After “footnotes on falling” by Joshua Ip. Written for the #StayHomeStayLit2020 campaign.
Tag: singaporean poetry
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 […]
BOXING
It’s not as much a tussle as much as it is a boxing match; the dodging and weaving like swerving into traffic.The reason people must inevitably bury themselves is the same as why full stops must be full. You know the steps by heart:here is an empty space to be filled. Here is a name erased. Here is another […]
this poem is not about you, but that’s up to you
I start off every poem by changing the font to Hoefler. Makes me feel a bit more … dignified … as though I have earned my right to say dear world I am a confessional poet when I never really do fess up and do I really write any poetry and this too is another […]
my tongue is clumsy and utterly reprehensible
Photo by Max Langelott on Unsplash my tongue trips over teeth, mashes vowels into consonant, meaning trite and bright yellow like a hazard sign. it struggles to ease past past posts, a fat cumbersome man stuck in his own doorway. my tongue is the elephant, stuck in a room made of ivory, yellowed and polished, scared to make […]
self portrait in unreal words
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash awardless basical cancellatory doublesided egonomic futureproof gmale harmonal indiependent jocastian kinderheart
As You Roamed The Earth, You Felt The Drying Skin of Age Itself
it is the waking that is the hardest. the first step in sleep deprivation: you learn you miss dreaming of holes, the spaces between lines, the gap between the train and platform. you dream of ways in which to die, how the train brushes against your feet, the space just big enough for your thigh. […]
IN THIS STORY, YOU SAYING HOW YOU FEEL “ALL RIGHT” IS NOT A CAUSE FOR CONCERN
In this dream, you shed your skin and cast away your leather wings; from your pockets, spill these things – antiplatelet medicines, Clopidogrel, Aspirin. Warfarin, for battles within. In another, I hold your chin and nothing else. Come, unspin this long dream of safety pins and other stories, wherein the might of the might-have-been becomes […]
whose seat, whose table
I. I was the first, one of the first. But you know first one’s a fool. Who’s gonna get in line? First one to go, first one to fight the way. We lived in the throat of death every day. Where you’re criminal because of who you are. “These people ain’t gonna do nothing for […]
the lake of second beginnings
first, to visit, you have to be lost. second, there will be no guide, so open your eyes. the lake before you is just a diversion. watch out for the lonely boat, beating itself against the shore. check below the seat. there, you shall find an oar and or a map. it doesn’t matter. row […]
ugly stage 