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!
2 comments:
I would say, sit among them and enjoy their company! They know a secret or two about life!!
Enjoyed reading the poem.
I would and do sometimes but doctor says stay away from the burning sun what with the depleted ozone layer and all that ... see, I worry about environmental degradation and public health all the time ...
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