The travelling companion

Four hours, perhaps more have I travelled.

Deep in the night, darkness's dense as metal.
Alone on the road,
Wonder why I still smell the fragrance of the grass
And feel the chill from the blow
When my mind keeps spurring: “Got to go.”
 
Sounds of breathing, not mine: the last thing I expect to hear.
Turning around, I see vaguely a fellow tall and lanky
In a denim shirt I probably would wear in my tender years.
His figure: both distant and near; solid and fuzzy
Is yet not uncanny.
Approaching me like someone
Who’s finally remembered his dream.
 
His countenance innocent;
His tone most sincere.
He insists on walking with me
“But,” I ask, “why with me?”
“What’s your name? May I ask?” - my genuine curiosity.
“I’m John, yeah, same as yours,” says the stranger
And I can’t but gape.
“Got something so urgent to settle,” I say,
“I can’t possibly slow down.”
Yet my uninvited companion
Is too determined to be turned down.
A queer affinity I feel, however,
As he throws his questions around.

 “What happened when you grew up?” He asks,
“Has Lily come back?”
“Did you make it to Architecture?
And did you - did we - get over Father’s death?”
He flips through my childhood albums callously
The way  a tactless counsellor does --- 
The harsh schooldays, the regimented teachers, the stolen candies;
Vexations and frustrations,
Those quickly wiped-away tears ---
Those wounds are as fresh as tonight’s but I feel the urge
To comfort the lad before my eyes,
To give him strength to live.

 “Not easy, never was,” I say,

“Clichés are always true.
Don’t they say: “Life’s not a bed of roses”?
You’ll live to see its truth.”
“Been faced with a crisis lately,” I go on,
“Felt my soul had gone to pieces.
Thought of giving it up altogether
And never, ever having to suffer.
But then I slapped that thought away
To see how much more I could bear.”
For a time I can’t tell if it’s a lie or promise
I’m nailing to young John’s ears.

Talking as we’re walking,

I smell the salt of the sea.
“I’d wanted to see you all these years,” John says,
“At times I couldn’t breathe.”
“Now that I’ve seen you,” he goes on,
“I can face whatever life has to give.”
With these final words, smilingly, he dissolves in the dark
Though I very much wonder if he will ever leave.
Gazing at the black, devouring waves,
I think about what would have been
If, in this fateful night, my travelling companion,
Had not chosen to appear.

By Tammy

*You have my sincere gratitude if you took time to read this poem.  It's perhaps a bit sad for this jolly season but I hope you've found it heart-warming as well.  I have a tender feeling for it. 

I hear the ghost singing the blues of the black

The mortal says
jazz is the aspirin,
a way to take
to take ache away --
In the minutes there is time,
to switch chores into shifting choruses,
to play vibes and visions in improvisations,
which the minutes will reverse:
it is time
to dismiss the world’s mistreats
to ditch life's defining, or deriding, restraints,
to jaywalk the damned fate
dissipating all our says;
it is time
to rise
to thrive
to digress
if not transgress
rewriting the life's elegy
as a live poetry.

by Kathy

[I found writing poetry is a good way to share good music :) This Nina Simone performance is one of my favorite live pieces - Nina's vocal is electrifying, even the piano exudes her vibratos (which are lyrical and fueled with intense feelings). Enjoy :) ]

Hi All,

I hope this light-hearted poem will put a smile on your lips.  Below is a drawing my brother did for the poem :DD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Dear, time to post your works!!

>v< >v< ^v^

An embarrassing moment

A sweet and savoury night in Fuel Espresso
With long lost faces, acquainted smiles and chuckles.
“It’s Careless Whisper.  What a nice old tune!
Have you seen Sally lately?  And how’s dear old June? 
Oh! How much your daughter has grown! 
You two look like sisters.”
“Help yourself to some Caesar salad, Tammy. 
Don’t just engage in chatters.”
“Excusez- moi,” I rose to go to respond to the call of nature.
“Wow! That’s wonderful. You still remember
the French we learnt together after so many years?”
 
I returned after an instant, sitting in my comfy seat.
Zipping my Café de olla – classic, aromatic, bittersweet.
“What a splendid night we have with
Music so good, food so superb.
Thank you all for your friendship
Throughout all these years.”
My vision began to blur as I felt that tenderness.
“We must meet more often. And the place, oh, it’s a good pick.”
Excited as I was, yet - I couldn’t fail to notice
An absence of responses, no echoing or “yes”.

Raising my eye lids a tiny bit, oops!

What a sight to behold!
A table full of strangers all staring at me with awe,
Some eyes show puzzle and some, shock, unspeakable.
So where am I?  What happened?  Where did I go? 
Was it a trance? 
Oh what kind of imbecile can go to the wrong table? 
A hasty apology I uttered and I rose and flew,
Scurrying, scampering and searching desperately for my old familiar crew. 
Seated correctly finally though my body,
It’s a little askew.
 
 “You sure have been a long time,
Know what we’re talking about?  
What has ever made you flush the most? 
Anything’s ever caused a fluttered shout?” 
“Oh!  No!  Never, I said,” as I tried hard to hide
What was about to spill out
With a queer wry smile.    

By Tammy

The Home

We are the ones who lives in shoe boxes,
chasing the debilitating ups and downs of stocks and shares
in numbers and percentages telling no stories of our core integrity
but just wonders of all that is solid melting into air.

We watch the wiry old ones living on paper card boxes,
pushing them, with flimsy carts, days and nights ,
like Sisyphus rolling the rock round the clock
for few cents in exchange for few cheap bites.

We bury our young ones with a feeding spoon,
dipping their heads in a heap of mind blowing,
if not mind boggling notes and textbooks
for a certificate which secures a seat in the Central concrete cave.

When shall we get back our souls long sold to Mephistopheles?
When shall we stop chasing after a better bit of bread money but truly see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower?
When shall we free our children from the invisible hand, running non-stop round the circle girdling free souls, round and round the Wheel of getting and spending, tossing and turning in the nauseating nothingness?

Our home is, indeed, too much with us--

Yet we shall never let go our combatant spirit to turn rags into riches,
but sluice them in the new womb, hold them, and mould them in our Habour of Victory,
fighting for our true dignity in the pool of blood with stars.

by Kathy

What do you see in a piece of oak?

 

Pygmalion saw Galatea in his ivory;
Ju Ming made his bronze and painted wood dance,
Raise their hands, kneel and kick and
Spread their arms
In perfect harmony of Tai Chi.
What do you see in a piece of oak? 
*Milen Vassilev saw a flower sprouting, growing, blossomig
And with his fingers, swift as dancers,
Partnered with a scientist’s precision,
Calculating what had to leave and what remained,
Roughing out edges, cutting, trimming, polishing -
The  flower **blooming at last - in our city;
Not unlike a poet who first saw a flower
And planted the seed of inspiration,
Under the soil of passion
Watered it with words,
Weeded out a dull metaphor,
A vague allusion
Until a prim rose appeared on his note paper,
Then developed into a Clarkia Amoena:
Four purplish pink petals,
Velvety and supple
And for a moment, he recalled the fragrance
One late April morning. 

By Tammy

* Milen Vassilev is a Bulgarian sculptor renowned for blending his art works with the natural environment and creating sculptures on the theme of plants
** "Blooming" is a sculpture made out of a piece of oak.  It was exhibited in a territory-wide sculpture exhibition.  After the event, exhibits have been placed in various parts of Hong Kong.  "Blooming" has been placed in the secondary school where I teach. 

 

Hey Kaspar, nice to read your poems.  Your poems r mostly reflective poems - very introspective. :)Tammy

To a new autumn

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness rolls
in, yet nothing’s left for harvest. The scarecrow
becomes idle in the naked field, gazing the

indigo over, praying the happy bluebirds to crack
the sleepy backwater, come and return the peach
they’ve taken – the one and only nurtured by the

young maiden. Bed is bare. Only one pair of cold
feet’s left to spoon and scoop up the moisted joy
and tears of lust in action. Passion’s overdue;

wild reveries and memories, half-baked, sow their
seeds in the wrinkled bed sheet, holding breath, as
if Sibyl awaits the dew, and to be born and bud anew.

by Kathy

A private salvation session with my melancholy baby

Midnight and migraine. Morpheus comes not, weaving
no omens, oracles, nor orgies with nymphs in the Helicon
spring! I, once, am told, cold beds, as such, does murder

muses sent to tickle my toes, to seduce, to turn on, to arouse
the dormant thoughts, which now give no sweet nothing
but monotonous moans. At last, I push the button for a

session of my private salvation — My Melancholy Baby
runs wild in Charlie Parker’s licentious fingers dancing
on the sax, like a beast in black, breaking free in a wave

of improvised lyrical vibrato, swiveling and swelling up
sadness and madness, sealing lips groaning quotidian
trivialities, cold civility and dull domesticity – all! in one go.

by Kathy

Self-imposed amnesia

Self-imposed amnesia (I)

Like clutching an eraser,

Rubbing, rubbing,
Rubbing out a wrong word, a faulty comma,
A mistaken line, a paragraph
That shouldn’t be there,
I’m rubbing, rubbing
Rubbing out a wrong word, hurtful words,
A prickly deed,
A mistaken romance,
Lies to friends. 
Eraser dust flying
As memory crumbs and grains
And speck and sliver of pain
Winging and wheeling
But gradually falling
And gathering
Once again
Back to their origins.

 

Self-imposed amnesia (II)

Water,
I’m using water:
Diluting, diluting,
Thinning out the unwanted colours
Dense as a locked door;
Stale as the liquid from my stomach.
Envious green,
Furious red
That yellow –flat and torpid
And fearful black
Suffusing my heart’s canvas.
Diluting, diluting
Until
What remains
Is not purity
But pallor. 

By Tammy 

Death of the writer

Death of the writer*

  “Oh! What freedom a writer has!

Arranging a family reunion,
A reconciliation between friends
Or making a raging battle
Never end
An arrogant king, a humble workman,
Helen of modern times –
All in his hand!”
 
I was reading that funny column when
Mark, my editor-in-charge gave me a ring
At 8:30 in the morning.  And he went:
“Your Madeleine must die
And she must be stabbed by Roger.
Don’t let her die of cancer.” 
I didn’t even ask why. 
“It won’t sell, a happy ending,” he went on,
“It’s out of season.” 

I rang off, recollecting my fair visitor last night:
Someone gradually seeped though,

A woman of medium height
In a blue frock
That gave a subtle glint in the dark,
A brunette, as I made her
And the natural curly hair
That flowed like an endless river.
Her face, pale as my note paper
And her eyes “displayed hesitancy”.
(I still remembered my own line).
“Please, dear writer, don’t make me die,”
She pleaded,
“Let me marry Jack, though I don’t mind
If you make me infertile.”
“You Madeleine?” I forgot if I had really asked. 
“Sam,” she went on, “ I don’t want to die.”
(Her tone getting a little threatening)
“You dare to make me die?” 
“Look!” My dear heroine said at last,
(Oh! How her eyes were thinning into a vicious line!)
“If you kill me, you’ll find me here
Every late evening
After your good book is published.” 

 

* This title has nothing to do with Roland Barthes's idea.  I just borrowed it to talk about a writer's predicament

By Tammy