It wasn't he!

A feeling of closeness between people
is a thing of a moment, circumstance or chance.
It has almost nothing to do with you and me
it appears unexpectedly or it may never come!
You may know someone for many years and still
never get him or her to understand you, and
that's how you decide to become a good listener
and stop talking about yourself.
You start telling people only the most innocuous things
and see from their expression
that you've once again bored them to death.

II.

I've only just come to understand that you and I have different
lives now, though it wasn't like that at the start --
or was it (in reverse, perhaps)?
But the winds of time have sifted the swift from the sluggish.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It certainly has nothing to do with you and me personally.
Or maybe it has just a little?

III.

Dire as these times may be, it seems the gravest scarcity
we suffer from is a sense of humor; that would be
bad enough in an individual, but in a nation it's pitiful
and sad. Twenty years or so ago, my mother said to me,
"I never hear you laugh." And yet she did not mean there
was a lot to laugh about within those last years of her life.

IV.

Then there was this trend of misconstruing,
which I really haven't seen the end of yet, because
the written word has lost its value. Even when we
read the most distinguished newspapers and magazines
in a language we are all supposed to understand somehow, words
lose their meaning along the way! Our so-called statesmen,
respected scholars, writers, editors all have become adept
at putting enough margin for multifold interpretations in their
writings, enabling matters to be bent this way or that; whatever
would please the Old Man! And when, later, the people that is us,
discover that things weren't done as planned, those gentlemen
would blame it on the way the language could be interpreted
disregarding that a mere human had put the plan together; writing
off the worth of a word according to its conventional meaning.

V.

We're such a forgiving nation! Today we hobnob with the Dutch;
laugh heartily with the Japanese competing at fawning over each
other! Beaming in the limelight with ex-Communists (the
limelight! Ah, the limelight at all cost!). And, in a shocking
way (and isn't this so true?) we dispense of what our sisters and
brothers had fought for with their lives. It's only by default of
our upbringing that we haven't become communists ourselves. Yet,
we might as well have been, the way we behave today! Are we a
forgiving people? Strangely, we would rather wine and dine a
former enemy than forgive a veteran compatriot whose only sin was
that he was too vocal, and dared call a spade a spade.
Oh, how we hated him for being such a nuisance to the Old Man
and his cronies (and thus a menace to our own sweet bliss)!
We've fixed him, tied him tightly to his corner, oh yes!
And you know it isn't the Old Man I'm speaking of.

Time, Playing with a Kaleidoscope...

Time, playing with a kaleidoscope (his toy),
Moved it a bit with a twist of his wrist
Breaking a pattern;
And other shapes come settling in place,
Color making room for color
Forming another pattern,
Until Time, playing with the kaleidoscope, his toy,
Moves it a bit with a twist of his wrist
Changing the pattern again

By Bibsy Soenharjo