The last child of Singapore

So
You are it
The last there ever will be
Singaporean child born of Singaporean parents born of Singaporean grandparents born of Singaporean great grandparents

You are a rarity
Does the river flow in your blood more than mine
Singaporean born of Singaporean parents born of immigrants? 
Does the Singapore heartbeat beat stronger in you than me?
Or are we no different any more?

10 line poem I ask

I ask for peace of mind
I say look within
I ask how
I say you know how
I ask why you annoy me like this
I say you know why
I ask you to bugger off
I say you can ask that you can
I ask you to stay
I say of course I always will

Voices in my head

Howl

I howl at the moon
That lone sphere
Pulling me towards it

As it turns
showing more of itself
night after night
So do I. .. prowling
nearer and nearer
The tender ones

Not to snap and snip at young fresh blood
Not for taste or to whet that appetite
But
For love
To love
And be loved

To father young ones like me
To carry on my terrible fantastic legacy
Now I am amongst a few
Misunderstood
By the monsters
Who think me one instead

I bite to create
And they will too
And none will be left but us
To roam
To dream
To be

-----------
The frankenstein condition
That the other be the monster
That beauty be defined by the majority
That the right to live with dignity be accorded accordingly
And that to supercede this system one becomes the monster everyone sees
One seeks to find love in like  and create alike
The monster seeks a bride

Wasn't going to do this prompt don't really like urban legends not sure vhf the were wolf counts? But here I try anyway.

Who could love a creature
Like me
But another beautiful aberation

This colour orange

This colour...feels,tastes,smells and sounds
____

This colour is hot
Like embers glowing before ashing out
Like tips of tongues bringing down forests
Like rays of a disc that melts the wax of a man-bird who flies too high

This colour is tangy
Abounding during the Lunar New Year
Arriving in pairs, passed from hand to hand
Round, small, falling apart at the centre, juices running down your arms

This colour is pungent
Rising from rice cooked with saffron
Tinged with sweet scented cinnamon and cloves
Telling of warm, warm comfort

This colour is booming
Its brightness deafens
Filling your spheres with sounds sans colour
All else shrinks to a faint echo, lingering after

Colour poem

Why would I describe
That which you cannot see
And hurt you

Her wound is blooming
Blossoming deepening
She hurts

You can feel the
Rivulets from the cut
Feel its viscousness
Like pus from a popped pimple

She cries
For you to hug her
Her tears
The colour of her face

Which you don't need to see to love

Urban legend poem

Nounless poem

Trying for a baby

---

They are
Dreaming
desiring
Trying
Talking
Coaxing
crying
screaming
Sinking
and despairing

They are
pleading
Praying
Dreaming
Doubting

Writing Class - singpowrimo - poem trying to be something else

First Day of Writing Class: Prose 

She sauntered in, hands in her jeans’ pocket

Aware of every eye on her

Yet strangely unmoved

Where should I look, she wondered.

His gentle smile caught her eye

She trained her gaze on him

The black cobra baring its fangs on his dark shirt

Drew a smile from her

Such a fearsome shirt on an affable man

Calculated to give him an aura of… perhaps?

He glanced at her in turn

The slightest tilt of the head in her direction

Her wavy hair framing her face

And they both wondered

What would the day ahead hold?

How would it unfold

Poetry had to rhyme she was told

so quit the rhyme and let the prose be bold

but the words flow in form and tend to unwilling rhyme

prose I cannot write

poetry wins the day 

writing class part 1

She sauntered in, hands in her jeans’ pocket

Aware of every eye on her

Yet strangely unmoved

Where should I look, she wondered.

His gentle smile caught her eye

She trained her gaze on him

The black cobra baring its fangs on his dark shirt

Drew a smile from her

Such a fearsome shirt on an affable man

Calculated to give him an aura of… perhaps?

He glanced at her in turn

The slightest tilt of the head in her direction

Her wavy hair framing her face

And they both wondered

What would the day ahead hold?

How would it unfold? 

haiku

Haiku (Variation: 5, 7, 9 syllabus)

Imagining a

meeting in Tokyo fraught with

guilt, trepidation, and & secret thrills 

The prettiest moon

Diana rides high today
The moon her horse
Smiling st me in the sky

The immense potential if her size just hinted through the dark show of a ball rising behind her

tanka

I like this form of poetry -
Japanese, old, 5 lines, usually an unbroken sentence
5, 7, 5, 7,7

Tanka’s economy and suitability for emotional expression made it ideal for intimate communication; lovers would often, after an evening spent together (often clandestinely), dash off a tanka to give to the other the next morning as a gift of gratitude.

Like the sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image, which marks the transition from the examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. 

This turn is located within the third line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.

I read elsewhere that it can be lyrical and to do with nature. 

So not bad huh?  my first tanka! hehe. 

got the syllabus, and the one sentence and a personal response to an image and was somewhat lyrical... 

in memory of the sentenced library

In memory of… the sentenced library
___
So these bricks have been torn down
And books have learnt to fly after all
We summon them
They fly to us in our homes, in our devices

Who needs these walls, this balustrade?
There was something here before
with none to remember,
what it was, what it meant, to whom

This tunnel here, too, will come down one day
And many a car may mourn its passing
A little boy reading the ‘The Little Prince’
Etched on the memory of the crumbling wall

Places have memories that crumble with progress
Stones and bricks always have stories to tell
It takes a poet to hear them though
And pen them down

For that's what poets do

They don't stay young forever

She fills colours with
Abandon, not caring for
Lines or patterns, unlike
Her mum who incessently
Wants to know she's doing right

___________

Dedicated to my daughter,
Akshaya
Who was born to teach
me and all the world
about love and how to love
_____________

She colours with ab-
andon not caring for the
lines that hem her in
Unlike her mother who can't
Stop fretting about the lines

----

This is inspired by a photograph I posted on FB in 2012 that suddenly people started liking again yesterday and today.
She's shy of four years old, splashing Barney with the rainbow spectrum of colours
a smile playing on her lips
a strand of hair carelessly falling across her eyes
She's a picture of absorbed beauty here
her eyes, her hair, her smile her dress
her pleasure in the act of colouring

----

Okay am a little unsteady - the formidable leit has responded to this poem of mine - so sweet! she didnt' say it was great or anything, just a note of encouragement about she likes the way this is done:) 

am in seventh heaven! 

ha, such a student - keep saying I don't care who sees but when the big teacher sees it, I screech

:p 

day 22: nounless poem - bonus, does not repeat any word except for A or the

no time for poetry amidst the scribing frenzy

but... I am tempted to try my hand at a "Beauty is ... poem like sean francis - make an impact with the words at my disposal to talk about beauty  - often sought, often had, often not appreciated till its gone, often hiding in the most unexpected of places, caught only by th emost attentive of them all

I like this.

Day 21 for a friend in a form

Tanka
5 line poem
Japanese origin
5 7 5 77

Each line usually contains an image or idea

Can convey writers emotion
Lyrical
Nature based
---

You my friend are
Getting hitched my friend you are
Joining the club my friend you are
Blessed in partner and love you are
My friend always you are

What makes a poem “good”?
You feel a poem is good if, having read it, you find yourself at its end a different person -- larger, more permeable, wilder, more awake, more informed, more saddened, more free. The specific flavor or quality of the change almost doesn’t matter, so long as the movement is toward increase rather than narrowing. Galway Kinnell once said, “The title of every good poem might be “Tenderness.” You can feel that in Whitman, in Dickinson, in Neruda, in Cavafy, in Bishop, in Basho -- read any of them, and you can’t help but feel your human fate and their human fates are shared ones. Good poems do this without simplifying our human particularity, range, and oddness. They are themselves singular, memorable, and as unmistakably real and consequential as any other event in a life.

Reading good poems, you feel yourself singular and also part of a common existence. “Common” is a word not usually thought of as praise. But one thing good poems do is take what seems ordinary and burnish it with the motions of paid attention, until its radiance and astonishment can again be seen. Doing dishes. Adding 2 + 2. Looking out a window. Existence itself is nothing if not an amazement. Good poems restore amazement. They are also, always, instruments of further discovery. They sieve from the air what isn’t yet knowable and can’t be held on a page, yet is ineradicable within us, once it’s been given.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/20/jane-hirshfield-poetry_n_6896864.html

everytime I write

every time I write something, I get this feeling of nervous excitement - that comes with creating something perhaps?
its tingling, its exciting - even when I know that what I write isn't that good or great, I still feel happy at having produced something..
I could do it better

...
the poems I've written in this period, that I like and perhaps want to refine further:

The erotic poem
the snowball poem
the poem about the mother
the metaphor poem
the empat ....

Thoights

I got one of the most useful piece of feedback today after posting the snowball poem
A guy asked what the purpose was. Not adding anything not saying anything
That helped
So I realised, maybe it's super obvious to others, that when I write poetry I should have a purpose - do something ambitious with the beautiful language at my disposal
This time my aim was to write anything in the form asked . But that's not good enough. Remember patke.  A poem is the way the poet is trying to say something 

Dracula snowball poem

Sexy count waking the undead
Travelling the rough seas
Approaching innocent babes
Alluring seducing
Biting
Ah!

Ode to Dracula
On Dracula

Remembering dracula

And so you lie
At peace now
A man

Do you remember
The centuries gone by
When you walked the world
Alluring seducing, darkly sliding, sucking drinking
We trembled in longing, thinking
Of you and your tender
caresses that portended

fates worse 

than
Death 

walking
Undead

Snowball

I
Am
Not
Your
Usual
Friend

I
Am
Not
That
Dread
Spectre

I
Am
The
Best r
Blood
Bounty

Round
Cheeky

Deadly
Poisonous
Jealousy
Friendly

Fangs
Sink
The

I am not
Your fiendish
Friendly

Please don't tell me to
Not care about you
I can't help
It my
Love

Writing

When I thought writing was a breeze I wrote a poem a day.
Now I've missed a couple of days.
Trying too hard.
Just going to stop let inspiration come
Wish I wasn't so grumpy with the kids.

Singpowrimo day 16

The last.... of Singapore

3 days late now

This is the third day I've not written. Need to catch up. 
Snowball
Poem to dead famous person in voice of another
Wake up at 3 am Bisham park poem

Park poem

Tipsy tipsy topsy turvy
slides swings see-s aw sand

Friendships romance lines blurring
Infinite possibilities un folding

Fingers tracing contours

Night day
Stark outlines night skies
Details clear crystal

Dawn break reality creaks

Yelling mum

Yelling escalating
Madness approaching
Tiny people
Shivering
Lips quivering
Tears held back
Fear
Pervades
The little people

Singpowrimo empat perkataan

4 words per line
Some rhyme or assonance
Association poetry
Fragments associated by sound or meaning

----'

6 year old at breeks

Pink tee mushroom soup
Dimpled cheeks

Sing po write mo day 11 secret agent poem0

3Message by the side acrostic poem

Go to hell

A Passerby tries Empathy ... And Fails
---
Grave little things
On the platform
Trying to survive
On their own
Hungry
Edging towards the end
Longing for
Love
---

silly seuss poem

The heart is cold

The mind is bold

If truth be told

I think I’m old

singpowrimo day 10 $$$ no Pronouns!

A list poem

of the things I bought

Honestly

I bought rice, a comb, coffee

yesterday, I bought fruits, lunch and desert

combining them, I like lunch, fruit and a comb

___
lunchtime poetry

A large comb
cheap
pink
for tangled hair uncombed in 5 days
a desperate measure

Soup
sweet and sour and spicy
for a tongue longing for the best soup ever had on holiday last September
a sad recompense this
but still

Fruit
sweet, juicy,
firm, long
so sexy, yet not
grapes and bananas

Is this poetry?
A sad list
of things bought
on a dull work day
lunch

Restless Heart

The heart is restless
today
unhinged, unmoored, untethered

my feet grind me to work
my mind flies at tangents

poetry fills my waking moments
it fills my dreams too
along with
doubts

am I writing anything worth reading
has every writer felt this way
how do we write in profound ways
or do we not even attempt that
but write

do we write as a craft
or write to unburden the overflowing mind and heart

heart and mind and work
do not together flow
not today
no

You are

You are...

A stubborn stain on a lovely toy

A frayed edge of a favourite dress 

A constant corner in a healed heart 

An echo

A blot

A lingering whiff

a syllable almost escaping

And you are

A tiny scar across

the heart 

visible to none but the self

_________________________
You are

A grubby stain on a soft toy

A frayed edge of a favourite shirt

An echo

A blot

A lingering whiff

A syllable almost escaping

And you are

A constant lodger
In a corner

A pale shadow

A tiny scar

across

a healed heart 

___________

You are

A grubby stain on a soft toy
A frayed edge of a favourite shirt

An echo
A blot
A lingering whiff

A syllable almost escaping

The tip of my pen, my tongue

And you are

A constant lodger
In a corner

A pale shadow
A tiny scar

across
a healed heart

___________

You are

A grubby stain on a soft toy
A frayed edge of a favourite shirt

An echo in an endless abyss

A fading blot on a faded canvas

A lingering whiff of a forgotten scent
A syllable almost escaping the careless pen

And you are

A constant lodger 

in a corner

A pale shadow, 

A tiny scar

across a healed heart

Singpowrimoday10 $$$

The last three things I bought poem
Bonus no nouns
Madness bonus no verbs

Haha!

Bananas grapes and sizhuan soup

The last three (things i) bought
Fed (us) as ( we) discussed the (books) we read
Deciding the "canon"
For our schools
What work

Lit text review committee
We read
We review
We  discuss
We propose

List poems
Symbol poems again

List of  verbs

List if adjectives and adverbs

-------

Yummy juicy ******
And
Long yellow *******
For a healthy
************

Hot and spicy ****
For an
Unhurried *****

Cold and warm ******
For an inspiring ******

--------

Yummy juicy
Long yellow
Hot and spicy

-----

Now with verbs no nouns

Hot and spicy ****
Though not quite enough

Cold and warm ****
Though not quite enough

Juicy sweet******
And firm ripe *******
Yet still missing 

Add that right touch of ******
And oh yes !

For a long hearty *****
On *****

____________

Haiyah! 

No pronouns, not no nouns! 

need to go back to the drawing board! 

On the bus

Fleeting contact
Lives intersect
For a moment there
We were part if each others lives
A lurch
A moment of sudden panic
A few words exchanged
On the nearness of that encounter
Some relief
A pondering of what could have happened
A word of thanks
For safe and patient driving
Then we move off

A lady plays with another's baby
In their own world as the bus watches
A smile playing on our lips as we watch the exchange

A bus full of lives
intersecting
For brief too brief moment
Then we move on

what if...

what if
no one reads what I write
will I fade away into nothingness

what if
no one likes what I write
will my writing not then matter

what if
only I like what I write
then I write for myself
and that matters

it matters not whether I write well or not
it matters that I write
It matters not whether people see what I write or like what I write
it matters that I actually managed to write every day to a prompt

writing is exercise
exercise for the brain
everyone had to start somewhere

I am not part of that writing community
not yet
not sure if ever

I write under a pseudonym
for I fear being judged
or lauded just coz I'm a friend
I fear my heart being looked into
my feelings read and analysed
my inner being exposed

with such fears
can I ever write

well I can write
whether I show it to anyone at all
is a question that can be answered
later

Singpowrimpoday9 metaphor poem draft 2

Part 1

Imagination .... is a splash of colour on a white canvas

Colour ... is mad laughter in moments of despair

Despair... is the arrival of the flow month after month, dashing the rocks of hope

Hope... is the miniscule plus in the window of the home test kit, sending tears coursing down the cheeks

Tears... is thanks to the heavens for a prayer answered

Part 2 - rumination

Memory ... is a leaf in the pages if time
Time... is patience for nature to take its course
Patience... is surrendering the obsession

Part 3- progress

Joy is the baby's fleeting touch against the palm
Peace is the toddler nibbling an apple on the lap
Suspense us watching a spoonful of rice journey from plate to mouth
Pride is every baby step forward
Anxiety is constant companion to pride
Love is every single moment cherished

Singpowrimoday 9: 7 metaphors no adjectives

7 metaphor poem

Imagination is ... a splash of colour on a white canvas
Colour is ...a thief stealing from nature
A thief is

Colour is laughter in times of despair

Laughter is
Learning to cycle in a day
A day is hope standing at the window

a thief stealing from rainbows
A thief is memory

Memory is a leaf from the pages of time
Time is a dream long forgotten in hope

Dream is the hope to hold a little one one day

Despair is the arrival of the flow month after month,  dashing the rocks of hope

Hope is a plus on home test kit, sending  tears coursing down the cheeks

Tears is thanks to the heavens for a prayer answered

Horror is the splotches of red well before the date

Red is the life blood of the newborn

Wonder is is holding the baby in the hands marvelling at its perfection the wonder of creation

Joy is a baby's hand brushing yours, signing peace i

Peace is a baby sitting I  yir lab nibbling an apple

Love is...

Patience is watching a spoonful of rice travel

Suspense is watching a spoonful of rice travel from plate to mouth - will even a grain make it to the end? 

Pride is .. on stage piano cycling

Singpowrimoday8: !,. $&()*

Hey!
Prompt
Use 10 emoticons
Use !*(),.&$

This is crazy!
Can't think in @#$/** symbols
Mind games & whatnots. ..
Battling spell check...
(This is how we think though) .

1am
1 year old wants milk
Bawls yells screams cries
#$@/**^ "#@!!
(There goes a bit of my sleep
My youth trailing after it mournfully )

4am
4 year old wants to be scratched
(Grating like a scratched record in my ear)
"My leg itches. I'm scared. I can't sleep.
The #$$/@&* 4 am litany of ills afflicting a 4 year old ..
(There goes my sleep again ... my youth trailing even further in its wake)

6 am
6 year old wants to cry but controls herself
Time for school at ungodly hours
5 more minutes
5 more
5 more
I?#$@/% ¥*;!  I need to wake her up NOW
( and so the madness continues)

We sleep to wake
And wake the sleeping
I bid farewell to my youth
As I embrace
The youthfulness of my kids

Good night / good morning .

Singpowrimoday8:crazy symbols

Crazy symbols in a poem
And so we all try
I'm writing a poem a day so far not bad right?
Though my poetry falls far below the standards
There 's some really great poetry out there and sometimes I feel a little sad I'm not that good.
But the guy who started it -h9s advice is good. Not a popularity contest. Just a challenge. And I hope I stick to it.

o poem - draft 3

Only
words...

Only words

To storm
To blow
To torch
To scorch

Only words
Now
Flow on

non. Stop. 

Singpowrimo day 7: woo a poet or a ghazal

Favourite poets

Shakespeare
Now I like William Carlos Williams

I'd like to write am imagist poem to him

Or the couplet about a metro - very beautiful

In a station of the metro

The apparition      of these  faces    in the crowd:
Petals    on a wet, black    bough

In a station of the mrt

The apparition     of these faces 
like so many leaves    on a wet concrete pavement

Ezra
In a station of the mrt
I see you still

In A Station on the MRT

The apparition     of these faces,       Ezra

so many leaves       on a wet, concrete         pavement. 

In A Station on the MRT 

The apparition    of these heads       Ezra

Ants    teeming    as a colony 

Singpowrimoday6 draft 2

Oh my

No norms
Or forms

Only
words

Only words

To storm
To blow
To torch
To scorch

Only words
Now
Flow on

I am

I am a thief , a pilfered
My heart knows not how it wanders

Singpowrimo day 6 prompt: lipogram

Prompt 1: A poem that doesn't use a specific letter

prompt 2: a poem that challenges a norm

Oh my

No norms
Or forms

No
plots
to adorn

Only
Words...

Only
words

To storm
To blow
To torch
To scorch

Only
Now
How

Words
Flow on

No doors
To stop

Worlds
Nor
Words

Only words

Singpowrimo day 5 prompt: resurrection

Primpt 1: Write a poem depicting something ugly as beautiful or beautiful as ugly. 

Prompt 2: resurrection

What 's the fascination.
With resurrection
Is it
We can't bear for the good to die
That kind of finality is more than we can bear
So we resurrect them
Jesus
Harry potter
And all those who rose from the dead

Who was Mr Lee? 
Will he be back ... terminator style? 
Was he already back?
A Greek hero maybe in mythological times
Born anew to bring to life a tiny country in away only a hero can

Don't stories always resurrect?
Haven't all stories been told already in one form or another? 

Resurrection ain't new
It's always been around
A fascination .
An escape
A reality? Maybe?

Singpowrimo day 4 prompt: letter to my younger self

Day 4
Letter to younger self - no I
Prompt 2: every stanza a tweet length

Hey you

Glad you kept your innocence
And exuberance for life then...
That you danced like no one was watching
Coz now you are always aware you know

Be more confident
Sure of yourself
You have a lot going for you

Don't expect the praise so much
Even without it you have it in you

Stick with an instrument for gods sake
All that switching !

Treasure those experiences...
Orchestra
Performances

Don't hurt people coz others do it
You were always better than than that

Drop those fierce expectations of people to be good or kind to you!

Thank your mum
She's amazing
And your dad

Singpomo day 2 prompt : poem on a pic

Poem inspired by the pic

Are you dreaming of home
As you lie on this concrete floor?

You hold it up
We press you down

Thank you?

Nameless
Faceless
Signifying nothing more than the hand that builds

A photo remains
Commemorating
The remains of
The only thing that matters

Singpomo day 3 erotica

Erotic poem
Bonus 1 No people
Bonus 2 Pun

Water droplet on a leaf

Crystalline
Crystal like
Delicate

trickle down
Unbreaking
Soft
Down the
Spine

Leaving no mark
But the feeling
Of having been
Caressed
By that touch