Kristine Ong Muslim's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Adbusters, Amarillo Bay, Birmingham Words, Color Wheel, GUD Magazine, Free Verse, Her Circle, The Journal, Loch Raven Review, The Pedestal Magazine, T-Zero, Tipton Poetry Journal, Turnrow, and WORDs DANCE. She lives in the Philippines--in a small town straight out of a Stephen King novel. She dropped out from a Comparative Literature course during her freshman year and graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of the Philippines. She has written more than three hundred fifty stories and poems for genre, mainstream, and literary publications in Australia, Austria, Canada, UK, and USA. Her publication history is available here

Click image to read the poem on the Philip Grae website; for a profile of Muir on the BBC Writing Scotland website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image to read the poem on the Internal website; for a profile of Cummings on the Modern American Poetry website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image to read 'Dolor' on the CSU Fresno website; to read 'Root Cellar' on the University of Washington website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image to visit the Dissecting Hannibal website; to visit Harris's official website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image to read the poem on the Buffalo University website; to visit Giovanni's official website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image for a profile of Nowlan on the Menweb website; for a biography on the University of Calgary website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image for a selection of links relating to Goldbarth on the Storeez website; for a review on the Ohio State Press website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Click image for pages devoted to Ferlinghetti on the City Lights website; to read about Ferlinghetti on the Beat Page website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here.

Bruce Boston

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Karen R. Porter

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David C. Kopaska-Merkel

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Andy Miller

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Marge Simon

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Alec Kowalczyk

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Mikal Trimm

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Mike Alen

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Wendy Rathbone

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Charlee Jacob

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Samantha Henderson

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Terrie Leigh Relf

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Lon Prater

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SELECTED POETRY

by
Kristine Ong Muslim

1985

As children, we pretended
that the bedroom floor
was the sea,

and the bed that towered
over it was the island
by which we never stopped

seeing the passage of pirate
ships and ghost ships,
whales and rescue boats.

Twenty years later,
I wished night after
night that we had been

stranded
in that island
long enough,

so we never had
to drown
for real.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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EMPTY CHAIR

Nothing to regret about this size of life.
There is still room enough for one more,
while loneliness dwells between the crevices.

It is a word that cannot be gesticulated
with your hands alone. So you whip it
to a sitting position, where it will follow

the disciplined contours of an empty chair.
But after a year, it has overflowed.
Its legs can now touch the floor. The head

is two inches away from the ceiling.
It has grown bigger than you. Tomorrow,
you must build it a house of its own.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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LITTLE SYMPHONY

Longing for a little nightmare once in a while
before he goes to bed, Halley yanks the
lampshade string on and off, off and on
until the repetition yields some sort of a meaning
or he cannot take the clicking sound anymore.

Everything is quiet now, except for the jiggling magic
vines on the bedroom wallpaper. The star-shiny blue
silt from the beach is still safe inside the bedside drawer.
He can sleep now, see Mrs. Braun in class tomorrow,
tell her he is sorry for throwing paper planes at her back
although, deep inside, he knows that he is not.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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STONE

Not yet mutilated by trampling feet,
the partly buried stone is too
ordinary to ignore.

I uncover it, and I realize right away
that it is a special stone for it can look
like all the other regular stones
which I have seen before it.

No hand has ever touched this stone,
except for mine. I brush away the soil
and polish the stone's solitary eye.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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OF CHAINS

1.

A problem exists
in the simplicity
of chains.

The tug of the load
is distributed among the links --

a sagging see-saw against
a guiltless weight.

2.

Every chain can
make me happy

with its clinging faith,
its cold, comforting slack

as long as the other end
is not bolted to a wall.

3.

Once again, there is
Only madness in
the simplicity of chains.

No member in the loop
can communicate
the disfiguring motives
of rust.

Each link will understand
only when its turn comes.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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WHAT GRANT WOOD LEFT OUT

when he painted Stone City
was too obvious to miss.

A picturesque countryside where a white river
meandered away from perspective
to the sides of the mountains
had to hide secrets.

Not to mention what those parasitic-
looking yellow-green foliage implied.
Before the stable, the farmland seemed
strikingly barren. The windmill was useless

in that stillness. The bedroom window
of the large manor house was too black
at midday. Something was hidden there.
Screams. A man battering his wife to death.

© Kristine Ong Muslim

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