FLOWERS ARE FALLING INTO A FLOWING STREAM

Flowers are falling into a moving stream
Each petal tells a tale of youth’s beauty and innocence lost
How little does youth know what the poets have written-
‘Those who love deepest do suffer most’.

Youth says---‘Purest love and sweetest dreams are mine
They shall never fade away-so my heart tells me
Time shall not my joys and pleasures ravage
In the bowers of love I will abide eternally’.

How harsh and merciless is  time
Nothing remains the same forever
Even love knows pain and sorrow
Even the most beautiful dreams disappear.

Flowers are falling—petal by petal
Into the heartless moving stream
Oblivious to love’s lamentation
And the loss of its fondest dream

'I'll  save the world'
  Millions have said this before
  'Serve mankind selflessly
  Give, give, give more'.

   I am just an ordinary man
   With a burden of my own
   I leave to others to usher in a brave new era
   Quietly and unobtrusively I live alone.

MY BOYHOOD DAYS
        Klang# then was a sleepy and backward town
      But ronggeng was the highlight of the night
      A dance with a lovely wanita** cost 30 cents
      It brought Malayan men's emotions to the supreme height.

      Mum said: study hard, ronggeng is for grown-up men
      Don't let me catch you  in the amusement park watching
      Immoral men dance with coy and seductive ronggeng girls
      Unless you want dad to give you a good beating!

Poetry
is not clever well-stringed words
nor about rhythm and rhyme
images and metaphors
and all the craftsmanship that brings
the parts together--
it's more, much, much more--
poetry is subtle and has a secret life and pulse of its own
its home is a mysterious hideout
which so few could ever discover
and turn it into music to soothe the heart-

I have struggled all my life
only to end up saying-
I am still searching for the key
to unlock its mystery-
I write poetry but am not a poet-
perhaps never could be one.

TOMORROW
I'll be there
but never the same me
I evolve
to live I 've to be free
tomorrow
only moments which unfold
I'll be there
I'm a new person--have discarded the old

THE LAST LOVE LETTER OF TCHAIKOVSKY*

My angel,  life of my life
Fate would never allow me to meet thee
Only in thy letters to me
Do I feel the touch of love’s ecstasy.

Would but that upon thy sweet face
I would  just once behold
All my sixth symphonies I would gladly exchange
In love’s name and in its wondrous beauty untold.

Here with all my rapturous kisses
I send thee the music of ‘Love’s Sorrow’
Every note swims in the sea of my restless heart
None would such grievous pain of mine ever know.

Let history judge
All that is between thee and me
Even the deluge that drowns the whole world
Would never obliterate every melody I dedicate to thee.

• Tchaikovsky’s benefactress was Madame Von Meck  (Nadezhda) who exchanged 260 love- letters (1876—1887)with him and endowed him with a regular income on the understanding that they should never meet.
Her late  husband was a millionaire whose fortune was derived from  his railway business.
Finally, she broke up the relationship leaving the composer in complete  devastation.
This is one of the most poignant love-stories of all time.

' LESS'
A little word
So easy to express
It's simply called
' Less'.

Just one word
Makes my life's strongest fortress
With none to strive
I have none to impress

MATTER OF THE HEART

Have you forgotten
Where you have placed your heart?
Days drift away like passing clouds
They appear and too soon they part.

Why have you neglected your heart?
Are you too hardened to feel anymore?
Are you afraid of the past
Or tears you shed before?

Has your heart wandered
To where it doesn't belong?
To the unknown wilderness
Devoid of happy human voice or merry bird-song?

It's never too late to welcome
Your  heart home -you it does miss sadly
And longs to be held in your warm ***** once more
There shall be no goodbye this time--love is for eternity.

LIFE IN A NUTSHELL

What had been done
Can't be undone
What had not been done--
Temps perdu--can't be done.

Life in a nutshell is about
Doing or not -doing--verily-
Being or not-being
Forget all the high-sounding insipid philosophy.

APOCALYPSE

Civilisation will sleep
in time's graveyard
there's too much hatred
bad blood that would split
every artery and vein asunder
when the human heart
could feel no more
when reason has been
swept away by the soulless indifferent wind
and nights are but the ghosts
of anguish and perdition
when dreams are hellish nightmares
and sleep is but a trail
of torturous afflictions
when peace has bidden farewell
and hopes have sunk
into abysmal oblivion

what is left
and what is there to be lived for?

now in this grimmest hour
darker than the silent grave
rises only spectre's head
ugly, ominous , relentless and revengeful

this then is the apocalypse -
the world has lost its sight
splendour and beauty
and in every corner of earth
a signboard will be found
bearing the name : Dead