Best Sampan Poems
Willow patterns chase around a bowl
Through pictographs of bluest tide,
Paper tigers and some bitter rice
When you became some others’ bride.
Sampan glides across a lily pond,
Ornamental and pristine,
Crimson dragons and a sky-ward kite
Their tails of envy brightest green.
Pagoda structures set against the sun,
A concubine salves in my head,
Scents of winter and an ending day,
The far horizon glowing red.
I search the coastline but you never come,
Just haunting trace of memories,
So I recline within my paper dreams
And sail away on China seas.
Ok, ok, it's rubbish. This is what happens when you drink Kronenbourg 1664 on
a dismal Sunday evening and then try and write something. So let that be a
warning to you all. Still, oddly enough I quite like it. My god, have I really drunk that
much? Must have - I've posted it as well.
III
This is the land of the convectional rains
Which vie on the monsoon back scrubbing streets
This is the land at half-past four
The rainbow rubs the chilli face of the afternoon
And an evening-morning pervades the dripping, weeping
Rain tree, and gushing, tumbling, sewerless rain drains
Sub-cutaneously eddy sampan fed, muddy, fingerless rivers
Down with crocodile logs to the Malacca Sea.
This is the land of stately dipterocarp, casuarina
And coco-palms reeding north easterly over ancient rites
Of turtle bound breeding sands.
This is the land of the chignoned swaying bottoms
Of sarong-kebaya, sari and cheongsam.
The residual perch of promises
That threw the meek in within
The legs of the over-eager fledgelings.
The land since the Carnatic conquerors
Shovelling at the bottom of the offering mountains
The bounceable verdure brought to its bowers
The three adventurers.
A land frozen in a thousand
Climatic, communal ages
Wags its primordial bushy tail to the Himalayas
Within a three cornered monsoon sea -
In reincarnate churches
And cracker carousels.
The stranglehold of boasting strutting pedigrees
And infidel hordes of marauding thieves,
Where pullulant ideals
Long rocketed in other climes
Ride flat-foot on flat tyres.
IV
Let us go then, hurrying by
Second show nights and jogget parks
Listening to the distant whinings of wayangs
Down the sidewalk frying stalls on Campbell Road
Cheong-Kee mee and queh teow plates
Sateh, rojak and kachang puteh
(rediffusion vigil plates)
Let us then dash to the Madras stalls
To the five cent lye chee slakes.
la la la step stepping
Each in his own inordinate step
Shuffling the terang bulan.
Blindly buzzes the bee
Criss-crossing
Weep, rain tree, weep
The grass untrampled with laughter
In the noonday sobering shade.
Go Cheena-becha Kling-qui Sakai
(continued from Parts One & Two)
I remember this place bygone in antiquity so well,
As the sea slurped the cliff mellifluous on the swell;
As we sat bemused in ourselves, on the cliff rock…..
The seagulls swooped in their nest to dock!
The sun on the horizon dipped in salute,
Wafting came in the lilting sound of the flute;
Dusk was settling in as the watch strained to six-
The fishermen’s wharf was busy the sampan to fix.
The stars were peppered and the heavens were alight,
The moon glowed majestically in its floated flight;
We gazed at each other clasping her warm hand in mine,
Dreams of silence weaved together unspoken words left to shine!
Your laughter surfs across the resonant sea as the tiara slips,
The dew treasures your kisses as it softly falls on your lips;
My brush glides across the canvas on the easel as I behold~
Your eternal splendor cascades slowly as I capture you in gold!
Pleasure and ecstasy catapults to the fore, misery and sorrows cast away,
I ponder in astonishment as I portray your soothing beauty in sway;
Tomorrow and ever after as I hold your hand walking in the fading light~
Do remember this place where we painted the rainbow in the twilight!!
CRESCENT MOONLIGHT
Crescent moonlight falls
Sampan dips its oar in light
Timid deer enthralls
"It’s Raining, It’s Pouring"
It’s raining, it’s pouring
The old man is snoring
He bumped his head
And went to bed
And didn’t get up till morning.
Shivers 'me Timbers
truth be told tune's like old
day had grew night he knew
possibles here unfolds.
I'm Popeye the sailor man
fought Brutus a former friend
was sent up the Big House
and fought with a Big Mouth
he ate all hamburgers then ran
I'm Popeye the sailor man
got lost in the jailhouse can
I flushed myself down
I'm the new man in town
I think I'm now in Japan
I'm Popeye the sailor man
lookin for food in this land
asked a theater house
they had a Bigger Mouth
Kabuk got spooked and he ran
I'm Popeye American
at food house saw Kabuk man
before I could get 'im
he ate all the saimin
and then he ran off to San Fran
I'm Popeye American
hungriest man in Japan
got a bowl of seafood
that stood and walked for good
still hungriest man in Japan
I'm Popeye kabuki man
I'm lean like a boogeyman
my muscles turned mussels
mid chopstick smiles--hustled
so quick boards I on sampan
I'm Popeye the kidnapped man
got Shanghai up to Thailand
there I met King Kong
who took me to Hong Kong
to ship's dock fast as I can
we passed the Meridian
we dropped anchor in ocean
as history stood still
herstory went on till
mid BC & AD timespan
the ship I was travelin
I met this young Hawaiian
his grandpa's Maori
and grandma's Tahiti
he called me the comeback kid
home, my yard--friend waterin'
said he changed my Tax Map Key
helped him up he'd told me
he'll fix things be golden
then showed news I'm lost at sea
I'm Popeye invisible
I will change impossible
and I'll be a name-changer
from Popeye the sailor
to Eyes-to-die-for the yachtsman.
Pike Place Market and Space Needle
race tracks out at Indy
stands Jefferson's Memorial
Nashville's Grand Ole Opry
Biking somewhere downtown Beijing (Bay-jing)
Great Wall nearby Xian (Z-on)
wow, thirty million in Chongquing (Chun-king)
pass Hong Kong on sampan (sam-pon)
St Petersburg a sweethearts tryst
ballet at Mariinsky (a theater hall)
an icon city of artist
like those by Kandinsky
Cars on freeways not stepping gas
fans run after The Rock
L.A. Lakers sign autographs
strolls in Hollywood Park
Chinese market in commotion
kids playing fingersticks
riverbanks in Tai Chi motion
reruns of Bruce Lee flicks
Stunning St. Basil's Cathedral
posing pics on Red Square
pass the Kremlin on a night stroll
goulash supper affair
Golden Gate, city by the Bay
Gateway Arch, St Louis
down Bourbon Street Mardi Gras Day
Graceland out by Memphis
Like that of Poe, in his real life,
to write was his haven
suffering the loss of his wife
two years since The Raven
Lamenting a loss is noted
though before it to be
guess a premonition floated
Poe writes of death, mostly
As you can read the no-frilled rhymes
a few strokes on the board
nothing compelling no-thrilled times
such things should be ignored.
Merely go out and drive somewhere
steer from them who forebode
Just be able to simply say
"Are we on the right road?"
While at homes here, or homes o'er there
Just living the homelife
Enjoying each other here--there
Live as one, free of strife.
Red-Crested Sampan
?
Shariful Alam
June 10, 2025
Hudson, New York
United States of America
?
If by chance we meet again someday,
If desire brings us close once more,
I’ll breathe deeply again at the foot of the mountain,
Smear your gentle gaze across my soul.
I’ll cross treacherous roads—
carefully, ever so carefully.
On a melancholic evening, I’ll go to Silentville.
That day, I will become the blue of night.
In a quiet corner, I’ll become your story.
You will be the restless sky.
When the lights go out, I will be
the middle note of longing,
and before the intoxication fades,
I’ll become a vagabond of boundaries.
Upstream will echo your pure lament—
Red-crested sampan.
I still remember the upside-down world,
the crumpled bed sheets.
Now, there is no veil between us.
A treasure hidden in the koel’s nest—
no, why call it hidden treasure?
There is nothing hidden between us anymore.
Now the rain falls in a romantic rhythm,
floodwaters swallowing the language of my poems.
It stops, it grows, it loses all borders.
Rain falls in secret—so very secretly.
Breath wraps around breath,
lips stir against lips.
In the final shadow of darkness, you said—
“Stop here, this is the end. This is my boundary.”
Yet, on that boundary,
droplets still hung—
a little moment ago,
a gradual surrender of self.
Like a tossed coin—
who knows who won, who lost?