Morning train - Alfian Sa'at

Why do you not look at each other's
Faces? Is the scenery that arresting,
One housing estate giving birth
To yet another copy?
Or the advertisements, read and re-read,
As if behind a slogan's promise lay
Hidden promise? Answer me:
Is that consciousness rising in you,
Dissolving your fatigue like a plastic sheet
Warping in heat, or is that simply
Sleep, draining away from you
Down to your soles, to the invisible tracks
Where the dew is dying? Where electricity
Is what pushes you to the borders
Of your own loneliness, against
The vulgar loneliness of crowds

Morning Train -Alfian Sa'st

Why do you not look at each other's
Faces? Is the scenery that arresting,
One housing estate giving birth
To yet another copy?
Or the advertisements, read and re-read,
As if behind a slogan's promise lay
Hidden promise? Answer me:
Is that consciousness rising in you,
Dissolving your fatigue like a plastic sheet
Warping in heat, or is that simply
Sleep, draining away from you
Down to your soles, to the invisible tracks
Where the dew is dying? Where electricity
Is what pushes you to the borders
Of your own loneliness, against
The vulgar loneliness of crowds

The Planners - Boey Kim Cheng

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,
filled with permutations of possibilities.
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang

in the grace of mathematics.
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back
and the skies surrender.
They erase the flaws,

the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows

of shining teeth.

Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They have the means.
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again.

The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.
But my heart would not bleed
poetry. Not a single drop

to stain the blueprint
of our past’s tomorrow.

Old House at Ang Siang Hill – Arthur Yap

an unusual house this is
dreams are here before you sleep
tread softly
into the three-storeyed gloom
sit gently
on the straits born furniture
imported from china
speak quietly
to the contemporary occupants

they are not afraid of you
waiting for you to go
before they dislocate your intentions
so what if it is
your grandfather's house
his ghost doesn't live here anymore
your family past is
superannuated grim
which increases with time
otherwise nothing adds or subtract
the bricks and tiles
untill re-development
which will greatly change
this house-that-was
dozens of it along the street
the next and the next as well

nothing much will be missed
eyes not tradition tell you this

Seventh Month – Cyril Wong

August: time of death, a path opens
to the past like a wind through grass,

the way lit by sparks, flaming paper.

Yet rituals only displace our desire
to mourn. Let us remember the dead,

but more importantly, persuade them
to ensure no harm may visit us.

We leave a row of chairs for the ghosts
to take our places for just one night.

Wayang actors hide their exhaustion
behind painted faces, dusty cymbals

trailing the bright arc of their voices.

We think how the dead would take this –
foibles of a life sung by archetypes,

reduced to grave, inflated gestures.

Would they grumble to each other
in their seats, complain of a lack

of synchronism between the music
and the action, the noise of traffic

eating into their illusion of narrative?

When it is finally over, would they
linger to gossip amongst themselves

about those who moved on to the life
to follow, sighing upon the mention

of the ones who have chosen to stay?

Past Midnight – Boey Kim Cheng

I turn the light on to see if i am still there
the bulb creeps to life, resentful
at being roused to work. The dreary repertoire
which a discordant band went through a dozen times
during a neighbour's funeral, is stomping
in my head. I hum a classical tune, summon
the words of a sentimental song
to expel the stubborn band. The blaring trumpets
cut them down with a single blow

Life is perpetual unrest
inthe housing estates. the endless knockings
the stampeding feet, the hurricanes of bad temper,
the eternal television, the thrashing bodies,
the endless rituals of life and death
where is the point of stillness
mature art directs us to?
my mind veers crazily.
i turn the light off.
the bulb goes on burning inside.

ICU

ICU

Peekaboo. Last game for a while.

I open my eyes, smile,

and see but cannot touch

your hands, the only part

awake while you sleep.

They're picking apart the kite-string

of your life, even as you rise

out of reach

like a balloon, like a blessing.

I think you're dreaming

of a distant beach

building castles for the waves to live in.

I see you're

so quiet people'd think

you almost weren't breathing

with the drip silent in your arm

a string about to fray

but I can't see

for the life of me

the far-off

places

to which

you

stray

By Grace Chua

2 mothers in a hdb playground

ah beng is so smart,
already he can watch tv and know the whole story
your kim cheong is also quite smart,
what boy is he in the exam?
this playground is not too bad, but I'm always
so worried, car here and car there.

at exam time, it's worse

because you know why?

kim cheong eats so little.

give him some complan. my ah beng was like that,
now he's different, if you give him anything
he's sure to finish it all up.

sure, sure, cheong's father buys him
vitamins but he keeps it inside his mouth
& later gives it to the cat.
i scold like mad but what for?
if I don't see it, how can I scold?

on saturday, tv showed a new type,
special for children , why don't you call
his father buy some? maybe they are better.

money's no problem , it's not that
we want to save, if we buy it
& he doesn't eat it, throwing money
into the jamban is the same.
ah beng's father spends so much,
takes out the mosaic floor & wants
to make terrazzo floor or what.

we also got new furniture, bought from diethelm
the sofa is so soft, I dare not sit, they all
sit like don't want to get up, so expensive.
nearly two thousand dollars, sure must be good.

that you can't say, my toa-soh
bought an expensive sewing machine,
after 6 months,it is already spoilt,
she took it back but.....beng,
come here, come, don't play the fool.
your tuition teacher is coming,
wah, kim cheong, now you're quite big.

come cheong, quick go home and bathe.
ah pah wants to take you chya-hong in a new motor-car

- Arthur Yap

[shuyan]