Longing

It's on days like these

When the mist hangs low

And a city sleeps

I think of you.

The cups of coffee,

The bouts of laughter,

Who would have thought,

We'd not meet thereafter?

It's on days like these

When I'm a bit low

I seek the warmth

I'd once known.

My wicked madness

Your good sense

A few handshakes

And it was all over!

It's on days like these

I wish we'd meet again

Just one more time

We became friends.

The Chefs' Special

My friend, Raj, suggested the word, gastronomy, and since it's hard to give Masterchef a skip if you are in Australia, here's my tribute to the show:

A cookery show
A kitchen of rules
A bench of judges
Anxious participants.

Timers, mixers
Presses, churners,
Cookie-cutters
And melting butter!

Gastronomic surprises
Mind-boggling recipes
Herbs and spices
Thin lemon slices!

Bakes and cakes,
Roasts and toasts
Diverse cuisines
Pressure tests.

Plated creations
Soaring ambitions
Minds full of hope
An error, and you go!

The audience waits
It's food you can't taste
But return you must
For another culinary date!

The Man of the Forest

In the tiny old pet shop

On River Santubong

I find an old capuchin

Caged and lonely.

A New World monkey

In ancient territory!

Beaten and weathered

Like rocks in the river.

In the wild evergreens

Is the man of the forest

An ape with a cape

Red, with flecks of orange.

Dense, dark Sarawak's jungles

Canopies, ferns, primitive natives

Whistling birds and barking deer

Giant crocs, fishermen's tangles.

Then come the loggers

With saws and bulldozers

Clearing a virgin forest

For palm oil plantations.

The man of the forest

Screams for them to stop

But who is to listen

To an orang's voice?

Then falls the tree,

the orang-utan's home

The men come a-grabbing

It's freedom no more.

There, next to the capuchin

In the tiny pet shop

In a cage, sitting pale

Is an orang for sale!

Mixed media works on paper

Monochrome and Asymmetry

Moment and memory

The word a friend suggested to me was belly-laugh. This is how I use it:

Moment and memory

“How long does it take for moment to become memory?”

The elderly gentleman takes his eyes off his watch.

“Why must you, miss, ask this question?”

He answers my question with another question!

I gaze into his grey-blue eyes:

Curious, compassionate, grey-blue eyes.

“It's a thought I can't let go off,”

I tell the gentleman with grey-blue eyes.

He laughs as if I've told him a joke;

A hard laugh, a belly-laugh!

His toothless mouth finds a voice:

“A moment's just a moment. We make it memory.

To live in the moment, you forget the past.

To remember the moment, you live it again.

If you mustn't remember, just let it pass.”

I watch as he winds his old wristwatch:

Time slips through those wrinkled fingers,

A moment passes, without its memory.

Self-portrait: Acrylic and graphite on canvas

Autumn: Acrylic and graphite on paper

Self-portrait: Pastels, acrylic and markers on canvas

Picture

Walking down a sandy beach,

I  stop to find a lone dead tree:

Its withered roots coated with salt,

A hollowed trunk on a bed of dry leaves.

I turn towards the vast ocean:

The waves lashing onto rocks,

Their frothy crests like dreams,

The jagged cliffs like realities.

On the horizon's a solitary sailboat,

Like a picture from a calendar.

It's a shot I shouldn't miss,

But will camera do justice to its memory?

The soft breeze through my hair,

My nostrils take in the ocean air:

A heady mix of salt and fish,

A potent drug, I'm here for a fix!

This vision I commit to memory,

A perfect picture it shall be.

The tree, the ocean, the cliffs, the mist,

O, how I shall miss all of this!