Author: veekwriter

  • Without Poetry

    A World Without Poetry

     

    What is this world

    Where we have lost our poetic gifts, the bone

    Set to bring us higher

    We are lost

    Like a dog that no longer knows how to please

    And takes no pleasure in its owner’s benevolence

    What is this world if

    By chance or by design

    We cannot transform our rage

    With the use of

    Words

    majestic, magical, magnanimous

    Words

    Plucked and carefully, lovingly cradled

    From the tempest and tarantella that

    Only humans

    Can, at once, feel and craft,

    Far, far away from the fleet of baboons

    Tapping furiously away

    In the random attempt to reach

    Shakespeare’s brow.

     

    ©️Veek Yeung 2021-2026 All Rights Reserved

  • Keeping Your Enemies Closer

    I’m the kind of person that only learns from a good scolding. My parents figured that out long ago, and, to this day, they still use it, though sparingly. When some people in your life act adversarially, don’t worry, they’re telling you the truth—about yourself.

    For instance, I did not quite catch on to the truth about credit, though I could once upon a time ago, maybe, sorta, grasp the concept of the golden rule of compounding interest. It wasn’t until the checkout woman at the clothing store, upon watching me swap from using my debit card to my credit card commented, “Oh, debit to credit? That just means you pay now or pay later.” She didn’t like me much, and yet, she woke me up to the evils of credit. Without that slightly unpleasant exchange, I would not have woken up and embarked on my angst over being in debt…and finally paying it off.

    Why is this so crucial? Your enemies are trying to hurt you. They pick on your weaknesses to do this. This helps, believe it or not, because you need to have your weaknesses exposed constructively to grow. Constructive doesn’t mean coddling. It doesn’t mean positive reinforcement or gentle suggestions. It means that which will reach you at your soul’s core so that you change. For me, it takes disciplining and scolding. That is simply my personality. I don’t think much when someone says something positive or when I’m complimented. I double-take, though, when someone is negative. Somehow, that is a method of learning that works really well for someone as stubborn and narcissistic as myself. Well, I must not be incorrigible if I can change with discipline.

    One thing that discipline does that people such as I find difficult is that it puts you in your place. But, you know, I respond to that too. I’m not above the rules of human nature. That’s why this article title is about “keeping your enemies closer”. Yes, friends are wonderful. The sensitivity some friends show is beautiful. But what really goads us to change and climb upwards are the harsh truths of reality. Only your enemies are ruthlessly honest enough to show you that.

    ©️All Rights Reserved 2019-2026 Veekwriter

  • Child’s Play

    Sometimes, there are no happy endings. Just unravelled tassels that Time simply tosses aside and forgets. It’s as if this universe were a child’s toy, and whomever is in control is making child’s play. The cosmos is his finger painting; the Child is playing, indifferent to the trillions of life forms in its grasp. He is remorseless and unfeeling, not because he is psychopathic, but because he hasn’t learned to be considerate. That is our life. Tossed about at the mercy of a Cosmic Toddler. We hurt when he pulls our leg off, and he, mystified with how in heaven’s name it goes back on, throws it into yet another bin. Bins of broken toys, toys that don’t matter. Toys that don’t feel because the Toddler isn’t aware of those feelings. Hence, in his reality, no harm has been done. The toy has been rendered into trash.

    Meanwhile, on Earth, our existence is understatedly fragile. Feelings, the blessing and bane of our lives, are all some people have, whether they have all their worldly possessions in a 8,000 square foot mansion, or in a rusty shopping cart.

    Along the way, we meet people who inspire us with their compassion and unaffected manners. It is not easy to hold on to them. They slip away, they grow old, they lose their minds, they die. This whole exposé of life is, “You’re born; you eat shit; you die,” and, yet…

    These other people, so beautiful and alive, so transient in our lives. We want to embrace them, tell them our appreciation—strangers, two ships who pass by in the night kind of deal, make our lives hopeful, worth living, worth dreaming about. Sometimes they are viewed six million times on YouTube, to which you have contributed thirty-seven views in the first week. Sometimes, they are people who open the door for a you as you struggle with a baby tram and two toddlers, one on each side. These ordinary souls are our heroes and heroines. But they don’t stick around. They are shy, reserved, afraid. They want connection, but are only able to express it through gorgeous moments and good deeds that they soon forget as they quickly walk off in another direction, wholly unassociated and alone in their world.

    What makes us this way? What makes us tick? Why do we continue punishing ourselves? If it were fathomable, even shrinks admit they’d be made redundant. The whole job of a shrink is to help you distract and entertain yourself until you die. The problems of the mind, and the knots of the heart, are, at best, creative. It seems that troubled people must go through a kind of growing through, not growing up, but through, the tunnel of ageing and the world going on, maturing, making money, having children, being bogged down by the worries of this world, while Time has broken your Watch, and you literally watch the world go by as you tinker with the hobbies you had at 18, incapacitated from being unable to let go. Sometimes, Life is haphazardly indifferent. I am grateful, though I don’t know to Whom, that we are made of better mettle.

    ©️All Rights Reserved 2018-2026 Veekwriter