as citizen, i pledge | Singapore

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Belen Rapada Esposo

my apathy. bless picnics that replace tupperware
and rattan mats with glassware and grapes.

bless walking around town, not to be seen
as liability. bless the chance to afford ride-hailing
when i do not need to.

bless my unbroken, nuclei family. that my worries
only involve self-improvement.

bless strangers, visibly relieved, when i say i am
majority. bless service staff who tense when
they see my partner
and relax when i hold his hand.

bless the boy who said i would be prettier if fairer.
at least there was consideration?

bless the privilege to skip cleaning house
because i was tired. how i need not think
about when i get to rest.

bless not being the target of disgust,
to be given the chance to oppose,
to protect our friends in this country
who need protection from us.

to protect their love for a place
that does not deserve them.
mine, unmatched.

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POME/struck | Tulala

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Becker Beckerbone

bawlin is / the bigfeathered quill
mmm ignorance runneth over
yelling an every-word &
wound loudmouth slicey dice

bondage c/o each block of text
gift of pent-up prisonment
riddles each a safety barrier
blockade crisping shut all meaning

oozing thru these figures / of ink
delining each solitary operant / sonnet
& the treachery of the perfect prosaic
gouging thickthumbed erotic

the authority of a metaphor [&c., &c., …………….. ]

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Untitled Poem #1

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Gopika Jadeja

“Is my love nothing for I’ve borne no children?”
I’m with you, Sappho, in that anarchist land.

– Agha Shahid Ali


Move into a rented house in a foreign land and imagine that you are making a home.

Tie a toran on the door frame. If there is no garden, plant a Jasud and a Champa in pots. Here, you can even find a Mogra plant. In the Botanic Gardens you can see an Ashoka tree along with Orchids. Two years ago there was news of people flocking to see the bright orange flowers of an Ashoka in bloom in Choa Chu Kang. Not the tall False Ashoka that the British favoured in India, a real Ashoka. The kind they say the Buddha was born underneath. There are many large trees here. Far from buildings, far from me.

Move into a rented house in a foreign land and imagine that you are making a home.

Plant in a pot and imagine you are planting a tree. If not for your children, for yourself.

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Lamppost | ল্যাম্পপোস্ট

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Mohar Khan

no crowds choke the streets
the traffic symphonic
and sleek and concrete
as the city’s own citizens
as the city’s sculpted monuments
as the city’s trees
lovingly watered and pruned
as the city’s children

the cuckoo sings from
the branches
as if this city was youth
or if the city
was spring’s riot
against the world
the city’s layers riot with the pungence of my labour and i dream

i love! love? this city / call me crazy / did i forget mother / motherland / bride / child / flag /
did i / do not / forget / perpetual subway dream. interrupted. final destination. never enough.
cash in hand. unknown. alone. in this dream i am umbra / penumbra / my son is a sodium-yellow voice
papa hold my hand walk with me to the bazaar let me ride upon your shoulders touching the
sky forget i have learned to walk to run to forget you

am i / i am a city
i remain sleepless like
night i am
more than
migrant
or worker

i am a lamppost for a family

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Lily | လီလီ

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Eaindra

Lily flutters her long pitch-black curly eyelashes.
In the middle of the night, clusters of rainbows bloom
From her ivy-like hair, from her cheeks and from her neck.
Wearing a thin curved hem top and tight mini-jeans,
Lily serves beer…
Lily bends her body more than necessary
And gets close to her customers a bit much.
Lily mixes herself in good proportions
And cultures her own yeast with her own formula.
The pose of a shecat in pencil heels is an appetizer Lily cooks.
The fancy necklace on her milky breasts is a dish of fritters Lily prepares.
Lily’s black irises make her look like a virgin crow searching for prey.
Lily moves like a piece of meat about to be snatched by a hawk.
Lily serves beer…

Lily promotes her beer with her scent.
Lily promotes her scent with her beer.
Lily serves beer…

When Lily uncorks her sweet and gluey laughter,
The faces in the crowd that buzzes like blowflies taking off
Will turn and stare with their fiery eyes.
Lily pours her frothy giggles to be forked at and swallowed.

With her lips in disguise of red berries, Lily serves…
With her seductive smile piercing their stares, Lily serves…

Cutting up their words with her little chats, Lily serves…
Flowing down their throats and then into their arteries, Lily serves…

Lily serves like a shaggy female terrier, cutely petulant.
Lily breaks herself until she fits into a bottle and she serves…

Pretending to be uninterested in the news of homecomings,
Lily grafts herself tree to tree and she serves another beer…
Lily puts herself on a fishhook and angles like there’s no tomorrow.
Lily quips, “Life is a little bitter just like this beer” and serves another…

“I am God’s typing error.” She serves another beer…
“I am a little she-snake from the snake charmer’s basket.”
Lily serves another…

It isn’t bedtime yet…another
Nights are still falling in rain…another
Dawn hasn’t budded…
No crack of light in tomorrows yet…
There’s only darkness…

Lily serves beer.
Lily has served beer.
Lily is serving beer.

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Bukit Panjang

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Noorhaqmal Mohamed Noor

a first memory
running from head to toe:

as the sun loses grace,
cheeky children return to their homes late
with a wipe of their brows and wind
playing in their ears.

in the garden alone,
a young pair of lovebirds
blush in shame.

the sigh of time draws close. in the early
hours of morning, youths arrive
in shifts. one by one,
a farm collapses, an anxious
field hears the thunder
of progress.

hills of trees are shaved free;
sweat off the backs of teenagers
becoming men. one by one,
we lose a thousand dreams
marching towards maturity.

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Memory | স্মৃতি

Posted on October 31, 2020 by SM Sumon

The sky insists on unfurling
its vast emptiness overhead.
Today you are not here.
In your place,
the ghosts of our landscapes
raise the oceans in me.
Here is what floats up –

The riverside. The thickets,
the tamarinds. The derelict bridge.
Together on the endless beaches,
our hands outspan the moon.

Today you are not here.
Today you do not remember.
(What is to be remembered? how long
have I been an emigrant.)
Today you are not here by the silk tree.
Here we first fell in love,
here the first tree still waits.

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Song of Tebrau | Senandung Tebrau

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Juffri Supa'at

Straits of Tebrau
I crossed you
looking for a friend
long unseen
because you are a witness
to an old story
when we used to love
fusing affection with faithful promises.

But …
Why now the lack of feelings
and warmth
when we’re together?

Even so
lips part with a smile
the heart is suspicious.
Hands wave with affection
But with feelings divided,
filling each word with a thousand meanings
filling every step with a thousand cares.
hands clasp tightly against a grip so cold.

Is all this …
because we used to
disappoint and fail in a love
still
sore, a wound full of pus
or
is doubt
unrelenting and dissatisfied
that we together
are friends loyal
to our ideals.

Straits of Tebrau
Understand
our love
never reached its peak
However
we are still tied
by bonds of friendship
that fortifies us
in the face of a turbulent world.

Not
enemies looking for conflict
or
nemeses seeking destruction.

Straits of Tebrau
can we strengthen the bond
of love and trust
in the coming days
as a close friend
in a world achurn with uncertainty?

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1964

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Sithuraj Ponraj

They painted / dyed the building at the junction, some crows caught in the paint / To this day, black crows remain, nuclear shadows post-explosion eruption of our defences / To this day, the black crows / Paints are just colors, laughs the paint man, That’s why they set it alight / You know this What do you know?/ this is our stone building / Its three-cornered junctions have now changed / They have become sharks with sharp teeth / Their name is paint / This time the streets have not grown ears / But they have eyes like the sun / Long-nosed peoples lead mustached peoples across the three-cornered junctions / the sun laughs at their long noses / The sun’s laughter was like the sound of a raven, a brick building, an island, and a house / the ravens, painted many colors, had now grown noses / flew with them.

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The Inescapable Recollection | မလွှဲမရှောင်သာသော သတိရမှု

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Pandora

I, from all angles, looked at an apple
in the supermarket there, those naturally ripe fruits
dropped from different directions were reproduced
by the advanced biotechnology
another microchip was added to my brain
what I should have wanted to know
had already been known beforehand, and so this became a space
created to learn creation
I started to run along the runway
of a reservoir when independence
became the connotation
of isolation (or vice versa)
it was no longer possible to stop the legs with engines
I used a lift to get at the highest space
at the highest speed to be able to chat with the moon closely,
in the skyscraper standing,
several phone calls were thundering
with the pounding, heavy rain
I set off my shopping footsteps
by electric flowers at the urban river bank
I was being bewitched. I bought being accustomed to
neat and tidy offices, using my credit card.
I shut down my eyesight
only the hospitality of strangers
in the professionally-harmonized tune I heard
was recurring and recurring and recurring
in my sweet memories

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the ending knot | முடிக்கும் முடிச்சுகள்

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Harini V

as if they were pearls of pomegranate
cascading onto the wet floor
slipping between these moments of the past
snaking through the Sunday market —
the sea of people (grey-haired)
dissolves into the crowd.

negotiating a price,
Kokila (who had forgotten to ask
for the remaining money
from the shopkeeper selling anchovies)
finds the coins
(of change)
spilling out of her bag
yet again
their deafening sound of laughter
echoing off the walls

black chickens
like headless fools
are laid out in the butcher’s sink
hearing the price
of one shocks Michael,
but before he can speak
his granddaughter
marks a full-stop to his sentences
by extending an extra
two dollar note

at the fruit stall
lips sipping papaya juice
complained about not remembering the school
that was near the market
in the 80s

these new teeth, chewing on radish
complained about a Malaysian passport
that had been
mysteriously stolen from him
in the 50s

these memories evaporate like
water in a lake, slowly drying up

Are the ones who have lost
the last pages of their books
resigned to wear
new glasses
every
single
day
just to rewrite their ending?

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lamunan | Sekati Tamban, Secekak Bayam Dalam Bakul Rotan

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Hartinah Ahmad 
1 How far is the market from home; the length of two feet
spurred by rattan canes.  2  Hold your  dollar coins tightly
in   closed  fists.   3  Minimise  the  un-paring  of  rice  and
vegetables.  4  Learn  your  multiplications. 5 See how the
canal  overflows  from  last night’s  rain.  6  Cats and dogs,
planks of wood, even your mattresses; all things return to
the sea.

7 The slippered  will  cross  from  market  to school.  8  No
worries  for your  vocation!  9  Exalt  the learned;   how to
read,  how to write,  how to count.  10  Multiply!  11   Your
parents are  your parents.  12  There is  value in the  aged.  
13 When of age,  you will marry before the passing.  14  If
it is willed,  so is the child.  15  Even fish and vegetables is
a kind of happiness.

16 If you wake from a dream, are you air-conditioned? 17
Hear the grand-children proclaim  “prosperity, prosperity
fish burger!  Full of spirit and delight!”  18  A  dream  is  a
folded memory.  19  Day and night,  let us pray  for magic.
20 This is a world where fish turns from the sea.
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Untitled Poem #2

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Gopika Jadeja

I have heard that my mother’s nanabapu planted mango trees on his farm so that you could taste the the fruit from March to August. Such lush green in the Kutch desert.

Walking on the land, you could travel from Sindh to Rataul to the far south. Sindhri, Hafus, Kesar, Langdo, Dussheri, Rataul and Imam Pasand.

Here in Singapore I had the flavour of mangoes on my tongue from April to July. No, I gorged on mangoes. No journeying. The mangoes kept coming. Home delivery in the time of Covid 19. First the Hafus. Then Kesar. Dussheri. Langdo. Rataul. Sindhri.

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fallout: new shenton | Shenton Way

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Ahmad Md Tahir

i.

in the new city
a wandering river of
delivery bikes
throng canals of retail shops
drained of posh automobiles

ii.

are there angels
among the living
the air is thick
with the expensive smell
of sanitisers
let us raise our hands
lower our masks
open palms open hearts
all praise and glory
to the unclaimed

iii.

there is no comfort
in the wandering
only the waiting
find purpose
in the destination

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Rhythm of Work | 上班下班

Posted on October 31, 2020 by 周粲 (Zhou Can)

Morning (Accelerated Shot)

Get up, brush teeth, wash face, drink tea, wear
clothes, shoes. Wait
until the need to take three steps
as two. In the driver’s seat, pause.
There’s dust on the windscreen and
the asphalt road beckons, widens.

Morning (Slow Motion)

The road keeps widening but
never feels quite wide.
In ordered rows, cars move, crawl,
stop at red lights, at forked roads, at
zebra crossings. Stop,
wait, time is waiting,
tired of waiting. It abandons me
leaps over cars, sprints away.
It leaves a trail of beaded perspiration,
glistening at the tip of my nose.

Evening (Accelerated Shot)

To write, to look at the clock, to write,
to pack up, to look at the clock, to pack up.
To walk to the lift to press G.
Down the stairs, behind the wheel,
another half–hour to home.

Evening (Slow Motion)

The road keeps widening but
never feels quite wide.
In ordered rows, cars move, crawl.
Those on the road shoulder stop.
Those in a chain collision stop.
Those commanded by the traffic police
stop. Always stopping, always
waiting, time is waiting,
tired of waiting. It abandons me
leaps over cars, sprints away.

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Drivers | Jenti Lebah Kareta

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Patricia Maria de Souza

Some drivers are like millipedes
Driving very slowly and cautiously,
Making drivers that race
Like centipedes
Furious.

Many drivers are similar to dragonflies,
They swerve from left to right
Without indicating,
Without thinking of safety
And without courtesy.

Other drivers are like lizards,
They are immovable on narrow roads
As they deliver goods,
Intent on their prey, they block
Other road users.

Why can’t they remember
The rules for drivers?
Have they become old
Or do they have amnesia?

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Bus 67 | Bas 67

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Isa Kamari

Eyes thick with dreams. Sweat-slicked seats
wicked by breeze, a cockroach drowses
in the dusty cracks between. Outside,
a fugue of motion: people, cars
criss-cross roads trundling from
Paya Lebar to Kallang, lorongs swell
with stories split from Asia’s belly,
Geylang sighs of sultry nights,
laments its morals loosening.
Coffeeshops thunder with soft-boiled eggs,
roti bakar, hot buns, mushroom mee.
Heavy breathing steams the rubbish heap.
Massage parlours re-open at eleven,
mosques and temples bear sullen witness
as brothels sleep. Migrants flit to hi-card kiosks,
contraband cigs slip from fist to fist. The bus
pulls in shadows huddled in front of shops,
then suddenly whiffs tumble in:
stale Tsingtao, nicotine lacing
unbrushed teeth, prata soaked in dhal,
breakfast kopi. Sweat ripening,
earwax, grime wiped on pants.
Heads forward. Will not move
back. Red eyes patrol the space
from seats, tracing foreign scents.
Too many already, cannot come in.
The cramped journey suspends
in stifled air. The local driver is late.
Dreams stall at the entrance.
Stand up. Rage. Go
to the back! Go back,
go back.

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This City | 这城市

Posted on October 31, 2020 by 梁钺 (Neo Choon Hong)

This city is truly pure
The flowers have been sterilised
The moon inoculated
All the luminous shine of the mountains and colours of the sea
Have been distilled
Even car sounds and birdsongs have conformed to the norm

Footsteps on the streets
One following the other, one answering the other
Oddly enough, now behaving so well they are untainted
While poetry no longer causes any pain or stirs an itch,
The so-called suggestions, symbolism and ambiguity
All end up embalmed in ethanol

This city is truly pure
So pure it’s astonishing
Buildings adhere seamlessly to the ground
No sudden tantrums from the clouds
No startled wind
Not even a tendril of peculiar smell
Not to mention
Those sand grains so fond of sneaking into the eyes

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a rat’s pilgrimage | ஒர் எலியின் யாத்திரை

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Harini V

the silence of night
is chased away
by the sun’s alarm

shoved into a train
in the middle
of shadows that appear
expressionless
I too, tremble as a ray

the mice shake their heads
while the bandicoots speak
conversing
without the need for understanding
like the lunch that had
long gone stale
laid out in front of us
these conversations are just as bland

I patiently await the time when I can rest

Either riding a bicycle on the East Coast tracks
Or waiting in lines outside restaurant entrances
Or watching TV in silence

Only in sleep
through my silent pilgrimages
am I allowed
to put on a façade
to become
a tiger, a dog or a space creature
and in some magical moments
also human

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Presumptuous Modernity | 诗组：自以为是的现代

Posted on October 31, 2020 by 黄文杰 (Wang Mun Kiat)

Tradition

Sixty-five thousand four hundred and thirty dollar advertisement
and one piece of mooncake

Office Block Lift

Up, a depressing morning
Down, an anxious sunset

Fast Food
rubbish that’s stopped breathing
quickly patching together
rubbish that’s still breathing

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Death of a Refrigerator | 冰箱之死

Posted on October 31, 2020 by 陈华彪 (Wah Pheow)

We assume the cold lasts forever.
Unaware of its untimely demise, we opened
its door to a dying ribbon of light. The cooler
had stopped working—like how the charm
hidden in an old film can’t help but prove
its stars dead, its soundtrack now stale.
The beer, refusing to cool, hinted at this
inevitability—or perhaps, at a lingering
uneasiness I could not ignore.

You reminded me to separate the food.
The meat, quick to spoil, was to be cooked first,
masking its death in a slaughter of oil.
Whatever remained, we left to be swallowed
by the heat, or hidden in the stomach of strangers,
if only to escape the wandering of flies. I wondered
if the eggs were alright. Only when they cracked
would we know if they were rotten, or fresh
like memories of breakfast. Or perhaps, we
could give them another chance? Let the
warmth’s embrace try and hatch them.
Your silence mirrored my cascading questions.
The answer came in the form of fried rice.
We ignored the vegetables for now, though
even the maggots could foresee their fate.

I open the fridge, expecting the melted ice
to have dried, only to find the spilt seasoning
grieving over their past. How I, too, who kept
opening this door again and again out of habit,
mourned in my many-flavoured grief—how death
somehow let me scent the proof of having lived.
How it let me taste this simple joy we neglected.

The inevitability of life quickly arranged
with the store for the new fridge’s arrival.
When the porters carried the old one away,
I saw an exchange of souls. How, spurred by
the guarantee, a fridge emptied and sealed
away is soon replaced by one new and
unopened, ready to contain anything.

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26-second ad for canned cat food | 猫咪罐头二十秒广告

Posted on October 31, 2020 by in tea and cigarettes

When we pass a clerk in a locksmith’s uniform,
The cat asks what kind of a relationship we are in.
Our relationship is that we wear the same colours.
Only with the cats I’ve loved before can I keep such a tight-lipped relationship.
The inexplicable image at last leads us to earnestly write poems that are more than half broken,
or turns us into another person who will fall in love with more strange cats.

The cat starts to run. Running cat.
I pursue.
The cat jumps over the Revolutionary Warrior Monument in the centre of the square.
Skips over the matchbox on the table in the outdoor cafe.
Leaps over the washing machine on the truck at the traffic light.
Soars over the champagne glasses in the hotel ballroom.
Jumps the turnstile at the subway.
Skips over our lost hearts.
The cat turns to smile at me.
We look at each other.
An innocent smile, absent all malice.

It is the immortality of the pictures on the ads that never catch up with the last train.
No one sees that there are no trains or passengers on the platform.
And so we suddenly realise that it’s a misleading, frivolous ad for canned cat food.
Frivolous and selfish.

If we just walk away in desperation,
that’s all it is.

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3 | முதலைகளின் சுதந்திரம்

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Sithuraj Ponraj

Crocodiles
graze on the entrails of afternoons.

Wearing his dentures
Grandpa would walk down the street to the shops.

In those places now
they sell crocodiles in tents.

Suddenly the wind might blow.
The tents hold on to their sides,
cheerful enough,
though eaten by crocodile.

If Grandpa were still here,
he’d be selling balloons like crocodiles.
You ask: where can we buy crocodiles?

Saturday afternoon lies with its mouth wide open
a wallet hurriedly stuffed with money.
A mouth opens like a city
a fluid-filled sac or saclike cavity
a purse
Saturday midnight.

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Briefly, in the news | செய்திகளின் சாரம்

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Ayilisha Manthira

2.32pm, a moment ripe
in Singapore. Not America, not
Laos, where time pulls
dissonant. In India, more so,
it keels over.

The abyss clings onto Africa, as it did Asia.

All I have seen—
Sorry—
I mean, all that was seen by the news
agency
congregate in the spirits’ constant wailing
in that apartment building
where those buried under wander.

And finally, a dangling pronoun:
A deaf crow delighted after defecation—
The building is finally dirty.

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