Sunday, November 20, 2022

a story of mankind in ten lines

"What Darwin was too polite to say, my friends, is that we came to rule the earth not because we were the smartest, or even the meanest, but because we have always been the craziest, most murderous motherfuckers in the jungle."
- Stephen King, Cell



photo by hreavv at Unsplash



a story of mankind in ten lines


1. Lucy looks up at a sky full of diamonds, she does not know their names but it is the only light she knows.

2. The winter is just an annoyance, not a death sentence, we learn that stones can cut, animal furs keep us warm.

3. It is all very simple, light a fire, keep the stone spears at arms length, keep away from the smilodons.

4. Lucy found that with numbers we can defend our homes, attack weaker people, so we build cities, make kings.

5. Man created languages, we write laws, unequal treaties, IOUs, contracts, mathematical theories, and poetry.

6. There are wars and battles, as only man knows, first with clubs, then swords, trebuchets, muskets, cruise missiles.

7. And the names ring like chisels on gravestones, Thermopylae, Hastings, Ayn Jalut, Gettysburg, Iwo Jima, Khe Sanh.

8. At 8.15 am local time a B29 bomber releases a payload over Hiroshima & we have been living under its cloud since.

9. We look up at the abrupt roar of a stray jetliner, it is just too damn near to the twin concrete towers.

10. Lucy looks up at a sky of dark clouds, adjusts her gas mask, the sky red from fatigue, the only colour she knows.
/
  /
    /
  /
/
  /
And then there are no pizza and coke and streetlights, no car fumes, no straight shots of whisky and come-on sextexts.


written : 23/10/2019
revised : 21/10/2022
********************







Imagine a clock that symbolise the evolution of Earth. Everything formed and advanced in 23 hours 59 seconds. The length of human existence is a mere second.





© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

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Sunday, August 21, 2022

in between, the news

A forum friend once calls his out-of-the-blue, spur-of-the-moment short poetry "instant poems". One day, on opening a cup of instant noodles and reading the papers while waiting for it to cook, the idea of an "instant poem" came to mind, and the below poem is the result.


colour pencil and ink sketch by dsnake1


in between, the news


Open packet, pour in hot water, wait 3 minutes.

In the meantime, there was the usual bleak news from Iraq, female hostage pleads for her life, Feb 1 2006, damn, dropped cigarette ash on floor, splattered like a dead moth, cowboy gay love story won 8 Oscar nominations. Dad beats up mum what can a child do? Homeless man living under flyover bridge for past six months.

Ah, excuse me, my noodle's ready.


01/02/2006
**********




Magaly at Poets and Storytellers United invites us to write poetry or prose that includes a list of things we love, of things we hate, ...of anything we wish. I am writing this list poem of newspaper headlines. They are actual headlines in a newspaper on a particular day.




“I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.”

― John Twelve Hawks, The Traveler






© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

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Sunday, July 04, 2021

these are days

some days, an elephant sits on you...


photo by Maike und Bjorn Brõskamp at pixabay



these are days


in the news feed today the coronavirus had taken
a couple more of thousand lives

other countries seem far away, their names distant
and hard to pronounce

a crow looks at you from the top of a lamp post
cawing with mad laughter

we walk into days like this, like a trap-door
sprung, soaking with sweat

a guy calls at you from across the street and says
hi but your name is not johnny

looks like the morning you are looking for has
gone to the Colosseum with the lions

a garbage truck thunders past its vile breath
dusting you at the bus stop

the stray cat on the floor opens one eye and looks
at you, and closes it again.


written : 27/03/21
revised : 14/05/21
***************






Drop's - Tシャツと涙 (T-shirt and Tears)





© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

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Sunday, January 08, 2017

7 days (what i saw in the neighbourhood)

How to start a New Year post? Oh, about a week of shenanigans in the neighbourhood, and some colloquialism thrown in. 😎

What! New Year was last week?





digital collage by dsnake1





7 days (what i saw in the neighbourhood)


1)

Friday Nov 27

only this empty greasy table
noodles i must have today
bak chor mee will do nicely
no cake, never mind.
mother said so


2)

Monday Nov 30

girl in the bus frowns
thought i was staring at her.
great legs though.


3)

Saturday Dec 5

glossy brochure, 2 storey house in JB 1180 sq feet
my malaysian friend pointed out, very cheap
RM330K only

where the fuck do i get RM330K?
how much you paid for your singapore pigeonhole then?
hahahas


4)

Sunday Dec 13

hey auntie, your dog shits anyhow anywhere
ought to clean after, i wanted to tell her
but her face like her pug's.


5)

Wednesday Dec 16

does anyone still dial 1711, friend asks
check time lah
crossing carpark, saw car with plate 1711
a sign! a hint!
buy the number on 4D, same day, zilch.



6)

thursday Dec 24

a pair of sloopy looking papier mache reindeer
at mall entrance.
small kid looks at it and walks away.

only a drenched plastic santa
in the rain.
diners chatting at coffee shop


7)

Tuesday Dec 29

on way to lunch same JB friend observes, before elections your gahmen give you one chicken drumstick to shiok shiok. after elections, they take back whole chicken. hahaha!
dammit, he may have a point.
shall we have chicken rice, Ken?




various days, 2016
****************


For you folks out there who are lost with some of the language :

bak chor mee - minced pork noodles, a staple in Singapore's hawker centres.
JB - Johor Bahru, the Malaysian city nearest to Singapore
RM - Malaysian Ringgit, the currency of Malaysia
4D - Our local numbers lottery, of 4 digits
lah - a slang word, an interjection commonly used in here and Malaysia to complement almost any sentence in a social conversation.
gahmen - Our Singlish way of saying "government", usually as a cynical or sarcastic usage. popular in internet chat.
shiok - Usually used as an expression to convey pleasure or excitement.

still not sure, just google them lah.







boy : Dino!
cat : meow!!
nice to know that the community cat has a name.

(this makes it the 8th day?)






© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2017

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Sunday, November 01, 2015

sounds

From my NaPoWriMo 2012 archives over at my other blog, i write too. Not many eyeballs there.

This poem was the result of a prompt from the oneword site. I hope to be back with something better.





photo by dsnake1




sounds





the truth is it can be very noisy in the morning.

for example, i was just grabbing a cup of tea this morning at the coffeeshop, where besides the clink of porcelain cups on saucers, there were the squawks of magpies quarreling, the stray cat at my feet begging for food, looking up with pitiful eyes, a plaintive little meow from its throat, the tirade from the cabby and his friends a few tables away, spewing expletives and coffee vehemently, the rustle of morning papers, the armchair politicians voicing their opinions on national policies, the soap drama running on the tv on the wall, its wash of music and conversation no one was listening. and then a heavy screech of brakes as a van tried to run a red light unsuccessfully at a pedestrian crossing nearby.

so when i left, the cat had already given up on me and was eyeing the magpies intently, not making a sound.


22/04/2012
**********






"There are three kinds of people: those who can count and those who cannot."

-- Totally Useless Stuff



Shared on Poetry Pantry #275 at Poets United.





© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2015

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Sunday, October 11, 2015

dust on my bookshelves

Most of us have a bookshelf, or rows and rows of it. Bookshelves have a life of their own. They refuse to be cleaned. Or that's what I thought.



photo by dsnake1




dust on my bookshelves


today it rained, i thought
it would be nice to go through
the stuff in my bookshelves
i had been trying to meant to
tidy it up for the nth year

so

a poetry book by Bukowski, heavily pencilled, Harlan's stalking the nightmare, yellowed & dog-eared, a couple of old journals with my maniacal scrawls with scraps of paper falling out like dead leaves, paperbacks of pulp fiction, gumshoes & losers & novel ways of torture, scores of sci-fi novellas, my favourites, lost worlds, obliterated worlds, nebulae, Moorcock, de Guin, oh yes, the comic magazines, mostly with a lady heroine with big breasts, photo albums, some CDs rolled out like Yap's wheels, a warranty card for a PC that i had already thrown away, a military medal that will bring a lump to my throat

it was interesting reading, this rainy day,
and i agreed the shelf is a mess
so it would be nice
to go through the bookshelves
another time..


25/06/2011
**********






"Most problems go away if you just wait long enough."
-- Dilbert


Yeah.

Shared on Poetry Pantry #273 at Poets United.





© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2015

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