Teesta Review: A
Journal of Poetry, Volume 7, Number 1. May 2024. ISSN: 2581-7094
--- Jee Leong
Koh
How’d you get here so fast? Saint Peter asks. So I say
I had a seven mile jump on all the rest.
We were thirty-eight thousand feet above Charlotte
I say; knowing full well he knew full well and was
testing my wiry candor.
I know it was the wine I
say
He then quoted the heavenly manual:
You come when you’re called and wait in the queue.
But I’m here now if ever I was I say.. My BP cuff
still tight on my arm. My shoes
untied
My shirt undone. My hair a quiff of its former quaff.
Hey Pete I say, unrepentant.
We’re just two guys on the astral plane
rooting for the same team. C’mon, just what did
the Big Man say?
You’re in, he said. Now
wait right there.
Adrift
--- Jee Leong
Koh
Adrift (a-drift): adjective and adverb
In a drifting state- drifting un
certainty - incertitude and doubt.
Doubtfulness and dubiousness
–
a hes -i— tation -
- - suspense,
Per - plexity or an
embarrassment, A Dilemma,
BeWiLDerMenT - a puzzle,
a quandary,
timidity etc, etcetc and
FEAR!
Vacillation.......................................................Wav
ering
in termination, Vague Hazy FOGGY
an obscure ambiguousness. An
OpeN ?. A blind
bargain. A PIG IN THE POKE and a LEAP In tHe darK.
a fallibility we all feel, an
un-Reliability we all un -
TRUST. A pre-cariousness. I hesitate when I'm ADRIFT.. .. I flounder....
I miss my way.. . .1 Wander AIMIessLy;
I beat about
I lose myself I lose
my HEAD and I PerPlex Those Around ME and
I POSE , I PUzZlE
and confUse, conFOUND,, BewilDEr and I doubT
ETC.
ETC.
I'm uncertain,
unsure, casual, ranDOm and aimless,
doubtful, dubious,
INSECURE and Un
- stable. I'm InDeCiSIVE for sure and
ir-resolute and
unsettled,
undecided, undetermined and ?able;
experimental and TENTATIVEly
tentative.
I'm vague.
Indefinite. Ambiguous. Equivocal.
Undefined, confused, in mysterious, cryptic and veiled obscurity.
Undefinable!_ ORACULAR!! Perplexing!
Enigmatic AND pArAdOxIcAl,
Apocryphal and Problematic
Cantankerous! FalliblE, questionaBLE - - - debatable- - -
UNTrusTWorthY unreliable. and ir-responsible
SO, don't deal with me when I'm puzzled, pickled, perPlexed
OR I'm lost ADRIFT at sea, at fault at
loss of I'm at my wit's end.........distracted............and
distraught..................
A D R
I F T…
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Bio:
Jee Leong Koh is the author of Steep Tea (Carcanet),
named a Best Book of the Year by the Financial Times in the UK
and a finalist by Lambda Literary in the US. His hybrid work of fiction Snow
at 5 PM: Translations of an insignificant Japanese poet won the
Singapore Literature Prize in English fiction. His latest Carcanet book
is Inspector Inspector. Originally from Singapore, Koh lives in New
York City, where he heads the transnational literary organization Singapore
Unbound, the indie press Gaudy Boy, and the journal of Asian writing and art
SUSPECT.
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