Again And Again Poem by john tiong chunghoo

poetry in progress

childhood days are roses and thorns
they comprise memories light as
the roll of one marble as well as
heavy as a bag full of the blue white
gleaming rolly pollies sitting so
quietly in the old store room

childhood is full of schemes
marbles - we made sure the other boys
are emptied of theirs
kites - we made sure the string of
their kites snap, kite flying away
like a helpless chinese princess
pigeons - one was downed by us so that
its mate waited for it one whole day
on the precipice of a roof
one memory i wish to tear to shreds
dragonflies - in my hands they ate
each other up

childhood is festooned with lessons
both inside and outside the classroom
with the two legged, four legged, the hornbills,
doggies, and those with no legs but then
morphed into the best hoppers - frogs, toads
and grasshoppers to teach us never
to underestimate the poorest of anything
arithmetics, music, football or paintballs

childhood lane
a ball floating and sinking
a patch here and there, a lake, a stream,
a river - so many fishes had splashed
their tails and now only concretes
to make the memory jump

a cry, a lane, a walk, a pet, a church,
a school, mother's hand holding so tight,
shaking, and still elucidating her
discomforts, and those yelps of puppies
there, here, here there we had more than
five doggies all those years

winding through there, here
a range of sepia, black and white, chromes,
working themselves into an abstract
marbles rolling onto empty canvas -
light and ever so desirable these bonuses
at children's alleyway dates
- rolling ever still rolling
the drive that reels and roils the mind
going back is the same as moving forward
there is never a point in time we can rest on