Two points of view

Stay cool. It's just how we look at things. We may disagree but it's all right.

cartoon by dsnake1



click on the picture for a larger view

Magaly of Poets and Storytellers United invited us to write one piece of poetry or prose from two different points of view. Is a cartoon okay?

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“The planet is fine. The people are fucked.”
― George Carlin

Or is it both are not fine?

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

ROC '76

We train for war, so that we may live in peace.

photo by Pexels at pixabay.



ROC '76


In stony silence,
in fits of exhaustion,
we hunched & huddled
in the blood-red mud
& watched the 81s opened up
punishing the hills beyond the ridge.
Not for us the adage of glory and country
but faraway images of home,
a beer, a shower, & a woman to cuddle.

We hunched together
waiting, in a fine drizzle
that coiled around the blue hills,
the final manoeuvre of the battle,
as a haze of gun-smoke and diesel
washed over our tired bodies.
Somewhere to the east,
defiant GPMGs chattered.

As rivulets of rain
flowed down dented helmets
to sweat stained brows,
we struggled with a last smoke.
(have you tried lighting a wet cigarette ?)
We heaved ourselves up
laden with packs and
weapons and fatigue
and coaxed tired limbs
in mud-caked boots
to trudge a final kilometre to base.



written 09/04/1988
revised 05/10/2011
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Rosemary at Poets & Storytellers United wanted us to share our musings on war and/or peace.

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U2 - Bullet The Blue Sky

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

how deep is

"if you imagine us scurrying down to the
tunnels, each of us is an apparition"

dsnake1, the night sticks like wet petals

artwork by Saydung89 at pixabay



how deep is


how deep is
   your love?
down in the
subway tunnels
on late nights
   some nights
aimless rides
the tunnel walls
just inches
from my face
flashing by
our lives
on a reel
of memory
sliding by
till it all ends
on a bleak night
and here i am
all alone
   in the
rumbling wombs
of the trains
   that song
playing again
on the tracks
how deep is
   your love?
till i resurface
to the neon
drenched streets
to the city lights
           starlight



written 21/04/2012
revised 10/07/2012
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"the train doors close
like a breath exhaling"

dsnake1, and all i see are wet petals on asphalt

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022

i thought i hear your voice in the wind

Okay. I thought I wrote a triolet. I was younger then and don't know much. It is not a triolet, at least not a true one. Can I call it a variant of a triolet? I even drew a new drawing for it.

pencil sketch by dsnake1 enhanced with Snapseed



i thought i hear your voice in the wind


i thought i hear your voice in the wind
but it was just me whispering your name.
though i have grown old and tired and bitter
i thought i hear your voice in the wind
through all the years, the static, the babble
and battles, without you, are not the same
i thought i hear your voice in the wind
but it was just me whispering your name.


05.09.2007
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"Grief is the price we pay for love."
- Queen Elizabeth II

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The triolet's form is pretty straightforward. The first line is repeated in the 4th and 7th lines. The 2nd line is repeated in the final line, which looks like there is nothing much to write. The first two end words are used to complete the rhyming scheme. Thus the triolet looks like this : ABaAabAB, the capital letters are repeated lines.

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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

the problem is money

it always is, isn't it?

photo of a wall mural by dsnake1



the problem is money


you think sleeping on it
it will go away?
what are the chances of
one striking the lottery?
and then losing it
the next day.
or shall we wait
like withered flowers
in a vase?
that's very unlike you
bringing it up
a couple of parang hacks
will do the trick?
come on, let's get a beer
while we are still breathing
how long can you live
staying in cheap dorms?
the problem is money
yeah
and that freighter to taiwan
too
one day a lady in red
will sell you out
for some coins
when you are having
your morning coffee.


12/05/2021
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Does this looks like a character out of a TV show? No, it is partly based on some real life gunmen and gangsters.

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The problem is no one plays the difficulty.

*
from “Three Problems” by Noah Eli Gordon

I was inspired by the lines from the above poem. This is a prompt from the Bibliomancy Oracle. It can work in criminal ways.

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2021

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
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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.

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“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

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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2022