Dear Readers,

These technical difficulties plague our lives - endlessly - in a world where technology might be otherwise glorified, we find ourselves stranded as the laptop tries in vain to find the network that is supposedly switched on to full blast less that a metre away.

Then again, there's always the desktop. Here's a poem, written in the days after pondering his subject combinations.


And i say to you -
soaring past my window on
another wordless mission
of graceful flight

That although our eyes connect
we live in
seperate worlds.

- to the swallow that always hammers my bedroom window, punctually at nine thirty five in the mornings.

The Straight Times Editor


Crossroads

I just don’t know if this is what
life’s got in store for me –
Scraps of florid paper blank and
Unacknowledged poetry.

Sometimes a phrase of music too,
To brighten cloudy skies –
And little words of comfort for
The friends who need advice.

These words, I think, can serve me now
Distilling each troubled cry –
Of troubled friends whose troubled souls
Might someday long to fly.

But those I see around me have
All chosen roads of life –
While I’m still stuck at crossroads,
Piping this my lonely fife.

These notes I blow, they sing my thoughts
Of silence and of wonder –
I ponder yet how soon it is,
Before I travel yonder:

Over the weary gates of time that
Carve years from eternity –
The gates that mark our lonely paths
When we choose our destiny.

One by one I bid fare-well
To friends who move beyond –
Who bypass me with cheerless waves
That time and tide transpond.

And I am left with fruitless words
Of imagined hopes and fears –
Words of silken linen new
For the few who are left with tears.