A chance encounter

A poem inspired by the title of a painting (pictured, right) by my very talented young friend Lingsi. The piece won the “painting” category in the Imagine ’05 competition. The poem is dedicated to my wife, Jenny.

—-

While watching workers passing by,
I saw a man without a tie.
“What right have you sir, if I may,
To be so naked in this way?

“Wherefore do you smile and grin,
So gay of step and high of chin.
When others ’round you, drab and grey,
Look down upon you in dismay?”

Accosted thus, he raised his palm,
Responding with a gentle calm:
“I’m sorry that my dress offends,
But what care I for fashion trends?

“My countenance displays to you
Most truthfully my every mood.
It speaks more than a tie could do,
Regardless of the stripe or hue.”

“But kind sir,” I interject,
“Have you so little self-respect?
So candidly you bare your heart,
And make known all your inner parts.

“Oh, that I could be blasé,
If all my thoughts were on display;
Won’t letting others see your mind,
Give rein for them to be unkind?”

“Answers I have few, dear miss,
But as you fret just ponder this:
I have faith in God above,
And put my hope in truth and love.

“Where I go, I do not dread,
I trust the ground on which I tread.
And whom I meet I will not hate;
Why more enmity create?”

I weighed his words and found them just,
His earnestness I longed to trust.
We spoke ’til late into the night,
Of many things both grave and light.

Then I: “‘fore day’s first rays are cast,
Please let me tell you of my past.
This hatred self so full of sin,
That joy stays out and pain stays in.

“How could you love one such as me?
Quite crazy you would have to be,
That you would know my deepest shame,
Still from my eyes each teardrop claim.”

He: “Let your eye be unimpaired,
Remain courageous, don’t be scared.
Let not your handsome face be marred,
No matter how your heart is scarred.

“I see why you your past disdain,
But count it not on you a stain.
Let sunlight pierce your clouded soul,
And take back what the darkness stole.”

Seeing the candour in his eyes,
I finally purged my own disguise.
And in my nakedness I saw,
That which I’d missed the day before.

No more ties or skirts or shoes,
Not greens nor greys nor browns nor blues.
Just various people black and white,
Trying to tell what’s wrong from right.

Then he took my hand in his,
And softly in my ear he said:
“Let your heart and mind be free,
And meet me in my reverie.”

So Wong it’s write

I love words and working with words – the enduring nature of this blog stands testament to the desire of the words to escape from my head in some form. Ideas pop into my head quite frequently, so having something to say is not a problem, it’s turning these ideas from a concept into a finished product within a reasonable amount of time that I struggle with.

Take this entry for example. I started writing it more than a year ago, after reading an interview with Stephanie Meyer, the author of the book Twilight. The article spoke about how the catalyst for the first book was her status as a stay-at-home mother, a situation which gave her the freedom to write, and keep writing, as soon as the idea occurred to her in a dream. Oh, to have such luxury! The writing process makes the relationship between time and space so clear: writing with limited time is like trying to act in a limited space – maybe like how a tennis player would feel playing squash. Everything is faster, closer, more intense.

I’m working on a poem, which I hope to finish and publish soon (possibly my next entry here, the rate at which I post…), but my worry is that people will dismiss it as a trifle. They can hate it all they like – deride the subject matter, disagree with the sentiment, criticise the format… that wouldn’t upset me as much as if they thought I had cobbled it together with minimal thought and effort like I might have done on other occasions. This one was a hard slog… each word meticulously chosen, each line painfully scrutinised for both meaning and meter, and each stanza weighed against its neighbours to ensure balance. Despite this, the end result will simply be a single, insignificant mote in the vastness of cyberspace, resulting in neither fame nor fortune.

Hence I salute you, fellow authors and poets.

One of the important questions in life answered

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. But if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

(Caesar’s made up additions)

He picked a peck, then pecked the pick,
He pecked the lot, wow what a prick! (excuse my French)
All of the peppers, that Peter did nick
That Peter Piper,
The nicker of peppers
Pecker of what’s nicked
No trickier nicker
Did ever exist
So Peter Piper nicked the pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked!

My room is never dark

My room is never dark. Even at night, I have my own personal constellation of lights twinkling away, pushing back the void, preventing me from being consumed by the velvet blackness. The twinkling of my cable modem constantly flashing its presence on my desk. The stark white digits on my DVD player always showing the time – counting away the minutes and hours of my passing even while I am not awake to know it – proof of time’s passing while I am unconscious. The standby lights on my TV and computer – a reminder of the convenants I have with the machines that they will spring to life at my beck and call, soldiers always ready for battle – or in my case, entertainment.

Nature is never totally dark. By day we have the sun, by night the moon and stars. Even in the deepest depths of the oceans or the furthest caves, life brings light. Phospherescent fungi and luminous fish all work together to banish the dark from all the corners of the Earth.

In the beginning, God said “let there be light” and so there was, is and always will be.

It was the night before Christmas…

Here is my entry for the AC Nielsen iScan Scan Panel short story competition, for which I won a runner-up prize of a $50 Dymocks book voucher!

—-

It was the night before Christmas. I was six years old and I knew this was going to be the best Christmas ever. Who would have guessed that Grandpa would drop by? It would be the first and last time that I ever see him. I still remember it like it was yesterday, because he came dressed as Santa Claus!

Gramps was a pilot, and he delighted me and my brother with tales of his travels around the world, and gifts from amazing sounding places like Switzerland, and Thailand. How could you not believe such amazing stories: the city that never sleeps! Mountains so tall that they touched the clouds! Strange and wonderful people and their even stranger languages! In my mind, I was the luckiest boy in the world… my Grandpa was Santa Claus!

The next morning, just like Santa, he was gone.

At the end of the following year, my parents received news of his passing. Dad was a pragmatic person, and that night, he explained about death. However, I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t! Nothing would ever dispel the magic – my Grandpa, like Santa Claus, would live forever…