A Lifetime Problem

At six, the way to school is filled with

construction noises, dust debris like

insolent children on the playgrounds nearby

to remind me that school is a tedious,

tardy, obnoxious place on the island of desolation.

One day, I asked my father for not going to school.

Now thinking of it, I could have asked for

a day of stakes, unlimited side dishes, and

that may have stood a higher chance

beside the impossible, and the harsh

pummelling that comes with my crudeness.

I don’t know what happened in him,

but he looked to the side; moments, I was worried,

thinking what happened to him, perhaps

what happened to me — for just staring

at his skinny, crinkled face. I thought

he’d sent me to my room after school,

to give me the gift of battering, or forbid me

to eat altogether, for what I said was a sin —

to the rustic upbringing of his disposition.

But, he took a breathe; I saw his rib

bursting from his overstretched shirt,

and no signs of anger in him. He spoke,

and asked me whether I want to speak

English and Chinese really well;

I said yes, for I had a talent — the child

naiveté. “Then go to school,” and he points

to the workers in yellow hats, reflecting the

magnificent sun rays that the day gives,

shining brightly from the iris of my eyes.

“Or you will end up like them.”

Childishly, I nodded; knowing nothing

different between me and the worker,

thinking we are all humans, and he can

speak. Perhaps read and write. So I

moved forward, not realising the differences. 

To this day, I can still remember how vivid

the scene was; a pouring of water

over my mind, and how a knock twelve-years ago

is now a departure for me: on the tarmac

road then, through the air now.

Sailing Adrift From the Moon

Once upon a time, a fisherman asks,

in the midst of fishing at night, dusk abounds, alas,

the sea, why it recites its hymns to the

fluctuations of the moonlight, why it

turns down its volume at night.

Then, the waves went raging, and the fisherman

hanged onto his boat. He went sailing,

slashing back-and-forth, surreptitiously seeking

the sanctuary as he moves on the unforeseen

journey, on such quiet, perhaps too peaceful a night.

Pounded onto a pool of rocks, he found himself

ceasing, shuddering to only an immediate halt, and

he took a breathe to feel a relief — in his

abrupt journey. He is now afraid to ask the question

again, for he thought it was punishment from Poseidon himself.

The fear did not last long. The dark mist dissipates,

revealing the long-awaited moonshine. He stared

into the globular light; his empty-minded eyes

reveal how he knows everything is a staged voyage

in a bag of tricks — to fool people of its supposed exhilaration.

Then, fortuitously, the fish, shells, pure rocks of virtuous heritages

rush their ways into his near-torn fishing net, and

stayed there for as long as he gasped for air,

like a butterfly trying to escape the dust in daylight —

in the city where it lives in. Only now entrapped for a long time.

Then, the waves went raging, and the fisherman again

hanged onto his boat. He went sailing,

only now sailing slowly, adrift in stasis, and in

the sanctuary that was unforeseen in his narrow mind.

But tonight is all, perhaps, too peaceful a night;

So he didn’t question the serendipity,

and let go of his preys, in much of a hurry,

for he knows he is sailing adrift because of the moon.

And he signed a quick, albeit tender gratitude to the enlivened night.

Thereafter, his ardent question never plagued him again.

The Little Treasure from a Little Mind

I stood on the balcony of my mind       The

Prospect of waiting put me       And me only

On my journey to wish       A dream

That never ceases to fuel itself

Living in a pool of hawthorn encased by a treasure box

From my childhood       In it lives a story that

Should be concealed for years       That should not be opened

A painful moment       Now the years of yearning

Goes with the wind that blew by       I witness it fly

Fly       Fly with the wind So

I opened the box       To find what I hoped for years ago

The heavy chassis uplifts       Reveals

Pink       Red       Flowers that greeted my presence

Fragrance in the air       Supremacy reigns the room

With a quiet hiss of       “hi there”       Enough I thought

To pull the wreckages of my heart      Back together again

But in it is a letter        From myself       A tiny reminder in a tiny package
My ugly handwriting that I first cannot decipher
A cryptic clue to my own disposition

But with such quietude       What a tranquility I must’ve been in
No matter how cryptic I was still young
I should dismiss it I thought

But something reached me       “Read it”       Strong pulses to urge me
So I read       Appreciate the hawthorn       It says
But not too long       Just long enough to find the woods charming
Short enough to stand without fatigues
Then to find my way back to the reality       And bargain with the Fates
For a huge gift in the eventful course
      The latter I already knew to be the commanding truth

Now I am wrong       Now I am pulled back to life
Again       To greet time To bid farewell
And suffer in them       Be choked by them
A course that pettiness is needed more than ever

But now       From time to time
I still see the hawthorn in my mind       How it still is so vivacious
And now I know the reason why why the pink the red still blooms
And why the angel       Saying “hi there”       Dancing to her own rhythms
Appears again and again       From time to time

It all is a quiet godsend in itself

The Smell in the Car

It was a compact, silver-ridden, four-wheeled

monster; a beast to the eyes of a five-year-old,

who was also carsick easily,

and runs faster than even my mighty father.

The sanguine leather seat cover

stitched right down the middle of each oblong

cover, sheens a fainting colour

Into the thin air in the car. I didn’t know

how to oblige by the dictation

of catching colours, and

neither did I know why the leather smells

funny during summer, sad during winter.

I just kept my breathes tight, squeezing them,

like sewing a loosen bag of crops during

Harvest season, and I know I should not

ask my macilent father on why his car

smelled the way it did. I knew I would be up

for lectures, or some real beatings if he snaps.

Now, unlike the seats, the smells scintillate

even to this day, where my father

grows more taut, more bubbly in comparison,

And I cannot forget how the smell enthrals

me, haunts me, then warms me to

make me find comfort, making me tuck squirt

suavely in my own pain. And I, now caught in the stasis

of my own reveries and memories, can now

resort myself to the next day, without the smells,

the car, and my loquacious father. In tranquil.

The Sad Life of A Cuckoo

A clear chirp. The morning chooses to

suffocate itself in a maelstrom of

thickened, but mostly thinned, air.

A cuckoo meets itself in the midst of fields,

a silent chuckle — too early in the morning,

farmers are not awake. The lucid sound,

travels to the farthest of farmland

to remind himself that the highway ahead

is his own enfer. The sad, lonely reminder

that he owns the place. An unwavering

chirp, again and again, strikes the imbalance

that the ripened grains accidentally trigger.

A clear chip, continually resounds itself

until the end of day, reminding people the

sad life of a cuckoo. Yet nothing echoes.

Befriending a Leopard

I walked on a chilly, slow road everyday.

Pace usually shudders to halts.

Why? — Waiting for surprises to hit me,

while expecting nothing but cool,

invisible flames roaring into my body.

Not eroding me. Though that never happens.

Sometimes, the road can be too placid

to accept a man, or a woman,

weeps, or laughs. Like a leopard,

it enthrals me to break off from the tangents

that can stop me.

It used to chase me. Yet he would

not come close; not close to

biting me. His wintriness

bites the air; I cry when the pain

of the frostbite eats into my flesh.

But tears freeze into droplets in mid-air,

supplanting the filigree, on the

ragged piece of cloth he carries along.

But, time passed. He started to turn

warmer, though still enough to bite.

But he is more mild. He is more caring.

Now sees me with no indifference.

Though the dense air does reminisce

the way that he used to stare at me,

he — the dandelion — grows fluffy

around me. Maybe touch is too true.

Maybe too fake.

But this is enough for a friend, like him;

for the friend who saw me. And sees me.

Adjoining Way

The stupor air always lends itself

to extend the long mile

I walk every day to bus stop

To the lengthening mile,

I always treaded my steps with care,

for even the slightest misstep can make

my grandmother, who sees me

from the balcony in metres high

above me, chatter or blare

at her star’s face.

Choirs of birds

clears the cold,

sleeted isle of enclosed doors,

and thaw the frozen bulbs of tears.

The brick-paved ground

cuddles in solaces,

and entwine themselves

with a deep, unspoken word. I knelt,

to feel its grace again,

only to find weeps will not

give back the golden,

brittle stares at the mirror.

The adjoining way, now silent

without chatters.