I was just messing around looking at the documents I have in
my files, then I came across and old poem of mine and decided to put up a post
on it since I haven't written for so long due to time constraint and my old
friend Ms Depress visiting.
When I was studying Critical Appreciation for my MA English
Literature with Dr. Noritah Omar, she made us read and analyse T. S Elliot The Wasteland. One of the assignments
was to either write a paper on it or write a 5 cantos poem of our own. I chose
to write the poem of course, in a way I cheated, because I just wrote the first and second cantos and then cobbled together the rest of the cantos from my previously
written poems and added here and there for sake of continuity. Because it was for an assignment, it wasn't dated, and looking
at my transcript I can say it was written between May to August of 2000. It was
titled Life in Fragments.
Life
in Fragments
I
An
Introduction
It was a
fairy tale beginning,
a nightmare
of an ending.
An open and
shut case
in life’s
highest court,
(or so I
think)
but the
jury is still out,
undecided!
My life now has been bared down
to mere
facts.
Ladies and
Gentlemen of the jury
let us
start over.
And this
time, I will colour the fact
with my
emotional reality so you could say
unanimously
that a life
with promise has been
wasted
on trifles
of indignities.
That I am
guilty
of buckling
down when the pressure is greatest,
and I am
guilty
of not
learning life’s lesson.
So let us
examine my
life in
fragments.
II
Innocence
Beloved
child of two loving parents
given
everything I would ever need
given love
and support by two adoring siblings.
And I grew
with glowing hope
that life
would be as rosy a bed
which I
have lain all my life.
The values
I have learned,
the
encouragements I have received,
was my
anchor for life.
And I gaily
laughed and set sail
into the
unknown,
with
mistaken belief
that the
sea won’t be rough,
and the
storm won’t torment me.
Will my
anchor hold?
III
Masquerade
Life is a
play put on
for the
world to see.
It is
ironic that I should
find that
out
while
putting on a play literally.
Rehearsals
after rehearsals,
I find out
that we really are
actors and
actresses
never
revealing our true selves,
I found out
who my friends are and
who are
acting as my friends.
I found out
that as in a play
we each has
a part,
and we play
it to perfection.
I found out
that it all has
been a
masquerade life is
putting on
for me.
Then,
the show must go on.
And the
trust I held inside
began to
wilt
like a rose
in a vase without water.
IV
The
waiting
Dreams that
formed
in the
illusion of the night
turns into
shattered nightmares
in the
clarity of the day.
In the
interlude of reality and fantasy.
Dreams.
Nightmares.
Are just
another play of an entrapment of a soul.
It feels
like an eternal slumber
the
stillness of silence
and in the
silence
everything
seems frozen
in time and
space.
From the
moment the knife drops
I’ve been
bleeding slowly inside
waiting for
death!
But death
is a tardy friend
And pain is
a constant companion.
If only I
could wake from this painful
dream
or is it
nightmare?
Or if only
everything would end
suddenly
swiftly
until I
could finally be laid to rest!
Sleep come
quickly now
take me to
that place where
nothing is
better than death.
V
Conclusion
There, my
life
coloured to
the best of my skill.
But still I
see the blank faces of the jury.
The jury is
still out.
Undecided.
But I do
not need their verdict any more.
Because now
I know
my life is made from the
reconstructed
ashes of my dreams.
Dreams that
have been
burned by
the fire of defeat.
Each time I
with my bubbles
of hope
gather the scattered ashes
and
the remains form
new
dreams
not
stronger
renewed!
