Who Is Now Reading This? Poem by john tiong chunghoo

count yourself blessed
if you are reading this?
you are the rare few
who actually read others' poetry
nobody is serious about other people's life anyway
poetry reading is being noosy
an orphan in an alleyway
tries to look for a
home sweet home
count yourself doubled blessed
if you fully understand any poem
for poets write for themselves
if a poet says he writes for others
he is probably a liar
after money probably
count yourself blessed for having learnt this
for among the millions of poets
there are poets in lost alleys
trying to find a piece of themselves
the lane that runs to treasures of heart and mind
verses springing from the sanctity of the soul
many slip on the make belief lane
throwing words, phrases helter skelter
a child that tries to plant fiction in non fiction
offering honorable readers
a half baked cake nobody would take
the heaven sounds out the genius though
each of his word gets you revved up
each of the words offers a
a spectacle into real sights, sounds, tastes
and smells
the honorable readers know the fakes
from the real - just so instinctively
real words never lie
the diamond detector never fails

inspired by

Who Is Now Reading This?
May-be one is now reading this who knows some wrong-doing of my past
life,
Or may-be a stranger is reading this who has secretly loved me,
Or may-be one who meets all my grand assumptions and egotisms with
derision,
Or may-be one who is puzzled at me.
As if I were not puzzled at myself!
Or as if I never deride myself! (O conscience-struck! O self-
convicted!)
Or as if I do not secretly love strangers! (O tenderly, a long time,
and never avow it ;)
Or as if I did not see, perfectly well, interior in myself, the stuff
of wrong-doing,
Or as if it could cease transpiring from me until it must cease.10
Walt Whitman