In a room with the curtains drawna single ray of sunlight scans the parallel lines of bodies on the floor. It is a weekend, because when else do we associate with love, that ugly landlord,without feeling the urge to breakaway, tearing away from the scene with the work of an unsteady hand? There are a […]
Author: lim
A member of Singapore-based writing collective /stop@BadEndRhymes ("/s@ber"), Valen dwells in the swamp of poetry. He has been published in various publications, including Anxious Poets Society, Eunoia Review and Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. He has performed his work at the Arts House, the Singapore Art Museum, and in various dingy bars.
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #94
Sorry about the half-hung phone calls, the beeps’ chaina single car on the highwayin the valley under dial-tonestars. Sorry for the minute gapbetween your mouth and my ear.Sorry that I have been such a hypocrite, that my love has turnedout to be so apologetic, an abashed schoolboy out alone in the corridor, his thoughts rattling […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #93
A half-finished bridge is a lure,a line to an unmarked haven.Hanging in midair, the eyesnaturally complete the shape.Workers on the edge, melding the rebar, their helmets lit with the light of progress, process. I distract myself as we duck under them, our cabducking in and out of snaking crowds, looking for the next exit. My […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #92
The sun must dip under the horizonlike ducking under a gantry, breaking its way into a secured compoundwhere the secret to all that makes up happinesscan be found, or perhaps,where every past love has gone to die a slow burning as they grind their knees to dust on the cold uncaring linoleum floor of an […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #91
A week from now, the sea willbend itself back, pulling at theedges of continents and islands, tugging them together again with the slow patient touch of a long-loved grandfather. Yesterday, I dreamt about the long journey it would take to shorten this distance; in a snowy terminal,flanked by snaking briar trees naked for the winter, […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #90
There is a slack in the arm,where the elbow bends taut like a crane dipping its head into the water. Its beak disappearingonly to reeemergefilled with fish. The way the scales must run,all slimy and cobblestone,down the tongue. To cut to the point I am feeling like a felled treethe thud of timber muffled on […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #89
An intruder in the garden, two steps by two steps. We are alone but only for the brief periodbetween one hue of the sky to another. The sun sets too soonfor any work to be done and we are home again Waiting for the minute hand to lay itself on twelve Twelve handsTwelve bodies Twelve […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #88
Variations on a theme. The taste of freshly cut pear in the mouth, theoff tune of seagulls by the pier. The swirl of wine in a green glass bottle. In this poem, we are going, back to a timewhen we did not know what it took to hurt one another. People strolling down the sidewalk, […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #87
Imagine the head as a puzzlebox, thoughts like silver bearings running througha suspended maze, translucent walls of varying colours, rotating in the hands of some unseen child. Imagine – silver, dripping slow, hot down the canal of a prisoner’s ear,imagine being lead by the hand to a field of flowers before finding the gallows in […]
FREEWRITING EXERICSE #86
Silence, then. Silence on a silver platter, silence in the central column of our spines.Silence in the hallways. Threesteps down a wooden staircase,the familiar gallop of a manrushing on his way to work;his hands running down the bannister as though a flourishon a keyboard. In the deep thick mud of my insignificant anxieties I find […]
ugly stage 