So many doors
tightly closed
the need for more clothing and food
can't be kept out
it's a small hamlet
by the river
when a man stamps his foot
the whole village wobbles
a slap from a woman
and the whole village is flooded with tears
a cough in the dark
reveals bricks of secrets
two old stone mills
like an old couple who
have worn out their lives
wind leaks through four walls
a candle light dim and faint
not a synonym for romance and cozy
but luxury
when they can't afford kerosene
they eat, wash, get in the blankets
before the candlelight goes out
remainder of the light is only
for the maternal needlework
a curve creek
clear and lucid
when catching fish and mud-skippers
they become as happy as the water
joyful shrieks waft
in the smoke from the cooking stove
these scenes which can only be
returned to if time regressed are
very much alive in memory
they just didn't grow with me
many years later the warren
became a rustic retreat
days of the dirt and soil
became a wandering cloud
the stubborn local sounds
suddenly emerge from baseless thoughts
the mushed corn
the yam gruel
carrots and cabbage
feeding the dream
the mountains, the water, the people
the kindly kampung
the birthmark
of that era.

Birth
In the womb
In labor, boom!


Enabler
Her he enabled
Now she's disabled


Interstellar
Travel to Mars
Next stop stars


Math Test
Don't be hysterical
It's only numerical


Singapore
Long awaited summit
Ascend or plummet?


Unlikely Nexus
Hooked on drugs
Lack of hugs?

We sit separated by the parking brake
The car on hold, exhaust choked up
Like the words that won’t come out
How do I bring myself to say that

The park is silent and the air musty
And so are we; a million tissues lie around
Like a flower bed of scrunched up lilies
It’s getting warm and I get out
But the words don’t

I offer an olive branch
It’s not quite the same thing
All I do is cover the gun with a pillow
To muffle the sound when I pull the trigger
The bullet still hits. The bullet still
Hits

Maybe it was foolishness coupled
With regret. I bring myself to say
The greatest lie that I shouldn’t
But we are both tired and I really want to go

I bring myself to say I don’t
Love you.

if you stood here for hours
as you did in the louvre
maybe you could see the artful
space penetrated by pillars
walls barely containing the serenity
of a weekday afternoon

to your left, some modern piece
of what looks like a bright red payphone
one half-full-half-empty plastic cup
teetering over the top like it wasn’t sure
which way to fall.
only the black handle knows what numerous i-love-yous
the filipina maids at 3pm tell to secret lovers
or their families back home.

underneath, a yellow **** stain
like some duchamp
although the inebriated ahpek who made it probably
didn’t know how to pronounce his name.
du-champ? du-camp?
aiyah who cares. Art is still art.

trailing across the marble swirls
in the pockmarked concrete floor you find a footprint
and perhaps those who cast it years ago
are the faceless men at work.
hard hats atop their plastic bottles
laying back to the ground, eyes glued shut to the insides
of their eyelids as if in prayer for forgiveness
from the sweltering sun.

further left a metal centipede forged by abandonment and thievery
of bicycles left to rust - seats wrenched away from
their rusting frames
like a prisoner shackled to a wall, nails slowly pulled
from his fingertips.
and the centipede is a ******* because the wheels don’t go
round no more if they are even still there.
but is it still stealing if you take away
something unwanted?

and in the next few hours or so, if you should linger
stay slouched in a corner
Or seated on mosaic tiled stools
at a checkerboard table like a king.
watch as performance art
children
fresh out of class
but uniforms stinking of stale p.e. sweat
defy the big man through football
or ice-and-water
or making a hell lot of noise
even though the stick figure painting says
NO BALL GAMES
life imitates art
life defies art
life destroys art

there are so many things to see for free
in this common space
maybe we don’t value it
till some bold-faced girl paints
the staircase gold
then we cry out - THIS IS VANDALISM
THIS IS NOT ART
maybe if we stopped for hours rooted -
rooting - we would see the artistry
of the common space
but all we want to do
is to rush past each other and slam our doors shut.

Cumin queuing
Exchanged by the fiery springs
It flew away blowing
When the chill was as willed as the obtrusive sky
Made of cranes running
Up and down until it is down below the hips.

How one would crave the distinguished dish severely
Whose aroma is everything you have heard singly
The pearl-like freckles beneath its wings
Tastes like heaven-human savagely beating alive
Increasing one's height and appetite.
Oily hands that grip your heart,
Slippery slides of the familiar coconut.

We eat in the restaurants
Eat in the bars
By the bistros
Against the street or on the ground
It does not matter where we are found
As we eat like we are dancing
With no one around
Who could possibly be watching?

Inside your own home
A house of a lone star
Impossibly pondering
How the pauper used wood
And turned it into cooking.

Food can be shared for
A life once cared for
Kept to yourself
Perhaps you beg not to share it
An octagon plate and octagon jades
Caramel vinegar rain
Tossing and turning with lightning veins.

East of the Equator on 1° 15' tropics is an old pirate isle
Irate *****-wavers are set to meet, I repeat, on Santosha
where, if you know it by its sanskrit, they might reconcile
Wishful leaders play symbolic. To us are none, but frenzy frolic.

Rudy doubles a pretty sight when smart cookie crumbles
to his knees.  The apprentice,  a fake gansta has capitulated to
Trump who's  known to expostulate his lot of twitterati
oh, the wizard of sentences,  cut the circuit and paparazzi.

Rocket man says read my lips, so Dotard threatens bigger drips
Both gaga over trigger hands, like-a-****** on hot dozen buttons.
Ain’t it a saga, they goatherd each other on,  so call in Dennis to
get us out of the funk. Just maybe, a remote chance, a fun slam-dunk!

The world awaits with bated breath, the immovable anchors to a
bad romance. We're stuck for answers to translate two gyrate minds,
singing hits a-capella under nuke umbrella.  No tanning spray and
pray please or death-from-behind us all, the wrench of humankind.

At 34, Prince has just begun life, to see his people starving to die
At 71, ****** has a life doing what he does,  while waiting to die  
Chasms miles long, but cookie cutter share tall man phantasm
94 stories high towards disarming God in their own ego suites.

Gurkhas and gazetted city blocks, the people in uttered groans
All twitterpating over a hermit throne dancing to a jailhouse rock
Two bright like buttons, so zero sum bargains may cost an arm and
an earth - nuclear glutton! Not a far gains from your usual Target?

At St Regis in gather,  string theories of riddles to Lord of the Rings
Towkays at the table “Order! Order!” no one absquatulates at all borders
In shambhala, will it be “Big and Bold” or “Beg and Hold”, who knows
Except Goldenhair, in first minute - Upside or Upset of an F1 ride!

School didn’t give me morphine for the
Aggravated assault; blunt force teaching and stuff.
Veins of dark-blue/black that lead into bones,
Even that was not enough.

Margins. two-finger spacing. the tainted, poisoned water I was taking.
Eluding imaginary devils, they banished their children to the depths, to teach them tough.
Help didn’t arrive upon graduation. warranty didn’t come with national simulation.
Evil hiding in plain sight within the corps of duty. waiting for

Lies propagated by Big Brother to break me.
Principle: punitive doctrine for baiting, hating, dictatin - HUSH!
Ubiquitous eyes follow us everywhere,
Slithering silently in the underbrush.