words scrawled on an unknown walllast names taken without context faces as smooth as a washboard mingling in a sea of cotton buds and in the air there is capitalismthat quiet + usual summer bloomas we walk down the red carpet of suburbia and middle-class livingand everyone is dressed and drapedin a thick viscous layer […]
Category: Poetry
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #98
head empty no thoughtshead on backwardseyes staring into the past like beams of light in a thick endless fogthere’s so much anxiety my brain is wrapped within like bubble wrapI close the door and leave the housewith my unhappy face onI close the door and dim the lightsand take off my unhappy faceto put on […]
GOLDEN POINT AWARD 2019
Ecstatic to announce that I’ve been awarded Third Place in English Poetry for the Golden Point Award, 2019. The Golden Point Award is Singapore’s premier creative writing competition for Short Story and Poetry in the nation’s four official languages: English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Established by the National Arts Council since 1993, the national literary writing competition […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #97
A ball on a table, my thoughtsunspool and drape off the edge,sentences unravelling their silkas my words break formation, their knees buckling under theweight of yet another period. I am constantly catching up to the kite-strings of my owntongue, and all its strugglesagainst the walls of its cell.Apostrophe, apostrophe. Nothing makes sense anymoreand it is […]
STATISTICS IN SEARCH OF STRUCTURE
Glad to say that my poem, “Statistics in Search of Structure” was published recently in OF ZOOS. Check out the poem here! http://ofzoos.com/8.1=ValenLim.html
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #96
What have you done to me I demand an explanationWhat have you done to me I am here having a heart attackover the smallest of minutiae like an entire story clumped as a comma I am no longer alone in the living room of my head thoughts of you pack themselves to the ceilingand spread […]
FREEWRITING EXERCISE #95
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 […]
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 […]
ugly stage 