It was meat and chips

Reassuringly garnished with

Wholesome side salad!

The conversation over lunch

Was all fascination – really!

All the world’s problems

And their clever solutions

Of righteous and moral

Indignations!

With healthy doses of

Congratulations!

Lunch over – all that’s left is

Empty wine glasses

And that wholesome side salad.

Cheung-Ling Wong

I’m out of touch – they say

Out of touch with reality

I am not in the game

I’m not the same

We are all in the mud

How dare some dream!

Of lotuses blossoming

Or gazing at starry skies

Give me a ladder tall

And I’ll scale the heights

For no one had bothered

To replace the globes of light.

Cheung-Ling Wong

The buildings, the buildings!

They’re all burning down!

Save the institutions!

Stop the investors fleeing!

Pile them in thick and fast

And smother the flames

With their gullible fleece

But, all I smell is lamb roast

Far from saving our hides

We’ve built our funeral pyre.

Cheung-Ling Wong

To tame a dog with words

And placate a savage beast

Without being cruel in kind

To raise a sweeter nature

With a dulcet command of voice

That pricks the ear of trust

Than to fill it with loathing

Such should be master’s authority

And no less the voice of authors

The storyteller, the bard and poet

To tame the savage heart of Man

And to raise a sweeter nature

From the mire of the land

With words of dulcet command

Grammar of wisdom’s capture

And syntax of beauty sung

That the pages of life and of mind

Be edified to a higher kind.

Cheung-Ling Wong

Identify me – bound and tied

Yet all descriptions defied

What is beyond my politic?

What is beyond my religion?

What is beyond my race?

What is beyond my gender?

But true humanity found

The penultimate agenda

Only then can we truly proceed

Beyond our limitations affixed

To the ultimate beyond.

Cheung-Ling Wong

Sensitive

Never weakness

Easily touched

Is but strength

Taking pulse

Is no shame

First contact

Swallows courage

Embrace the other

Are you game?

Have you the grasp?

Being in touch

Having the knack

Wonder and tact.

Cheung-Ling Wong

Sugar coat anything

And it will be swallowed true

Poisonous lies and headlines

Servings of junk news

We – like spoilt children

Demand a goodnight story!

Candied lollypops a-lick

Fantastical, gob-smaking

Feel good tummy narratives

Gullible’s Travels titilate

So inveterate suckers we all become

Reality – we barely grasp

So rotten now are our teeth

Yet off we go to bed a dream

Un-brushed and unclean.

Cheung-Ling Wong

Hit a ball hard enough

Changes its trajectory

Never where you wished

Hit a boy hard enough

Changes his priority

Never where you hoped.

Cheung-Ling Wong

I was taught since young

That hardship and suffering

Builds character and success

Hence I was tortured/tutored thus

And to this agonizing day

My life and motto is such

Yet, why the disappointments?

Hadn’t life taught me a lesson enough?

I was conscientious – and some

Thought I was a great success

For quite a character I’ve become!

Cheung-Ling Wong

Make the most of what one has

As those you envy make most of theirs

Coveting others risk neglecting one’s own

Feeding envy’s wild imagenings

Hence wilder grows your shade of green

Jungle of spite and iniquity.

Cheung-Ling Wong