The Prince and the City

The Prince gazed out the window

He could not, would not, be moved

By the reluctance so poorly hidden

In the words of the Council. 

I need not listen to a Council of Fools! 

Was it not clear as the summer sky? 

A child would have heard my words

And comprehended better than they.

Snub out the light, and the moths will no longer come!

Take away the honey, and the flies will disappear!

Then the glory of the City will be revealed threefold

And those afar will yearn with envy

For our streets cleared of the jetsam

Our roads free from flotsam

Our temples cleansed of  fallen souls.

His swift decree by sundown 

Left no doubt between the lines

This City will no longer cover

Those who must not be sheltered

And he who lights a candle

Shall too be sent into the darkness.

And so it was, the glory of the city

So sought by the Prince

Never shone, never glittered

As each lamp and candle and fire 

Was put away and blown out.

In the bitter cold the Prince learnt

That the glow of the city

Had come not from the ivory towers he built

But the love in the hearts of its people.

Cartographer's Lament

By the same stars we navigated,
We intertwined our paths
And layered our maps
Like the blankets we shared.

I marked the miles
As he measured the hills,
New streets we drew with borrowed lines
We didn't know could turn
Overdue.

I knew right from his left,
My landmarks were his,
Plotting the fate
Our constellations had designed.

The light in the horizon
Covered cracks on the road,
Perhaps I ignored the warning
That at times even stars 
Don't stay their course.

He kept silent miles before
He took the sudden turn,
The edges could not bear
The pull of divergent routes:
It tore our atlas in two.

Left with fragments
Of a once familiar map,
I go down wrong paths often,
Blank spots aplenty and
Lampposts too few.

The routes I take
Are now disconcerting,
Part familiar, part foreign,
Half still the same, half all new.

My landscape has been relaid,
The scale is all askew,
The directions erased,
Buildings wrecked and
The once bright horizon 

Now wavering lines of gray.

I pass the old clocktower;

The minute hand lags,
The library is half crumbling, 
And the town hall melting
Into the square,
Now not quite a square.

I am a stranger in my own town,
Half-hidden faces pass in view,
I fear I may see him at the turn
And fear that I never will.

Anamnesis

I took my things the day I left you, 

I left you to the left,
Or was it to the right?

The left, I think that's right—

I can't recall anymore.

But besides the things I took,

I think I forgot to take

Some thing, or things,
(I can't recall anymore)
Which I left behind, to your right.

What was it? I can't recall,

What they were for, even that
I can't recall anymore—

Was it that many things

Which we shared?

Looking back I suspect that,

That which I left behind

Was something (or things)

Which helped me remember

The things I forgot,
Things I can't recall anymore.

Perhaps that's for the better,

and I'll just use what's left, 

To make right, what I can recall,
And leave together behind,
To the left, or the right—
It doesn't matter anymore.

Calcium

Hello wayfaring readers who wander here. I know I link this blog to a lot of places with public access but rarely ever update it. Legal life does that to you. You write so much at work you have little willpower to string more than two words into a sentence once you leave the office.

This is a bit of a cop-out, but it's better than nothing: I wrote this piece a long time ago and found it lying in one of my desktop folders a few days back. Rather tellingly it was my office desktop (I rarely use my home laptop anymore). 

It’s date mark is 29th November 2013 but I am fairly sure it was written sometime before and just edited in November.

It is obvious I was not in a good place. I’m not there anymore. I may not be on cloud nine right now but I'm glad I’m not there. That’s not to say I won’t end up there again. In fact sometime in the future I'm sure I will.

Reading it again, I find the piece (somewhat embarassingly) overworked and heavy handed, but I know that when you feel your body ache both literally and figuratively, when you struggle to find hope, you aren’t entirely sensitive to subtlety—you just want to pour it out rather than worry about poetic merit or quality.

I hope this helps someone out there who may feel the weight of the world on his/her shoulders. You are not alone. We all go through this. And for instant comfort, read the beautiful Psalm 121.

Calcium

by Joshua WK Chong

My bones are caving in

Sunken in morning drudgery

Sun oppressed

Trembling

Even under moonlight

Invisible burdens

Weigh my frame

Sag my shoulders

Hidden fractures

Corrupt my composure

Silent aches drain

Just as palpably

But where is the respite

To heal unseen cracks?

Will I withstand crumbling –

Not sudden demolition –

But fine dust ground daily

Gnawed away bit by bit?

Will the cage

Turn so brittle

It heaves under

A fearful whisper?

Who knows?

Who knows?

Who knows?