A trader's prayer

Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
who errs,
who comes short again and again,
because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
but who does actually strive to do the deeds;
who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;
who spends himself in a worthy cause;
who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement,
and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
(Theodore Roosevelt, Excerpt from the speech “Citizenship In A Republic” delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910)

Dreamers Far Away

Dreamers far away

Some place far and foreign my lover sleeps
She dreams, she dreams…
An unfathomable sea separates us.

I stand on a distant shore and wonder
Is she crying? Is she weeping
The tears which fill that sea?
Is she mourning? Is she grieving
For the death of her dream?

Can I help her?
Can I comfort her?
Does it matter what I say
To a strange girl I met one fateful day
And took affection to in a special way?

Some place far and foreign my lover wakes
The gulf between us widens.
I lie on my bed and wonder
Is she thinking of me?
Is she trying to forget?
Is she afraid of me?
Is she going to reply back?
And I sleep and dream…

Alone on my grey shingle shore
Cowered by the cold, howling, shrieking wind
Intimidated by the monstrous crashing surf,
I am bending down to pick up the shingles
And hurling them into that dark unfathomable sea.
Trying to bridge the ocean that separates us,
Trying to fill the vast chasm with small pebbles.

Yauming Chiam Winter 2013

Let me be your destination. 
Let me be your place of rest. 

Guide me to safe harbor,
I will pass the final test.
YMC June 2015

i like you too much to forget - 3

I like you too much to forget
Your silence is daunting
like sailing through a pitch black night
a  never ending darkness
No light, no compass
I look for you
But you do not answer.

The Scuba Diver

The Scuba Diver

Alone in a sea of strangers
Treading through the flotsam of Babel
Everyone talking,
Yelling, Speaking, Whispering
Squawking
A Noisy Gaggle of throats

But there is no one to talk to
My voice goes unheard
My words come back unanswered
Then I feel confusion I feel dread
(A shrieking, rising tide of madness confronts me.)

Bewildered I plunge into the blue depths
And the black beast does not follow.
I descend deep
Through my regulator
I suck in the cold compressed air
Down in the stillness of the oceanic womb
I hear my every breath

I feel my senses align
Alone in the depths
Down in the deep
I find the solace I seek
In this silent world
So alien to humanity
I am at peace.
Yau Chiam Raja Ampat 2012

I miss you and wish it wasn't so

17th January 2014 morning poetry

I miss you and I wish it wasn't so.
You are the pause in my sentence.
The dream I remember when I wake.
The flavor in my food. The pain in my ache.

I try and forget. But it is no use.
I am in my winter because of you.
Come back and be my Spring.
yauming chiam 17-1-2014 singapore

Stranger met

I met you

I met you at the busstop, the train, the street
You were waiting, walking, reading
We sat beside each other.
We walked pass one another
We exchanged glances briefly
You coyly smiled...
And time passed
Ever so
Slowly.
20th January 2014.

Date a literary girl

A Book Lover

Date a literary girl.
And she will take you to places you've never been.
Make love to a girl who reads
A girl who says she loves your library more than you :)
Kiss her on the lips as she reads intently from some obscure foreign novel.
Laugh as she brushes you aside and kisses you back absentmindedly and
With disarming distraction as she
Smiles and she runs her slender fingers curiously down your bookshelves.
Feel her excitement as she finds a book you love
And then she asks with delight to borrow it.
Because nothing is more extraordinary,
Nothing in the world could be more wonderful
Than a girl who loves my books.
YMC July 2013.

Sunshine

SJ: Sunshine

She lingers for awhile.
The Sunshine with a smile
But I feel her gaze drift.
There is a rift
Her boredom is palatable.
I coax her but it is useless.
She must leave.
My Sunshine with a smile
And darkness descends.

It is dusk.
YMC June 27th 2013

Adrift

Adrift in a vast sea
Alone in a small vessel
Afraid of the encroaching darkness.
Embrace your fear
Know no one lives forever.
YMC 2015

borrowed time

We don't own anything. We're only borrowing things for a time... even our youth... our bodies, our health. Everything we have we have only for a period of time. Ownership is just a fallacy that humans conjure up to avoid thinking of eternity.