The Gains of Loss by Robert C. Leung

As I begin to lose
my sweet memory
The flotsam and jetsam
and ephemery.

The regrets, the injustice,
the pain and despair
The resentments, the insults,
the hurts and the fear.

The timeless reminders
of not good enough
Pale yellow post it says:
“Hasn’t got the right stuff.”

That time that you said
what no one would say
“I don’t really love you
now please go away.”

Most of it gone now,
I can’t quite remember
It whispers to me
from a foggy December.

Am I better off for it?
Well perhaps in some way.
Have I gained from the loss?
It’s a bit hard to say.

I need no longer sit here
and artfully languish
In all the sad fury
of my piquant anguish.

Like my father before me
I’m one of those old timers
Reaping the benefits
of beneficent Alzheimer’s.

Robert C. Leung © Copyright 2015

(With apologies to Dr. Seuss aka Theodor Seuss Geisel)

Green eggs and ham is what I pick
I like my poems un-iambic.

To much pomp and circumstance
Has me gazing quite askance.

I ask your patience Sam I am
For poetic posing I must slam.

My poetry I like to rhyme
In simple form and simple time.

And have it held with just the same
Respect and even mild acclaim.

A birthday card I shall not ****
For that to me would be a sham.

Nor baptism or bar mitzvah
I just do not have the chutzpah.

No wedding notice or get well
Poetic arrogance we must quell.

Each greeting billet I shall defend
As one of our true brethren.

Yes poetry indeed I’ll slam it
No synecdoche* or enjambment.*

I’ll have no Haibun* or Kyrielle*
No Triversen* or Villanelle*.

Is simple rhyme anymore silly
Than didactic forms we praise so shrilly?

I do not like to follow forms.
I do not like these contrived norms.

It is the freedom of poetry
that first attracted me to thee.

And why can’t all poetics be
Of an equal equality.

Perhaps it’s not the forms I hate
But the pompousness they doth dictate.

I will not stand for Seussian abuse
I relish odes to eggs chartreuse.

And so I say to thee dear Sam
My poems are happy as they am.

© Copyright 2018 Robert C. Leung

Some say the heart’s an *****
that plays a catchy song,
It’s very simple. Just two beats
and we must sing along.

Some say the heart’s a teacher
of lessons we should know,
With every beat it doth repeat.
But alas I’m a bit too slow.

Perhaps the heart’s a lover
that seems what they say most,
And so we chase each other round,
till we give up the ghost.

Use your head and not your heart
I think I heard that too,
You’ll be safe and wiser then,
but is that really true?

Do not wear it on your sleeve
was my dear mom’s refrain,
Or you are destined to commit
your sins once more again.

But I say let love pierce you once
or as often as it takes,
For there is not a sweeter pain
than when our hearts do break.

And we are opened for all to see
beneath our sorry soul,
What dares to make us human
and seeks to makes us whole.

In that moment my dear heart
alive in death we are,
And happily may fade away,
glad to have come this far.

Robert C. Leung © Copyright 2017

Is the nature of egoic fecundity
a reflection of human profundity?

Or is it just that we are blessed
with ourselves to be obsessed.

And thus to give no further thought
to all the wrongs we have wrought.

In spite of all the things we’re taught,
Even though the sacred we have sought
No peace of mind have we bought.

And no true purchase have we yet found,
Upon the steps of higher ground.
Hollow though this promise sounds.

Perhaps as humans we’re bound to see
if there’s a chance that we might be
Better than we thought we’d be.


© Copyright 2018 Robert C. Leung

I thought I had something to say
Profound and rich with worth
It might go down in history
It might just move the earth.

I thought it must be marvelous
as I am wont to do
It swelled my heart and then my head
what else I leave to you.

It must be quite a thing indeed
being of my own creation
For genius is the natural end
of my imagination.

At least it will be noteworthy?
But alas t’was but a dream.
The cawing of a silly crow
lost in corn flakes and cream.

I thought it must be timely.
Should’ve thought before I spoke.
Now standing here with crimson face
It all seems quite baroque.

Please accept my sincere apology
Think of me as the dearly departed
Go on about your lovely day
And pretend I never started.

© Copyright 2017 Robert C. Leung

Stand still the way deer do
when danger is near.
Maybe it won’t notice you.
Stand still the way children do
when something is wrong.
Perhaps nothing bad will happen.
Breathe shallow.
It will pass.
The darkness that abraids the skin.
Hold your breath.
Don’t move.
Pray It won’t see you
as it draws ever near.
Stop your heart!
Smell its fetid breath.

This too shall pass.


© 2018 Robert C. Leung

On a soggy day reading soggy poets
searching for something to say.

They moan of rain, drone about blackberries,
wail about trees and the meaning of mud.

What’s to be found there?
Even footprints are lost.

Gray matter marinated in meter and rhyme
wordy intoxicants abound till nothing matters
– much.

My dog bathed and brushed
fluffy as a puppy.

The other snoring lightly into a comforter.

Haikus cradle the ferry road.

The sonnet sea wombs our island dear.

And I fan a spark so hard in the dark.

But alas there’ll be no flame tonight.



© 2018 Robert C. Leung

What is the value of being old
if you’re not a cheese,
a wine,
a vintage car,
or an oil painting by some dead Italian.
A graduation corsage pressed flat in dear diary.
Love letter bliss-scented with ignorance.
Yearbook incantations remind you that you could have been…

a contender.

Why are some old things revered and others reviled?
Some adored and others abandoned like treasured toys we’ve broken or outgrown.

I see a future of stewed prunes,
crude rooms, rheumy eyes
filled with vacant stares
and the smell of things
I’d forgotten, I’d forgotten.

We all dine at the mortality table
but some of us leave early
so as not to get stuck with the check.

© Copyright 2017 Robert C. Leung

Please consider us poets.
What a novel conceit
driven by our desire
to occasionally eat
of the fruit of validation
the wine of faint praise,
and the ephemeral haunt
of one worshipping gaze.

Tell me that I matter.
Pay attention to me.
Just see what I’ve done
and in it see me.
For on just such a thread
my esteem dangles dear.
In hopes that dense strangers
will treat it with care.

We seem willing to throw
our words worth to the winds.
On just the sad hope
that we might be let in.
And if we are
what can we hope to find.
But inevitable proof
we’ve lost more than our mind.

© Copyright 2018 Robert C. Leung

Like a switchblade my ******* flashed out
Angry, self righteous, without any doubt.

A weapon or protest stabs innocent air,
skewering injustice and all things unfair.

Well oiled and oft used it stands at the ready,
Resolute, on point and ever so steady.

It leaps forth with such speed I could swear the air sang
with defiant rebellion and an audible twang.

It appears on the seen without much provocation,
except for my own insecure invocation.

Ah those were the days with scalpel like ease
and Errol Flynn skill I’d carve all that I please.

A happily buoyant juvenile revolution,
which had much to do with my evolution.

But now quiet and still in its scabbard it sits.
Tired, wrinkled and dull like my wits

Slightly arthritic and just a tad slower,
My weapon of choice now a disdainful glower.

Are there simply less things that annoy me enough
to expose prodigious digit with a great huff?

Do things matter less with the passing of time?
My insurgent uprisings reduced to sad rhyme.

Has peace come at last to this humble shell?
Tranquility now no more raising of hell?

My memories defiant and still fresh, they do linger.
But now it’s unlikely that I’d lift a finger.

© Copyright 2017 Robert C. Leung

My breathing is gentle
Though I’m feeling quite mental
As if everything I could rhyme

It’s rapturous and great
I must note it, can’t wait
This experience is quite sublime.

I started to bed
Then things pop in my head
Instead of just popping out

I awaken in fright
In the middle of night
To discover I’m stricken with gout

Oh woe is me
It seems easy to see
That life is not easy at all

And that each step I take
Is just prep for my wake
And I’m one step away from the fall

A fall that won’t end
And a break that won’t mend
That’s all that there is left for me

Down the stairs in the dark
And the dogs they will bark
I’ll die getting up for a ***.

Is this all that’s left
To be sad and bereft
That seems unfair and quite cruel

To lie in your grave
And not misbehave
Neath a tombstone that says you’re a fool

So if you can’t cope
Don’t feel you’re a dope
For most of us don’t have a clue

A tisket a tasket
Just lie in your casket
And hold your breath till your blue

Robert C. Leung © Copyright 2015

Gold tinged
just singed light.
The scent of rain washed air.
Padded paws on pavement.
and glittering, twittering,
of unseen passerine*
persuade me that I am not as alone
as I thought.
That gloss of moss
frames my loss,
And dew bejeweled leaves
leave me breathless.
Here I meander and politely philander
with the nature of these sweet things
And I am suddenly
surprisingly
aware!

© Robert C. Leung 2020