I see a dying swan
Resting on the marshes of the bank
Her feathers white as snow
Her wings like that of a silk

I hear a dying swan
whispering softly to the river
While she rests and sleeps
the river answers back with a song

A song of life and death
Graping onto her graceful neck
breath took her away
And now she sleeps and never comes back

I know a dying swan
she's like a mother
and the river a home
though her eyes told me no story anymore
I still believe her, that dying swan

Those lights, they swim and float gently
in an infinite pool of darkness ,
They call the lights 'stars'
and the pool the 'night sky',

I see their eyes blinking at me,
trying to hum a lullaby for me,
they twirl and swirl and dance
to the music of the owl and the wind.

A white crescent hangs high above,
Giving the earth a pleasure glow,
she knew what darkness might bring,
so she gifted us a show,

Of casted shadows over the tall trees,
where ocean tide crawls on the beach,
and mere mysteries of stolen jewelry,
all but a show, all but a show.

So now goodnight, my child,
let the crescent moon tuck you in,
with her light upon you,
and the stars above you.

Good night, my child, goodbye.

August, I start from one,
The door sounds against the tiles,
You start to leave your undenying presence
Stuck onto the frontlets of my thoughts.

Two, words were spoken few,
But a few human errors & one simple word
You correct my interpretation,
& now you start to interpretate my life.

Three, a fortnight has passed,
My heart embraces to your name,
But soon we will be set apart,
Now to cherish our last days.

Four, the end of August comes our end,
As the door sounds against the tiles again.
But now without you,
Without any interpretation or name.

Five, it's December now.
I'll be waiting & counting down to ten,
Until you come back,
& the door sounds once again.

From, the girl at the smallest corner of your memory.

"Mama... Mama!"

Mama sometimes doesn't wake up when I want her to.
Mama must be dreaming about the ocean.

And there are waves in the ocean.
And the waves are outside my window.
And I hear them.

Swoosh... swoosh... swoosh...

I draw the waves for Mama everyday.
They are squiggly and big,
like the messy lines on Mama's forehead.
Mama's forehead is big, big!
And the waves are big, big like Mama's forehead!

They are blue like the sky.
The sky is blue because blue is your favourite colour.
I like blue too, because Mama loves blue.

I want Mama to know that there are waves outside our house.

I can hear them swooshing outside the window.

Papa says: "It's just the wind."
But he's wrong, Mama.
Wind doesn't swoosh like a wave does.

I know, because I hear it.

You hear it too, right, Mama?
And you dream about the waves too.

And in your dream, the waves are swooshing outside your window.

They are squiggly and they fill our room with the big ocean.
They can even touch the sky.

And the window can't hold the ocean anymore,
and their hands go-
BAM!

Mama mama,
The waves are coming into our house.
Wake up.
They're coming.

They're coming in Mama.
The room is so small, and the ocean is so big.

Wake up.

Isn't blue our favourite colour?
Don't you want to see the blue sky again?

The waves outside our window are coming in.

And you sleep like they don't.

Mama.
Do you know?
I can hear the waves in you
Deep, deep inside you.
They are big, big like your forehead.

Bigger than the bed you are lying on.

Sometimes
you don't wake up when I want you to,
But it's okay.

Mama must be dreaming about the ocean again.

Before I go to sleep, read me
A bedtime story,
Read me
a bedtime story.

I would like to be young again.

That I could wake in solace
From the sleepless dream of a child's stage
Where the world is of no concern,
but only fairies and knights reside.

Such magic can only be found in their eyes.

If we could never wake up to reality
To face the crippling truth that there is no such
Happiness
In the blossoming of adulthood,
Then every day of our lives would be
Beautiful.

Every day
would end with the last pages
Of a happy ever after.

It was an ephemeral moment
As stars swam gently above the still dark ocean
the night kisses the water in everlasting ripples
in mellifluous voices of whisper & echoes

It was an ephemeral moment
As the beautiful aurora ruled over time
She wore silks of scarlet, red & blue linen
that painted across the mountains & skies

It was an ephemeral moment
where shadows dance around the crackled bonfire
as natives tell of legends untold
within the midnight of dark and cold

It still is an ephemeral moment
if you believe them to be
the world is made just of defining moments
scraps and shattered reflections of you and me

My feet touches, sways, & sweeps,
the white cement left on its street,
it told me, 'begone, begone, begone'
and all I ever cared was the colours of the sun.

A newspaper, thin and fair,
dances along the sways of a breeze,
Smoke creeps out of its small chimney,
of white water and black coffee

A tree stood tall and proud,
despite the lack of clothes and sound,
of the wind, the sun, and the sea,
of anything but the black & white trees.

I stopped, turned and stared,
through the white window
and black chair,
it seemed too easy and fast to me,
but within the black and white,
you were grey to me.

A free bird
Perched on the roof of an old man's brick, it sits
on the browning tiles
Talking to the rooster beside it saying,
"This is not my home."

The rooster does not answer,
It turns its head north.

A little while longer, the lung is caged
And home is prison-
The bird is not quite free again.

As is a plane soaring across the open sky
With wings metallic of touch;
Like a free bird, the
Cranes fly beside the window saying,
"This is not your home."

It does not answer,
And the cranes fly pass.

A little while longer, the lung is caged
and home is prison-
The bird is not quite free again.
And nowhere is anywhere can they say
This is our home,
This is our home...

But a Man holds it, the key
To the cage
And instead of stopping to listen for the groaning plane
And the cranes that cry to know
What kind of bird it is -

He looks up to his roof where
The free bird and the rooster perch on the
Brown tiles, musty from an old man's greed
And asks,

Where is the cage?
Where
is the **** cage?

So to his back he continues
Drinking his lukewarm coffee,
Swallowing the truth that even he
Might be misplaced
under his own roof.

Do you see that old man
filthy and wrinkled on the street
he's a statue where the feet often steps
and yet his soul never did leave

Do you see that young lady
Pained and teared in her heart
sitting by the lonely bench
her eyes teary, staring at the sun

Have you seen that small child
cold and starved by his fate
drinking water despite its filthiness
smiling despite the cruelty of the world

How many unspoken words are there
roaming around in the thin air
knowing how large the world is
Yet the love is so small, so rare

Knowing how heartless people can be
knowing that their beloved ones left
and yet they wore shades of smile
With their unspoken words behind everything else

She's the girl with the matte lipstick,
Deep, bold red that flows in her veins
She throws them fierce on her fragile lips
Warning every man she's more than a kiss.

She's the girl with the matte lipstick
A deeper red than the roses she was given,
One look at the mirror and she's all set
To rule out the world with her head set high.

And she will be stronger than you and I,
For her soul is clinquant with
glittery gold
Of fading scars and past mistakes
That she will one day conquer all on her own.

My hands are of wrinkles
Worn out by the passing of time
And yet dearly cherishing on my palms
A small pendant silver & bright

Wear it not around my neck
For my poor eyes see not
But leave it brushing on my hands
For be it a gift from God

Like a Jackdaw
you threw freedom away
And stood on the windowsill
Eyes resting off the lane

The pendant such beautiful gift
A shining star falling from above
And yet lay still in the hands of another
The truth a Jackdaw would not want

The universe plays a winter song
A soprana, tenor, bass & alto,
You lift your wings & slowly left
Scared to be called a thief of a pendant, a desire that was no fate of yours.

Petal by petal, she wanes
Ever so quietly
Like a waking consciousness succumbing
To sleep,
I now understand the bitterness
Of one's last breath.

But why, why does it render such
Pain? Is not death
Beautiful?
The withering of all
Sufferings and endurance, the
Beginning of one's revelation,
And yet again...

Maybe
If I turn her into a poem,
If I can etch her essence into
Pen and paper, she will live on;
They said words were powerful.

I only want her to be strong.

Live on,
Live on,
Please live on...

To my popo.(2016)

I saw you.

Squeezed between sentences,
In semi colons and calibre comas,
On page twenty six.

Smudging word after word
With vagueness,
And I lost track of the story.

Couldn't find a full stop,
Couldn't find you.

Help me.

I drank in the starry sky
before me, like I've
always owned it,
Like I've always owned you.

If so my thoughts could speak for itself
Darling, it will echo 'cross the ocean floor
Scorching through the misty clouds above
Just so it could be with you.

If so my thoughts had a voice of its own
It will hum you a lovely lullaby
Of a poem that I once wrote
With you, my dear, as a dream come true.

And yet my thoughts do not speak
Nor does it contain a voice of its own
For I buried it deep into the blood of my veins
Fear that our thoughts do not bond with each other

I wonder if your thoughts speak of mine
For mine speaks of your existence
I pray as countless nights pass by
For a love that never, ever, blooms

A plane,
Soaring through and above the
Open space;
Hearing the grunt and the
Groan of its flight
As I sit in my room with blinds closed tight.

Closing my eyes, touching the
Faint trails of its last whine
Before it fades into painful silence
Like the end days of
A broken heart.

Its metallic wings,
Groaning with the essence of mankind:

How should I put it?
The plane,
Like a free bird
But not quite.

The poplar tree blooms no more,
The magpie sings no new songs,
Yet I cling onto the restless years,
When you, my dear, were still here.

Remember the wind that took your hat,
And a gentleman I was retrieving it back?
Our eyes destined for the first time,
& now I long so for that beautiful eyes.

Merry it was our days in your kitchen!
Pots and pans we sang & dance!
Our feet tangled not on the carpet of red,
Our hands twine like a morning glory on a fence.

Such days are but a memory,
As I live to sit on the chair alone,
Remember not the day of  judgement,
For my heart aches and sores for you.

My dear, how long should I wait,
Wait for another meeting of our fate,
The piano has no fingers to await,
For the only fingers to await was you.

Winter comes soundlessly still,
As your hands appeared in mine.
I smiled and forklift my cane,
& now the chair is left alone.

*"Olivia, is that you?"

Questions left unanswered
That which we ask ourselves, why?
Tired from unwanted existence
In this life, you and I

Uncertainty of tomorrow
In the waking of everyday
Strangling ropes to our throats
Dragging cobblestones on railways

Midnight shifting thoughts
That which I ask myself, should I?
Crumpled bed sheets whispering soft
A life we must survive

Empty halls and corridors so void
In an empty city of a heart you toyed
Of which I soiled with water and sunlight
Is now a withered lack of teeming life

Battles on horses under the moon
Leave dead men's corpses in daylight blues
And looting of thieves through opened doors
Stolen heartstrings and broken windows

My heart was never yours to choose
And knowing not your despicable muse
And so you stole the city of my heart
Its light long gone as darkness comes

I glanced at the first rose of winter,
Blighted & withered by the cold,
Her blood red & stained onto the pages
Of my very first winter poem.

Across the white grounds stood a man,
Old & shivering like erosive sand,
His rake taking back the souls of nature,
Leaving still the branches bare.

But bare not much like the book on my lap,
Its skin & tissues as bare as a single hair,
The wind gushes & hushes & swips
Turning the pages alive and well.

I desire to press the ink onto the page,
And yet empty it is without a word,
For after the rose choked & blighted,
My first poem was stolen & gone.

By the wind, and into the sky,
Into the soul I've longed to recall,
Words were not enough for a poem,
For poem was not words but a person of a soul I desire.

You were afraid
Of falling.

Falling for people
That gave you no ground
for landing;
Unreachable heights that
Hands can't grasp,
All that is left is an
Emotional mess -

Because love is a dangerous flight.
And settling for risks,
Isn't your choice of fun.

Under the clocks there was a man
Whom I saw beside the ticket machine.

Passengers of the train
Come and go
Towards a destination of their own,
But he seems already at home
Under the clocks, below the railways;
Or is the station his only find?
Dressed in confusion and mental
Isolation from the sight of
Busy Melbournians.

Left to be sold to
First impressions and
Entertainment for the passersby,
But he receives none
Of their trampling feet
And their questioning eyes:

For when he shouted mumbling
Words at men with
Badges and gun machines,
As they did their inspection
In and out of his clothes and his
Bare feet,
He knows one thing and
One thing only -

He has a place to go,
But where?

Memories missed through winter winds
Under one sky, below two evenings
Sneak through the night and I'll make graffiti
On unwanted depression and social anxiety
colourful coats on chipped off walls
Let these art speak for me.

The alluring simplicity unaware of
Lies simply in everything we are
Even naked eyes aren't able enough
To notice such things considered triviality by many.

And with each passing sight
Exchanged glances across the room,
Sipping morning coffee in the awakening of the mind,
But does it really open our eyes?

Little did we know
Of the smallest matters that mean the ocean to us
But you and I will one day realise
The enormity of the world
Shouldn't have mattered that much.

Tireless train on metal railways,
Indecision to halt
For rushing men with suitcases.
Tell me, where's your destination?

Fumbling hearts with trampling feet
To catch the present,
A minute too late.

She's gone now.
You've lost your next train station.

Eyes closed;
Pathetic fallacy, I suppose
Raining stains on foggy windows
I left my heart outside.

Reminiscing
Under the evening shadows
And it plays on the radio
Echoing sounds of tomorrow.

Liesbeleid,
Don't you ever stop to know
I think of you dearly so
As the rain showers
And my coffee turns cold

I breathe the breath of a poet
Held hostage by mediocrity,
Such indifference were the norm
Of unwritten rules and irony.

Among the bushes roses
Bloomed many,
But few survived
even a day or two,
For they withered off
With their thorns pierced
Through their petals,
Choking
From the words of suits and ties
That viewed the world as a monopoly game.

Child, you have two ears, but
do not let the wind whisper into them
with blind language.

Make your own path,
And set foot on the road untraveled.

Apologies yet guilty free
I, without warning beforehand
Numbered the atoms in your eyes
Every heartbeat in your life
To which accounts for none
But thinking of you at nights
Like this, tonight.

This by no doubt is unnecessary
A waste, a dump down the bowl
But do take this as a sign
Of my effort unrecognised

I never called it a
Writer's block or what not,
Never did.

More to just a halt of the
pen that gathers dust and sand
Than the mind's mechanism rusting
With the passing of time and
Frame.

It's your afternoon nap in that hot
Sweaty state, drinking in
the world but
Never enough to satisfy.
Words don't come as you choose
And you're left spooning your
Own mouth.

You're a servant of your own.

It's a loss without restoration,
A poet's unrequited love.

And in that state of mind
you question
the void lying
On pen and paper.

Her head,
thronged with a hollow absence
rests on the mattress of her dreams,
As though succumbing to sleep,
The world may spare these glass bones their last insult.

Reality never looked so transparent.

Yet she rests with an open eye
Drowsy and awake,
leaning against her barricade;
Like a front line soldier gripping to his fast beating
Heart against the mud wall
In the middle of a flaring night.

Flaring,
like the car lights through her windows
Traversing across the four walls in
A ghostly dance of a fairytale she
Once read,
But forgotten.

Her blanket feels
Too thin.
The world
Is peeping through the onion's layers.

A woven web around her skin
Peeped through,
Like a solider's needle pin.

Funny, isn't it?
Reality never looked so transparent.

And so the Eighth of November
Has come dusting off our shoulders
High-chested, heart's crossed:
America's judgement day.

And it came, like a sudden halt of a
Cliff hanger
Or a pause to an unfinished sentence,
The irony of the aftertaste -

His old man broken-hearted
Slumped anxiously in his chair
As the screen bluntly illuminates
Our long awaited nightmare.

My heart wrenched at the sight
Of his shattered face
As though hope itself became
A hopeless, endless chase.

Our path is at its foggiest
Almost unseen with naked eyes
And we had drained all our energy
To try and make things right.

But as the former says:
No matter what happens,
"The sun will rise again in the morning."

It bends like
A joint would,
Swaying in the wind’s
Play, as would a joint
Be swayed by the fingers
Of the smoker.

But it is not harmful,
Though you would take them as one.
When the sun sets
In golden dips,
It turns into something
Beautiful.

The sky exchanges its clouds for the stars & moon,
The mountains & valleys of green emphasizes its living creatures,
and still you have yet to understand my love for you.

Why does the snow fall in the grey,
and spring blooms in the blue,
But yet they say to each other, 'I love you"?

For true love happens unexpected,
they don't come in line,
but you have yet to understand my love for you.

Eyes are made to see beautiful moments,
in nightmares creeping between your sleep,
But our naked eyes just can't meet.

While you're in the south,
I'm here thinking of you,
for you see,
you have yet to know my love for you.

I'll keep my distance,
in the aligning stars of the universe,
for in the end,
you have never understood my love for you.

The line halts to a stop
and the heart goes
Beat.
Beat.
Bea.
B.
.

I wonder
What it's like to see nothing and yet
Walking so confidently like you did
The other day.

Perhaps you didn't notice me,
Which is good;
I was just behind
Staring at you counting
The number of dents
On the pavement
And feeling for the sharp corners, and
Wondering
if you were actually blind.

How were you so good at it?

Sorry I doubted you.
I have a weariness
For people
With black tinted sunglasses.

To my God,
I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for the frowns in my heart and the crowns I put above my head.
For the times I didn't hold Your hand
when I should have, but instead I relied on myself
to face the giants along the way.

I'm sorry for bad habits that stay like
an old, stubborn stain,
and to every promise and dreams that
dissipates in mid-air
before I knew how to mean what I say.

I'm sorry I did not love
when someone might have needed it the most,
and for every lost opportunity to be the person that You have purposed in the very heart of my soul.
But still You took me as I am.
Unwanted and in debt,
Still You cared for me.

In the end of the day,
I'm sorry that You had to die
for someone like me.

Who am I, God,
that You should love even me?

I'm sorry always,
and for all these things,
please forgive me.