On Foiled Dreams (or, If Not This Life, then Next)

Some days Life kicks you in the teeth
and tries to bury you beneath
Reminds you that you're down and out,
defeated in your final bout.

In youth, you dreamt of summits' heights
The culmination of long nights
and days of striving, willing toil -
Yet here you are, your hopes all foiled.

For no one's owed a just reward -
as hostages to Life's sharp sword,
we all shall suffer what we must:
the lashings of Life's roaring gusts.

This bitter Truth shall have its round:
To some, all riches shall redound
while others must make do with this:
If not this Life, the Next holds bliss.

Familiar Ties

And so we go on like this, pretending
As if nothing has and will ever change
Not one of us fully comprehending
Why these ties that you bind are now fraying, estranged

You think that if we all just walk blindly
Close our eyes and ears to Justice and Truth
Somehow we can look back at this fondly
That Love alone can somehow meekly soothe

I reject your compulsive Forgiveness
I object to your purblind Compassion
I want Love that is grounded on Fairness
Not one based on evasive omissions

Avert your eyes, if you will, to all this
And pretend like we will somehow forget
But there is no going back to your imagined bliss
Only hearts overfed with putrid regret.

On Valentine’s Day (My Love, in the Spirit of John Donne)

Roses are red, violets are blue:
'til God strikes me dead, even thence, I'll love you.

For my Love is no casual fling,
it throbs and thrives, a-flowering,
a prayer in the dark of night,
a gust of air 'neath birds in flight.

My Love doth sing in hushed tones,
in tender words it soothes my bones,
it calls to you, in sweetest praise,
it rises with your morning gaze.

My Love flees not the growling seas,
it stays, it braves, my Love and me.
Undaunted by Life's rough travails,
My Love, amidst it all, prevails.

So when they praise the reddest Rose,
and when they mark the Violet blue -
The angels themselves will propose
That Our Love be forever True.

Happy Valentine’s Day to my one True Love <3

Poem II – Putera Puteri

T’was once a shining, splendoured thing 
Such hopes that Life itself daren’t cage 
Eyes that once gleamed with love ablaze 
Now dulled by slow, relentless age. 
 
And for its passing do I pray 
That you do find amidst your Rome 
a Life that shines, with splendour still  
And may Peace find its harboured home.  

Puisi I – Mata Hati

Cerah mata memandang kamu 
Cerah hati menumpas ragu
Dua jiwa berkongsi hidup
Takhta kasih berhias sanggup

Redup mata menatap kamu
Redup hati nyaman beradu
Naung jiwa di taman syahdu
Sanggul nyawa dirangkul baldu

Sungguh berkat hidup berdua!
Penuh rahmat hidup bersama!

Kasih mata memandang kamu
Kasih hati nyaman bertemu
Tiada berpisah walau terpisah
Di taman abadi bertemu wajah.

Poem I – Perplexed

I hold myself in state perplexed, 
Wherefore these so-called friends have flexed
their blind obeisance to a thief
Who gladly lends this nation grief.

Affrightened, shocked, we then did gasp
at tales of nation’s riches grasp’d,
In revelations of ill gain
and debts of billions now retained
at cost of our own public purse
And echoes of our children’s curse.

And herein lies my ill content
My queried mind in bafflement
What makes these fools of certain grief
to take up cudgels for a thief,
To make false claims of justice bent
When Justice was what God had sent?

Perhaps our own minds were athwart
Too bubbled up to see the art?

Or mayhaps those who know facts well
were flummoxed at the blatant spell
T’was cast by Power’s heavy wand
That Great and Good would dumbly stand
aside as thieves ruled in their prime
with robes of gold to hide their grime,
and riches piled for those with might
to plunder all in broad daylight.

And in minority we stand
The few and frazzled of the land
Accused of being “out of touch”
We’re told that politics is such:
That “Bossku”’s cause is of the right,
That white is black and black is white!

Then destined are we for the fall
a nation that would not stand tall
to judge a thief a criminal,
but rather praise a convict’s gall.