Hello from the other side

I tried to call a couple times

But no one answered

So I poured my heart into a couple lines

Through blood, sweat and tears

still he couldn’t cut the rhymes.

Re animating words is when he comes alive.

He’s thriving when they said he can’t survive.

Used to be a time when they said he was weird.

He would shut his eyes and wishes he’d disappear.

But he knows he has to face the fear.

Even if he has to taste his tears.

Even if he hates the face in mirrors.

All of the wasted years, worried bout the thoughts of peers.

Buried under a blanket with lots of prayers.

Is this how he’s gonna live his life?

Living behind a desk working 9 to 5?

Making calls but they’re hanging up so he starts to write.

And it starts tonight.

Taking the leap, no more living on the edge.

Faith in action, so he leaves it on a page.

Hardest thing he’ll ever have to do.

Not really, no one expects him to fill anyone’s shoes.

What did a boy of 33 ever have to prove?

Or rather, what does he have to lose?

Stands to gain the world, 

If he’d only shoot for the moon. 

So he keeps his mind on the cosmos like its gospel.

Cos he knows with God, nothing is impossible.

Jon Lau/ 15 April 2023

Yeah said I’m monotone

When I’m on the phone

I’ll sell you to sleep

When I’m on a roll

Yea I’m on a roll

Cos i cut corners

Skip the verse and jump straight for the chorus.

You think me odd cos my pitch is even.

You take the absence of tone for lack of experience.

But as you listen on, you wonder whats wrong,

that you’d actually find this appealing.

Where’s he going? What’s he selling?

I honestly don’t know but it sure is compelling.

Cos this dialogue’s diabolic.

Like diabetic’s blood sugar it skyrockets.

So sayonara, goodbye profits.

I’d wave but my hands are in side pockets.

So while you sign contracts,

I keep mum cos I’m a silent accomplice.

I have no idea what the actual cost is.

Behind cell dockets there’s no sign on my office.

You could’ve hung up on me,

now there’s not even a chance to pause this.

Yeah said I’m monotone

When I’m on the phone

Sell you to sleep

When I’m on a roll

OK this one’s cross sell.

How it works, you preach it like it’s gospel.

Make em believe you can bring the cost down.

Said there’s no doubt.

But if there are shadows I’ll kick the doors down.

Ho ho santa’s come early this x mas.

I’ll promise you the world like I’m sellin you an atlas.

Trust me I’ve had plenty of practice.

Voices in my head tell me I’m accustomed to the madness.

That’s why I’m reckless while I’m at this.

Cruisin through life maybe that’s why i crashed it.

Went up in flames like the tip of a matchstick.

Guess that’s how this white lamb became a black sheep.

A dollar for everytime i fell, that’s why the stack’s thick.

Irony isn’t lost cos I’m payin for it, reading off a sad script.

Like a T-rex about to relapse in Jurassic(pshyc!)

Now everyone’s rushing for the exits(tight!)

Yeah said I’m monotone

When I’m on the phone

I’ll sell you to sleep

When I’m on a roll

Jon Lau/ 8 April 2023

Just thinking about reasons.

I thought that if i just

wrote some lines,

and you know, make em rhyme,

I could let some of my problems vaporise.

But that’s not how it works though.

Precipitation occurs,

and i guess it’s why the words flow.

Be like water, said Bruce Lee.

Brilliant words, now that’s truespeak.

Drop the anchor and remove this noose please.

The thought of death just gives me loose knees.

I mean, don’t you think it’s rash and foolish?

Dying without really knowing who i am, like who’s this?

Well I guess I’m facing the music.

Its amusing how I woke up this morning

but still running from my monsters, am I lucid?

Thought really hard about these words I wrote

But now I’m thinking it’s stupid.

See it’s confusing.

And all i wanna do is sing

But I’m staring at bars

that have no melody it’s depressing.

Me and God’s gonna sit and write my future.

He told me it is bright but my shadows tell me it’s futile.

And my sights diminishin.

But I’m keeping my eyes on the light with tunnel vision.

That’s optimism, but it goes both ways.

Glass half full when you know it really isn’t.

But I’m a winner, not a whiner.

I am a miracle, just cos it aint red, it’s white wine, duh.

And a reminder, I’m such a flight risk –

Over the moon that I put the buzz in lightyear.

So Lord I pray you give me a reason to rhyme yeah?

Lord give me a reason to rhyme.

And between the lines and verses,

maybe there I’ll find a purpose.

Yea a meaning in life, more than just satisfying my urges.

A little more perseverance.

The patience to be the product and not just seek to purchase.

Even when the Mondays are mundane,

that it gives me the strength I’m prayin

to beat my path like it’s my craft and not stray from my lane.

And hey I’m just like everyone else battling their demons.

It isn’t about the four walls

and the blue doors that make this prison.

It’s about breaking out of these thoughts, now that’s freedom.

So I’m rhyming yeah, but what are the reasons?

21 Feb 2023 Jon Lau

He’s almost anonymous, a Jon Doe
If he had a tone, it’d be ominous.
Keeps it low key,
like a wolf stalking his prey for protein.
And he knows this:
If he wants to catch the snakes
he’s got to burn down the forest.
Sniff out the origin and snuff out the provenance.
The only weapon he has
is the spade that he holds in his hands,
and he’s playin it close to his chest.
Every plot he’s dug
is a feet closer to the root of the ruckus.
Stepping up introduce some light into darkness.
It’s not a bottomless pit.
He knows he’s getting close to the bottom of it.
Never giving up, so he throws his back into it.
He’s a killer with a message for his foes, see.
Dug em their graves and their epitaphs scribbled on post its,
and his choice of words are most appropriate.
A reminder to the devil that if he fucks around there’ll be no grace,
that he’ll fight him tooth and nail, till the truth prevails,
enough of his lies and his stupid tales.
He’s grown himself a set of balls the size of Jupiter.
He is the definition of dick in dictionaries,
and he’s sticking it to the Man like a missionary.
Time to bury these cadavers,
the ones who once said he could never.
Yea he’s the villain in this story
but somehow still the opposite of the baddest.
Looking to get drunk on the Spirit,
but not the kind that fills bottles and bladders.
Yea he’s searching for a high but keepin his head low.
For now he just keeps watch,
a sentry upon this headstone.

25 Jan 2023 Jon Lau

They said he has PTSD.

That his phantoms are fantasy.

But the leg they can’t see

Is lost in the war he fought for his country.

He put his weight on a plate, and poof.

Now he doesn’t even have a plate for his food.

An amputee, living on a stolen bag of weed.

A combination that spells catastrophe.

Got a gait like a cyborg,

A scavenger of the sidewalks.

He gets the shirks and the eyeballs.

They said “dude’s a fucking time bomb.”

So like his Dad,

he’s in a dilemma.

Neither can take this shit,

so he’s given himself an enema.

Went looking for his guts

Have you seen it, Ma?

I know you’ve been prayin hard

Hoping that he would measure up.

He’s looking for some change

But his pocket’s empty,

Could he afford it?

His lack of cents metaphoric.

Done laps tryna wrap his head round the logic.

Answers to his questions are whatchamacallit.

He has the propensity to act on impulse.

Has the power of thoughts

But he’s so high that he’s lost in these clouds.

He knows that to get even,

he has to beat the odds.

So he takes a breath so deep

that it goes right into his balls.

And as broke as he is,

he realises there’s no profit in panic.

And that between stimulation and response,

there’s a pause.

And where his imagination is his law.

Let it run wild, either choose to be

Poseidon, or a prawn.

And he knows in chaos, there’s order and clarity.

That it’s perfectly normal being an anomaly.

In the fog of war, there’s a silver lining.

As long as he maintains vigil,

keeping toothpicks under eyelids.

15 Jan 2023 Jon Lau

WWJD:

He’s tired of the bad rhymes.

Needs to take the leap before his debt climbs.

He isn’t that blind.

He sees the grass is greener with grape vines.

What Would Jon Do?

Can’t walk on water could he turn it to wine?

Brought out the noose

But then the idiot went and forgot the stool.

Is he constipated?

Refusing to pass out now everyone’s graduated.

So he reaches up his asshole,

to see how far up his hands will go.

Tryna find the guts to let go

of these silly habits but he lacks the backbone.

A jelly fishing among the sharks on a bad loan.

And now he’s drowning in debt.

Dimes a dozen and he’s mind’s a puzzle.

Can’t understand what defines a person.

Human being and being human.

Not the simple act of transplant or transfusion.

He’s looking for change,

reaching into his pockets

Only to find his knowledge is a book with no page.

He’s trying to make cents

but he’s got the wrong currency.

A clueless foreigner in his own country.

7 Jan 2023 Jon Lau

Oh man.

Part three of this dialogue,

and you wondering when he’s gon tie the knot.

Said he writes the plot,

but how dare he skip his death in the epilogue.

Enough already with this old man.

It seems like ages ago,

when he said he’d show them.

“Ha, what a joke, mate!”

Said he found freedom,

but lost the keys to his own head!

He’s been in the system so long

now he’s part of the program.

Made peace with the matrix,

but there’s still a war in his soul, damn.

He wants to sing his heart out

but conscious to the fact that he’s tone deaf.

Hates the voices and hes told them,

“I’m just a regular joe, man”.

Leave me the fuck alone man!

He finds peace when he wanders,

and its no wonder he’s a nomad.

Never settling in the desert

and that’s his definition of progress.

A murder of crows circling,

but still chases the hope of a promise land.

16 Dec 22 Jon Lau

This old man.

Sitting in a cell on his grown ass,

Says don’t ask bout happiness

you know how that shit don’t last.

Says he built it like lego.

But now he just sits back on his

saggy gonads and watch it collapse.

It’s code red.

Don’t need a pastor to preach it from behind a pulpit.

A destruction so out of this world

when he looks at the whole map.

Silly gramps, thinkin he’s in continents

when in fact its just his piss he can’t hold back.

Watched his dreams go now he’s back at it

Warmin up to a blanket of bad habits.

Says “it wasn’t planned, damn it.”

Its not like he sits around

scribbling plots with his stupid pad and ink.

But that doesn’t stop the assholes

from calling him a pen addict.

Nothing collected, just battle scars,

surrounded by empty jars with the hope

this time of writing a better epitaph.

And for a second there he starts to panic.

He’s behind these four walls,

dreamin of three meals

and the females and before long,

He looks back at his life

thinking where has it all gone?

Thinkin bout his actions and the consequences its brought on.

A veteran afraid of getting irrelevant,

sleeping in trenches cos his city’s war torn.

But its not much of a life is it?

Always wondering when they gonna drop bombs?

Always looking for the enemy

but toying with the hope that they’re long gone.

Its a disease that he despises

but for some reason he decides to hold on.

His paramore this paradox, so long.

This old man.

2 Dec 22 Jon Lau

He begs pardons.

Silly awkward kid,

standing there dripping from his wet palms.

I’m scared mom.

Its like I’m going to war

with rubber knees and lack arms.

Should i strap bombs?

He’s ready to die for a cause,

but he cant even feel the ground he steps on.

Struggling to breathe but the fear is airborne.

Hates the hope of living,

but that’s all he depends on.

What are the odds,

That he’s back in this box?

That he’s back on all fours?

Man there was barely a pause.

But he thanks God for carrying him across.

Then says I’m sorry,

that i couldn’t carry my cross.

13 Nov 2022/ Jon Lau

This old man.

Giving up on his dreams of sleep.

Sweating the details gets him so tense.

So he weeps and he soaks his sheets.

Got to talk it out,

but when he opens his mouth he just chokes,damn.

Monsters in his head,

“get out!” thats what he told them.

He’s ready to surrender, can’t take the heat,

but he can’t seem to raise both hands.

Why bother with it,

when he can’t see nothing beyond where this road ends!

Keeps wondering what went wrong with the old plan.

So where does hope stand?

Unsteady on it’s feet,

But dancing with the devil sure felt like romance.

Said he’d raise the bars,

But now he just lives behind em with old friends.

And before long, he’s an old man.

Oh man, look at what he’s made of his life,

with his own hands.

As a potter he’s thinking,

am i a prodigy, or a prodigal?

cos right now neither one’s looking probable.

Promises from a rainbow and a fucking pot of gold.

The odds are stacking,

a mountain to move that seems impossible.

So he climbs it every now and then,

just to feel what its like to lack oxygen. 

To get nauseous when he’s at the peak of exhaustion.

At this altitude, it clouds his thoughts and he’s lost in em.

Every second’s costing him.

Stuck in a jam while the traffic’s profiting.

And you wonder why he still lives in poverty.

Living off the government’s meals and property.

What the fuck is wrong with him?

He’s talking to mirrors and his comments derogatory?

He feels powerless.

Time’s running out and there’s no turning this hourglass.

Every grain is just a stain of his incompetence.

Pissing his life away, like he’s got incontinence.

This old man.

5 Nov 2022 / Jon Lau