Okay, don't just scroll social media everyday. Do something useless.
How about GloPoWriMo 2025?
badge generated by Gemini
talking to myself
Hey bro, you know I don't have much money right now, who brings so much cash over to this jungle? We are in the army, man. Anyway, I spent most of it on smokes, brought two cartons of marlboros over, heard the local ones are shit. The rest for R&R, we need that, the pubs, the massage parlors. It's not cheap in the city here in these 70's, everyone's trying to rip you off.
Talking about money, I made some at the blackjack games in the barracks. It's wild man, almost every night. One guy we called the "Colonel" completely lost his shirt and shit, says the dealer rigged his games. Pulls out a bayonet. We all restrained him, of course, no way the officers or MPs get a whiff of this. Then we pass a helmet around, toss in whatever change we can for his R&R.
Oh, if you have a chance to come over here, let the bedbugs bite you.
11/04/2025
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thanks to napowrimo.net for the badge
The prompt at SingPoWriMo Day7 was to "write a poem addressed to your younger self". I think the above qualifies.
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ) 2025
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #30
So this is it, the final day!
what have i got myself into?
on waiting to be enlisted
early freaking 70's
so this is it
this is the mousetrap
sprung
i have been listening
to Uriah Heep's The Park'
speaking of loss
and needless wars
looping looping
till the track is
scratched thin on the vinyl.
outside just a floor below
the noon traffic lumbers by
horns angry, tyres screeching,
men swearing in dialects
strange that i did not
noticed it before
those noises
or the stand-fan
in the corner of the room
blades turning
stirring stale air
dust motes settling
on the linoleum
again
i am slouched on the
battered sofa
my mother yells me
to move my ass
nothing interest me now
maybe just the music
or the static
in the head
i am not even
angry anymore
and that's dangerous.
in a couple of days
the army will come for me.
30/04/2016
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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #28
what have i got myself into?
North Korea Leader Threatens Seoul and US
if this doesn't kill us all
perhaps an asteroid will.
or, pollution the slow kill
even Nature, wanting a brawl
-- the end --
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #23
Day 23 and I have written how many?
what have i got myself into?
icy
in the time between
the first flame
and the last exhale
of breath
is
the bubbling
of death
on a heated tin foil
the quick suck of
white fumes through
a straw
before the bones break
the flesh tears
the ants
crawl on
clammy
skin
slipping
sliding
into
the poisoned
blood
as
the blades
are drawn
&
before
the dawn
icy
dead
the dragon is too mean to chase
23/04/2016
**********
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #20
It's getting harder to write when you are not getting enough sleep.
what have i got myself into?
4 a.m. sunday morning
sometimes nights are like that
awash with shadows
the rain calling your name
the night grumbles and growls
nine floors below
blue red strobe lights, doors slam
the rain is falling, scattering
like silver needles
in the glow of streetlights
voices, muffled by the wind
a woman's plead
shrill, and angry words
take the brawl somewhere nabeh!
or maybe the rain is already
washing the blood
off the cold asphalt.
20/04/2016
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #14.
Good thing I didn't commit myself to a poem a day, or I will be siao liao. The office work is piling up, the muse goes AWOL, I spend more time at the PS3 than usual...
But I think this piece is not too bad...
what have i got myself into?
fill
we run from the sudden midday rain
run to malls and cafes and tunnels and bus shelters
all of us, minding our own business
in our own little spaces
just a while ago
and the rain fills the city
and the pigeons and mynahs and flies
and the dull trees and shrubs and grass
and empty pizza boxes and cigarette butts
and trash bins and traffic lights
and the streets filled with road signs
no waiting-no parking-TOW AWAY ZONE-
drive carefully
are given a new wash of life
and
when the rain goes away
sudden as it came
the midday sun starts burning again
the side walks fill
the trains fill
the hospitals fill
the columbaria fill
14/04/2016
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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #9
This is crazy.
what have i got myself into?
returning
returning back
to camp
from the hills,
no one noticed
that
daylight had broken,
the toads
had stopped croaking,
only
our muddy boots,
our rifles rusting
from last night's rain
and
the grass,
green and
slick with dew.
09/04/2016
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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #7
I wrote this in response to a prompt at a poetry site, Poets United. The theme was 'Citizenship'. :)
what have i got myself into?
citizenship
we were singing Negara Ku
in the mornings at school
happily swapping colourful stickers
of fishes and hornbills and flowers
then back to the playgrounds
trying to maim each other with hantam bola.
do we children understand then
when the adults talk urgently
of Konfrontasi and commandos
and a bombing in Orchard Road?
or the race riots that started at
the Gasworks, Chinese killing Malays
and the Malays hitting back?
do i not have Malay friends in school?
do i understand all these, a ten year old,
running barefoot, flying kites
catching fishes in drains?
and one day they said they saw a man
cried on tv and said we were on our own
and that night after the news
i saw that haunted look in the eyes
of my parents
it was like the end of the world
we no longer sing Negara Ku
and a new responsibility was
suddenly thrust upon us
Majulah Singapura!
07/04/2016
**********
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #5
In the pages of a tabloid today was a story of a young widow who wanted to take her life, and how her mother turned her around. Heart-warming, yeah. And sort of inspired this piece. Longish. Surprised me too.
what have i got myself into?
thin red line
The line between sanity and madness, life and death, can be razor sharp, or a thin red line, and that is why, tied between her wrist and that of her young child, is a thin red thread. Standing at the rooftop of her apartment block, with the rapidly sinking sun, the dark clouds do look so much closer. As the wind slips around her hair, her legs, she takes a step forward towards the edge, the blackbirds watching, scorning. The ground below is a dark abyss and the lights of the city are just mocking eyes. And then a soft voice, so close, so helpless.
mommy, i am cold.
And all the fears and hatred and pity fly off into the night, as she holds her child, feeling her warmth and she cries it all out and the child puts her hands on the mother's cheeks, and she cries some more, and more.
She tears off the red thread binding them, then, like a lotus growing out of mud, holding her child's hand, she walks back down the stairs, back to their home, as the stars start to twinkle in the sky above.
candlelight -
her face
brightens
05/04/2016
**********
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #3.
I was at the grave of my late wife during the period of Qing Ming, to clean her grave and give offerings. I touched her portrait on the marble. She is lovely. She is.
what have i got myself into?
when she was reduced to ashes
to see her reduced to ashes
in a furnace
i am powerless
and nothing i can do
but to give a
lonely
weak wave
and every fervent talk of
life and death
is meaningless
for the night before
she was just a slab
of meat
in a casket
and to think
we used to talk
and laugh
about our small universe
and to
caress and care
every night
before we sleep.
03/04/2016
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same-day publication at my main blog, urban poems.
© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
SingPoWriMo 2016 Day #1
Certainly needs some reworking later.
what have i got myself into?
who moved my fries?
and here i am sitting in a cafe
fucking-off
with the other unhappy, loathsome
loafers
perhaps all in need of some help
with their time
watching the ice in that cup of coke
dying off
and trying to nurse that packet of fries
oh shit
so i feel like a stalker watching those
happy kids with their happy meals
those boys and girls from the nearby school
dating
on the pretext of studying biology
oh you can't fool me on that
and why the fuck was i here?
oh yes, trying to write a poem like this
because this is the month of april
maybe if i am lucky i can wring some verses
from this joint
but mainly it is because of the
free wi-fi
but damn, the fries are moving fast
it will not last till evening.
01/04/2016
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© cheong lee san ( dsnake1 ), 2016
