With vernal joy the drums proclaim the dance, The ring of cymbals greets the festive prowl, The lions in lockstep march so proudly prance With rapid winks of eye and waving jowl, With each bold leap and bound the crowds would cheer To welcome this, the Dragon's own New Year.
On Being Held Prisoner by an Interminable Zoom Call
Impatience stains my over-beetled brow As prattlers prattle in smug servile tones Oh give me gun to shoot my temple now Than me to suffer this in silenced groans!
On Life’s Storms
You made your choice, to slink your way through Life, To hide behind your temperamental rage, As if this world would shield you from all strife, When you well know, Life's storms none can assuage.
On Your One Mortal Life
When your body is battered, breaking down, You need to pause and listen to reflect, Perhaps your life, your craving for renown Must now make way for prayer and genuflect. Your duty now to yourself in this strife: Enact true justice to your mortal life.
On Why You Sneer
You just needed someone
You could sneer at
And jeer at
For failing
At that one thing
You wish could have been
Your own path in life.
On Wondering Where All the Years Went
I saw you onstage yesterday
Giving a speech to the assembled gathering
And it struck me
That it has been fifteen years
Since it was me on that stage
Playing the groom
Smiling at the crowd
And I remembered thinking, in that moment
Where did the years go?
How come I’m here now
Sitting in the crowd
With a head fuller with white hair
Wondering,
Whatever happened to all those dreams?
On The Self-Doubt of an Unpracticed Poet
These vines of doubt entangle me
Ensnare me in this darkened cage
Each line confounds, embitters me
And shrouds me in benighted rage
In white dreams I imagine me
A shining knight of sky and earth
But light of day proves: oh, poor me!
I’m but a speck, a pebble’s worth!
And so these lines, in spite of me
Come sputtering in halting train
These verses dark accuseth me
I crumble ‘neath my dreams, all vain.
On This Resolution
This New Year
I have made
This resolve:
To pare down
This one life
To slough off
Vain desires
Like snakeskin
Discarded:
An offering
For Your blessing.
On Sungkai
Early morning
And I am on the road again
Not quite sure
For whom
And for what
Life is full of such
Moments of incomprehension
We often do what we must
Even if we are not quite sure
For whom
And for what
And when and how and why.
On Your Online Profile
I stumbled onto your online profile today
On your corporate website
With words like
Excellently and
Well-known and
Visionary
Encrusted like jewels
On a bed of warm, mediocre poop
Of course, your online profile
Would omit the things
One would be embarrassed to
Speak about in polite company
And in highfalutin conferences
And in royal courts
Like how you left those bruises
On your wife
In places no one could see
Like how you abandoned
Your children
In ways no one could ever recover from
Like how you chased down
Your current younger wife
In ways she herself
Would wish to never remember
But you can rest easy
Because your online profile
Would keep all those things
Well hidden
Like your own life, and who you really are
Hidden away so well
Between those lines of blind self-praise
That you now hardly know
Your own self.