Monsoon’s Arrival
i.
Leaves sphered into green lances,
on wet roads, littered
frangipani’s buds, tender.
ii.
Sampans rowing past
submerged rooftops
— city dwellers’ FYPs
inundated by news, torrential.
iii.
Three a.m. — the squall
bursts, my laundry
rots, sky-water
falls, incessant, cruelling
a kampung’s dreams.
iv.
Sleepless, the west coast dwellers
prays for the stricken
east — mercy of the musim.
Rex Tan
Rex Tan is a journalist by trade and a poet at heart. As a Malaysian, he is fluent in English, Mandarin, and Malay yet calls none his first language.