IN A WORLD WHERE NOTHING SEEMS RIGHT......
In a world where nothing seems right,
The flowers, forests and the lakes,
Remain beautiful and make things bright
With their fresh dew drops from the night.
There's nothing to worry
If you are alright,
For the earth is always around
To give you that comfort of the sound,
When even the birds that fly,
They speak about the goodness
In their pretty flight.
Now and again you may hear
The winds that scream,
In the middle of night
As you watch the moon,
Depending on whom .
Always there are exceptions,
Varied perceptions that think,
That touch on people and everything,
You will be amazed to see,
The oceans wait,
Until you have completed.
Nature and Man have not changed,
Since the first dawn,
That drew its inspiration
From the flaws that the world
Has engineered;
This is what people say,
Throughout the days.
More so as men and women flounder,
In their life,
Every measure depends on the hopes,
They hold like lighted candles
In an endless vigil,
To put an end to their eternal struggle.
I wonder we and me
Include all species on earth,
To decide on the future;
Nonetheless this obvious pilgrimage
Cannot cease without the twilight,
Coming down upon us,
As we hold on to our own beliefs.
(4 September 2010)
GIVE ME YOUR HAND
Give me your hand,
For I seem lost in this wilderness
Of my life; I am afraid
Because I don't know how to get out,
Nor do I have another direction to go,
Except just moving and not drop to the ground;
There is so much muddy ground around ,
Like the mangroves in a swampy coast;
It is tough, it is resilient,
It punishes like a tsunami.
I need your hand to give me warmth,
I need your hand to guide me through,
These swampy muddy rivers inland,
Not just along the coastal areas of my life;
I feel the love flowing in your hand,
I feel the sensation; I feel I am loved,
Wanted not abandoned like so many,
But still vagrant and vague about my home,
Contained in the luggage that I carry,
Whenever I need to move;
Will this be my permanent place to stay, to rest,
To dwell because I miss home so much,
While the tears are kept aside?
(22 November 2010)
MISSING YOU
Like night that misses day,
I wait your return,
Having been the reason
for your leaving me;
It was a major night of misunderstanding,
I allowed events to control me,
I played the hero of my anger,
I could not see the enemy,
It did not seem right for you
To tell me when you could talk to me,
The cause for my present misery.
I have feelings too.
Now that you have gone away,
Forever or just for a time to heal,
I know not for sure you will ever come back,
I sit around with my regrets.
TASIK PERMAISURI
These leaves that people drop
Into the waters,
are incongruous
With the lotus flowers,
For they cover up
The sun's face
and look the other way.
The rain trees remain solid,
Unperturbed with their large eyes,
As the lake shakes its body,
In a quivering motion,
Beneath the waters,
In a silent refuge.
The leaves then float away,
As the wind in ripples blows,
The reach of most people,
They move away.
All this and more,
These leaves, these trees and lake.
These lotus flowers,
Resplendent in the sun,
And their many directions,
Just looking at the reflections.
(29 October 2010)
TSUNAMI IN JAPAN
I stood in front of the tsunami,
Unafraid and defiant of its towering waters,
And torrential force,
For I've prepared for death
That will conquer the consequences,
As I waited to be swallowed.
Tsunami or no tsunami I was destined to die,
Someday, somewhere, sometime, somehow,
Then there is no fear in me,
As I looked the tsunami in the eye
My frail body cannot match the power,
That tsunamis are made of,
Across the miles of land that people lose,
Inspite of man's technologies that span the earth,
Looking for answers to Nature's way!
(Friday 11-03-2011)
RUNNING
I have done my running,
Other people walk, I run;
I ran and am still running.
Trekking through the jungles of my life,
Over mountainous sites,
And the ravines, chasms, cliffs and fogs,
The cruel tsunamis, the familiar and unfamiliar,
They were all mine to draw level,
Like a game without an ending.
I could be left parched on the desert grounds,
Or hung from a tree in nobody's land;
It could be anywhere, anytime, anyone.
You wish to join me?
People travel, with their luggage,
dragging their bodies like refugees;
For you have paid for the package,
You don't wish to lose out in the food,
And there's no time for food of thought;
You just follow the crowd,
To everywhere, wherever;
How nice, how horrible, how dirty!
Simple words that tell everything!
You have been to London? China, Japan,
Mongolia where princesses are courted?
Hong Kong, New York and are you Bangkok based?
After all the travelling, their legs are tired;
They need another holiday to recover.
And so the story goes just like the money that travelled,
Unlike an adventure on a safari of life,
That expands, extends the world of your original,
Like a crocodile hunter or the footballer,
The vanquished souls and the victorious,
People everywhere are never different but same,
Unless you label them according to colour and stock,
Like shopping for vegetables in supermarkets.
Rather they are spread like the butter and kaya on our breads,
We need to eat even though in different countries,
With different foods and different ways;
So why do politicians and people preach,
The goodness they have to offer,
While underneath their robes the masks are broken,
Revealing the raw human nature of our cave-men days.
We never change and cannot change;
Only time, circumstance and technology has brought,
New and strange innovations that reinvent,
The engineering of the ugly human soul!
SUNGAI KLANG SUNGAI GOMBAK
If these two rivers of Kuala Lumpur
Can have their corruption dragged,
With their boulders and mud moved elsewhere,
In the recesses of the population,
A century of history will approve,
What had been a meeting place for tin.
Like the scenic river Seine,
And gondolas of Venice,
Even the simple Melaka river boats,
Perhaps Kuala Lumpur can be seen
From the bottom of these two rivers,
With the reflections of K.L. Tower,
Perhaps the silver of The Twin Towers fame,
Can catch your attention as they gleam,
In the clean clear waters with their local name!
There's no assurance that the rivers
Will be cleaned with all the millions
Thrown into them for some of the money
May be caught amongst the rocks,
And picked up by people at the top,
Recycled like building blocks!
Nonetheless, the time has come,
For something to be done,
Or else these two rivers will be gone,
Their silt will carry them to their mouths,
Simply to become a topic for more talk.
15-04-2011
THE SARAWAKIAN RIVER
This oldest, longest and quiet river has risen like a monster,
Over its banks as the rain thrashed
The forests while some human voice shrieked
In fear of the violence of Nature's wrath!
The waters charged in an angry mood,
Unforgiving because of our human invasion
Into the river's privacy,
And forget to give the respect due
To one that is old and wise for centuries.
Thus the river roared with a vengeance,
And killed off the farm lands,
Homes and the people's livelihood;
The river reminded those who did
All these against the natural law,
Even as they threw away the noble manners
Of princes to engage the common man,
In a battle of control!
I wouldn't want to receive a tsunami at my door.
Nor an earthquake to break my jaws;
I only want those who dared to provoke the rains
That continued to pour on the backs of the naive people
In villages and townships who are bathed in ignorance,
Accepting those gifts and believing the goodness in them,
Unknown that they have become no better than the vagrants,
In their own lands that have been lost,
Over the many years of corrupt underlings.
In the name of the common good,
In the name of a greater development,
The banners that propagate,
The promises that will compromise,
The rights and the people s privilege!
Not that I know of,
Not that I hear,
Except that the river's fierce some gods,
Will start a relentless movement,
To bring the truths that have been buried
Under the people's feet.
The V.I. Web PageLast update on 21 April 2011.