished helmets
gleaming in the dim lights
their .45s automatics
in their holsters.

Boys, keep drinking your beers
don't get us into trouble.
The chatter dropped to a whisper
the clatter of ivory balls stopped
as they walked across the hall
steely eyes fixing on every face
every twitch of taut muscle
every curl of cigarette smoke
and there and then
i felt like a useless extra
in a gangster movie.



written 29/04/2009
revised 30/11/2012
revised 06/07/2021
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Note the revisions. A very longish poem came to this...

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SiM - The Sound of Breath

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

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