Return of a friend

I wrote this a year ago. A friend was traveling to the former French Indochina - and I was worried about her.

Casually I wrote this:

Sun, dawn, Sky, rain
Bring my friend back to me again

She eventually returned but not as my friend.

Text Message Love

She writes, and her words dance across my mind.
Shimmering text (on my screen), that gleam magically.
A world away, an ocean apart, her small little fonts touch my heart.
 (in my cold room on this cold winter night.)
Yauming Chiam 2012.

(A female friend who was thousands of miles overseas sent me a small innocuous message. It was such a minor albeit humorous remark. But in my mind I saw her smile and it made me smile too. And it drew me out of my gloom. My room was freezing that night.)

The slim Peranakan girl

Sun, dawn, Sky, rain
Bring my friend back to me again

The House on the Hill

I wrote this poem back in Jan 2005 when I found this old abandoned mansion in Chancery Hill Road. The owner's son had moved overseas and was unable to return because he didn't do his National Service. 

The owner had passed away sometime in the 1950s leaving dishes in the sink to wash, clothes in the cupboards, photos of horse racing on the walls - apparently they were wealthy enough to own race horses, and old art deco furniture.

In 2009, the new owners had the place razed to the ground, nothing of the place remains now.

The abandoned house left a powerful impression upon me. And I wrote this poem shortly after I visited the place.

The house on the hill
stands silent and still
Its front door is locked
Its windows are open.
Old cupboards are inside
Filled with dusty dresses
And worm-eaten books
The old house waits
Waiting for master
Waiting for mistress
But no one returns

Singapore Balcony 1am Draft 1

Soft is the velvet night sky

Quiet is the black night air

A gentle breeze passes by

In silence we patiently wait for dawn

Random thoughts

On her epitaph, it was written: here lies a mother who gave her husband's inheritance to her children to strange men.

Descent 2

Alone in a sea of strangers
Trawling through the babel of voices
I feel confusion
I feel dread
A rising tide of madness confronts me

Then I descend to the depths
And the black beast does not follow
I hear my breath
In the stillness of the ocean womb
I feel my senses align
Alone in the depths

Down in the deep depths
I find the solace I seek
In this silent world
So alien to humanity
I am at peace.
Chiam Yau-ming 2012