One rainy day

Little bits of summer heat

dallying

It’s still raining

and raining

here I’m trying to remove

the rusty nail from the wall

and with it

the key chain hanging

on it

i still can’t remember

who was it that gave me

the plastic butterfly ornament

i turn my head and see the street

umbrellas have been scurrying

in frantic mode

yet the rush can’t intercept

the scrape on the broken glass

the sound of rain splinters

through the window

startling the cat prostrating on the mat

somehow i’m remembering

the old man sitting under the viaduct

his shirt embroidered with heliotrope

an empty chair by his side

there’s no knowing

who he’s waiting for

tea is already cold

i’m still obstinately imagining

the tea pickers abundantly sedulous

and the shades for pausing

in the back of the hills

the finch that went to sleep last night

i wonder if its wings are soaking wet

but i hope the water over the pond

won’t flood the vines where

the warblers once lived and nuzzled

lightning and thunder

the wrought iron of summer

fractured rivers thrown

with snippets of grain and buses

walking out of the rain

sunlight has become small

a fallen leaf stuck to still water

the main color is coolness.

©2023, ChinHooi Ng.

 

 

 

 

New sea

When I got to the sea

I stopped my feet

sands and salts adjoin

this is where

disordered skyscrapers yearn

to move in

where imperial ambitions

are thwarted again and again

within its nearness

the fore is flatness

unending level

a humongous zero

that no one can manage

when i stand straight

i am really standing upright

i am my own elevation

i want to go to the remotest surface

where the waves recurrently gasp

where not one individual can

make a tall enough platform to look down on

another person.

©2023, ChinHooi Ng.