When you are on the highest floor of a building, and you look out at your view, there is a recognition; the elevator you were just on cannot take you any higher. You have reached the limit available to you and you would need something else, something new, if you wanted to climb to new heights. This level is both ceiling and floor.
Read MoreWatching summer leaves brown to autumn shades, I sift through this year's poetry submissions, pleasantly surprised by the many prompts that allowed for earlier works to be reimagined. Many poets took the challenge to relook poems written in mother tongue languages to be translated or rather transcreated into English poems.
Read Morethe minstrel casts for the moon
in the surface of the lake; cat-gut
strings now used as fishing line —
but the fish sense his restlessness
and none would come to bite.
Read More以弦代线 月犹鱼
鱼未上钓 阅忧郁
兹掌原可 创宇宙
如今只存 疮与咒
窃听歌谣 鸣禽取
莫非挽回 命琴曲？
between fingernail and flash | the half-moon cuticle bleeds
i buried a time capsule today | it was love or my skin peeling
the way people buried into my home | into the rind of a bitter orange
Here I am staring at nowhere.
Creating memories of you in my care.
Reminiscing the past, it came back undefined.
When I hear your cries, it stays in my mind.
Thoughts of you arrived
Splintered, disarrayed
Taking up spaces in my heart
Forming a milky way of questions
A map of Songlines
The Bird rose from slumber, and wandered towards the forest, wondering. A plane of bluegreen, yellow, black adorned the spot of grey in the sky. And the Bird gazed, attentive, trance-like. And the Bird was ecstatic: having forgotten the Self, it stood motionless on the plains.
Read MoreMaybe it's because you're like the sun.
And it shall be here where I stay,
weave pigeon wings
until I can carry the burdens of the self,
approaching you every morning.
“wake up, it is already noon;
the risen sun is illuminating
your ass” she says, back to
dark sky, koel in disagreement.
I check the expiry dates on the canned food every morning, arrange them in ascending order of decay, colour code the baked beans and tuna, better than any NTUC display, you tell me to get my head out of the pantry, come back to sleep instead.
Read Moremy heart runs
this body
stupid. a predilection
to cavities. sweet
festering of
teeth.
Like expanse of river,
ends of a fence:
skirt and shirt from the same thread.
Refugee calves mirroring
through border panels.
the year ends; I’ll offer myself on the sand tonight.
the tides wash the yellow moon, winking to night.
you, a coral mystery under acidic seas,
the calcium eyes that’ll never see tonight.
“… ceaselessly. a rabble
of butterflies coursing
my veins rabid.
I have been thinking about that gold
chain around your neck; what charm
dips from the length of it: a crucifix
or perhaps some amulet – as if to say
your hands are kept steady not by
your own volition.
In the beginning, I buried
a metaphor between my flesh
and fingernail. I buried it,
the way people buried my home
in memory.
My mother says:
measure rice by the handful
and oil by the thumb.
These are portions enough for the family.
is queuing in the hot sun -
chickens turning black,
feet slowing into turtle’s,
tummies churning like pig’s stomach,
all waiting for the boiling promise,
in sweat.
On that night | Evil reigned
I, Nila, Ruler | In this kingdom
Ascended to the hill | Where justice stood.