poem - You Write

Cheer Up, Please!

March 21, 2017 FLAI40 Leave a comment

Christine Nicole Lilley was one of my Uber riders last week. Her story here helps to illustrate the poem I wrote when I was eighteen years young and this poem which I have re-titled “Cheer Up!” was published only once at Victoria School’s Annual Magazine, 1958. Thereafter the poem was manually archived and I am reproducing this 58 years later. CHEER UP, PLEASE! Each darkening night, the sun shone bright, In the darkness then, a beaming light. Each rainy day, dirt washes away, Cleanliness comes after each spray. A fall, a rise, not otherwise If fools are born so sage’s wise. A […]

Death the Leveller

March 13, 2017 FLAI40 Leave a comment

It must be in the year 1956 that I was first introduced to poet James shirley by my English Teacher at Victoria School, Singapore. I was 16 then but, even at that age I could understand the deeper meaning of this lovely piece of poetry. Please read this poem aloud and note the rhythm of the words and the perfectness of the stanzas. Note also that death has been personified as a human being and Death is a very fair person because he levels the playing field. Whether one is rich or poor, king or peasant, good or evil, the […]