Stark the world,
Over which creatures,
High and low,
Stand sentinel,
Play-acting
To be little gods.

At ground level
A cockerel
Stands sentinel,
Ever alert
In the struggle
For survival.

Parody D'amour, Take This Verse To My Reader

The same scene on a different day ...

Under an overcast sky ...

Instead of piped music, cig smoke provides the accompaniment ...

Planted Townies

The men sit under the burning sun,
Whence all but them have fled to the bower,
Day in, day out, right on the hour, past the tower,
Right there in Dungun town
By the Pejabat Pos clover;
Their skins darkened like fishermen,
In the heat wave, smoke lingers
From their fingers,
The filtered tips of their cigs,
Wetted by their black lips;
This is the scene I see every day
Since two months I moved
Into Dungun town.

Malay checkers they play,
Every day by the day,
On their faces not a worry,
The only pictures gory
On their cig packets surely;
Their pockets must be in pay,
For they work not a day,
And yet can sit in the sun
And all day play.

Say Father!
When are you going to take them out?
As the statistics indicate,
And the Health Minister shouts?
Or am I going first,
Worrying to death,
About my health,
Jogging the beach,
Cycling the road,
Picking through the eateries
Vainly trying to clear up
My cholesterol clogged arteries,
Calm down my beating heart,
And tamp down my rising pulse?

O Father!
Life is so perverse!
I who cross my t's and dot my i's
When it comes to eat,
Jog, sleep - and no cig,
I who traverse fields and ford rivers,
Living the style of a scouter,
Am getting the bejesus out of life,
While these planted townies
Are setting an opposite example
And seeming to get away with it!

Spider and Fly

Spider and fly,
One is a sinner,
The other is dinner,
That is the reason why
Things have never been keener.