hurtling by Stephanie Ye (Lavinia)

hurtling by Stephanie Ye

(the 'L', chicago)

i once saw a weeping man standing

at a window. our eyes met, and

for one fierce moment

i knew we shared a deep connection.

then the 'L' train i was on shot by,

a horizontal shape slicing the vertical,

sundering our budding relationship

decisively.

i still think of him sometimes,

especially on the 'L',

though i've never found his window again.

as if a hole opened

in the gleaming fabric of the city

and swallowed up the window

and the man;

then with a shimmer rippled shut, smoothening

itself out

to become another anonymous glass wall.

people look more beautiful up here,

coiled

in each window

like a portrait in a picture frame.

when i see someone looking, i always

look back. i indulge in these

random acts of intimacy,

because in the next moment

i am gone,

hurtling through the city

in the air.

Level: Lower/Upper Sec

Themes: disconnect, estrangement, alienation, urban life, human connection/relationships, intimacy, transience, global citizenship, cosmopolitanism

Stylistic Devices: Consistent use of the lowercase, free verse, extended metaphor

Old Folk's Home by Gilbert Koh

Old Folk's Home
Gilbert Koh 

All day long they lie on the
straight rows of white beds or sit
in the heavy-duty wheelchairs
pushed out into the breezy sunshine
of the gardens. 

Resigned to the prisons
of their own failing bodies,
they drift in and out of the haze
of senility, half-forgetting
themselves in the patient wait
for death. 

Still the bright-eyed teenagers come,
on Saturday mornings, by the busloads,
sent by their schools
on compulsory excursions
to learn the meaning
of compassion
as outlined in the CCA syllabus. 

They bring gifts of Khong Guan biscuits,
they help to mow the lawns,
they clap their hands performing happy songs
and valiantly they attempt the old dialects
trying to communicate. 

Later they will clamber noisily
back up the departing school buses,
and next week in class
they will write startlingly
similar essays
on what a meaningful,
memorable experience they had
at the old folks' home
last week

Level: Upper Secondary
Themes: Youth, Elderly, Obligation, Innocence
Stylistic features: Metaphor, Free Verse

[Shi Yun]

Boats by Cyril Wong (Cherie)

Boats by Cyril Wong

You and your photographs of boats;
that repeated metaphor for departure,

or simply the possibility of a voyage?
What you cannot tell me you tell me

with a vessel and its single passenger,
eyes fixed on some skylit conclusion.

Set apart and starkly upon a canvas
of tractable waves, brought to still

by the trigger-click of your camera,
like the sound a key makes when it

releases the lock. Your heart became
that lock; these images how you have

always articulated distance, a withdrawal.
Darling, there are just as many ways

of saying goodbye as there are ways
of letting you go. The boat is narrow

like the width of my heart after
impossible loss, cruel resignation;

this heart you ride in. Love, if this is how
you choose to leave me let me let you.

Level: Upper Sec
Themes: Love, Loss
Stylistic Features: Imagery, Metaphor, Metonym

"A Letter to My Polyclinic GP" by Raksha Mahtani

A Eulogy by Tania De Rozario

A Eulogy by Tania De Rozario

for everyone poked so full
of holes, their own voice passes
through them, history escaping
the body in a series of echoes.

for everyone distilled into colour
of skin, choice of pronoun, place
of origin, length of hair, years, skirt,
name, limbs, medical record.

for everyone made to believe
that the petals of persecution
blossomed from the buds
of their own paranoia.

for everyone passed over in favour
of a name that seemed easier
to pronounce, was less of an assault
to someone else’s comfort.

for everyone accused of prolonged
adolescence, scars on their arms
marking time like a calendar, body
taking itself into its own hands.

for everyone blamed
for the stare, grope, catcall, assault
that cut like glass into flesh as if
they had asked to be broken.

for everyone deceived
into dreaming, everyone who left home
and family to provide for home
and family, returning with nothing.

for everyone pumped
so full of doctrine, the guilt which ate
into their bones, made them believe
breaking them was the only way out.

Written for The Invisibility Project by Jasmine Cooray.

Untitled (On Racial Privilege) by Alfian Sa'at

Untitled (On Racial Privilege) by Alfian Sa'at

May 18, 2014

1. I can turn on the television or open up the newspapers and see people of my race widely represented.
2. When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that mostly people of my color made it what it is.
3. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a hawker centre and find the foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a cinema and find films in my mother tongue or at least subtitled in it.
4. I can choose concealer, blemish cover or bandages in flesh color that more or less matches my skin.
5. I can sit in public transport without wondering if the reason why nobody is taking the seat beside me is because I am thought of as being dirty or smelly.
6. I can look at a list of schools to choose to go to after my PSLE and not wonder whether they offer my mother tongue as part of their curriculum.
7. I can approach a recruitment booth for the air force or navy without having someone awkwardly tell me that it is an unsuitable career for me. (If they are more honest they will say I am unsuitable for it).
8. I can read job advertisements without worrying whether or not I would qualify for some racial or language preference set down by the employers.
9. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or turn up late without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, poverty or ‘bad attitude’ of my race.
10. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
11. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
12. I can go home from most meetings or organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared. 

(Still unsure about what racial privilege is? Here's a checklist, adapted from Peggy McIntosh.)

Pantoum for Chinese Women by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Pantoum for Chinese Women by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“At present, the phenomena of butchering, drowning
and leaving to die female infants have been
very serious.”
–The People’s Daily, Peking, March 3rd, 1983

They say a child with two mouths is no good.
In the slippery wet, a hollow space,
Smooth, gumming, echoing wide for food.
No wonder my man is not here at his place.

In the slippery wet, a hollow space,
A slit narrowly sheathed within its hood.
No wonder my man is not here at his place:
He is digging for the dragon jar of soot.

That slit narrowly sheathed within its hood!
His mother, squatting, coughs by the fire’s blaze
While he digs for the dragon jar of soot.
We had saved ashes for a hundred days.

His mother, squatting, coughs by the fire’s blaze.
The child kicks against me mewing like a flute.
We had saved ashes for a hundred days,
Knowing, if the time came, that we would.

The child kicks against me crying like a flute
Through its two weak mouths. His mother prays
Knowing when the time comes that we would,
For broken clay is never set in glaze.

Through her two weak mouths his mother prays.
She will not pluck the rooster nor serve its blood,
For broken clay is never set in glaze:
Women are made of river sand and wood.

She will not pluck the rooster nor serve its blood.
My husband frowns, pretending in his haste
Women are made of river sand and wood.
Milk soaks the bedding. I cannot bear the waste.

My husband frowns, pretending in his haste.
Oh, clean the girl, dress her in ashy soot!
Milk soaks our bedding, I cannot bear the waste.
They say a child with two mouths is no good.

Deliverance by Grace Chia Krakovic

Deliverance by Grace Chia Krakovic

What I would give
to give you, child,
this broken pearl I call, earth,
this womb lacerated by
a thousand wounds, hundred swords,
a dozen thoughts tainted by the daily wars
of half-wits;

this blackened crystal of crust
made milk by a soft cry of your unborn voice: Mama!
Child, with this one word, you
salvage this broken mass, give it meaning,
bring down arms, make it whole again;
and I remember once more, why it is
that you are the one
who deliver me.

Void Deck by Alfian Bin Sa'at

Void Deck by Alfian Bin Sa'at

Where the neighbourhood wives,

After a morning at the wet market,

Sit facing the breeze

To trade snatches of gossip

About leery shopkeepers,

The local louts,

(Like that fella who's always drilling his walls –

Gives me migraine)

And that mad woman

Who throws things from her window.

With careful put-downs they

Fashion boasts, about stubborn sons,

Lazy daughters, who by some miracle or mistake

Always score well in class.

When words falter,

Gestures take over: pursed lips, rolling eyes,

Animated hands adorned by bangles of

Gold, jade, steel, string.

And children orbit around them

Laugh without diction –

Their games of tag a reassurance

That there has been no hothousing

Of who is unclean, unwashed,

Untouchable. When they break out

Into some kindergarten song,

One almost believes in a generation

Cleansed of skin-deep suspicions,

And free from the superstitions of the tongue –

And old folks sit like sages

To deploy chess pieces with ancient strategies.

In a corner, a caged bird bursts

With the song of its master's pride

And wrinkled women breathe, through

Tai-chi-tuned windpipes, the operatic melody of the air...

All a wanton fantasy.

Eyes reveal a meeting-point

For loners and loiterers:

A sense of things reduced-

Conversations that trickle through

Brief noddings at lift landings,

Teenage rhetoric scrawled, in liquid paper,

On the stone-table chessboard,

(Where the king used to sit)

The grandiose house-selling dreams of residents

Compacted in anonymous letterboxes;

As an afterthought, an old man pees

Under a public phone.

A place to be avoided, this,

How in its vastness it devours hours.

Little wonder then,

Why residents rush through void decks

Back to the cramped comforts of home

As if in fear of what such open space might do

To cosy minds.

Singapore River by Lee Tzu Pheng

Singapore River by Lee Tzu Pheng

The operation was massive;

designed to give new life

to the old lady.

We have cleaned out

her arteries, removed

detritus and slit,

created a by-pass

for the old blood.

Now you can hardly tell

her history.

We have become

so health-conscious

the heart

can sometimes be troublesome

#personification #localpoetry #lowersec