Poetry

Daryl Lim – two poems

October 30, 2017

Daryl Lim Wei Jie is a poet and critic based in Singapore, who studied history with a focus on intellectual history and political thought. He is particularly interested in the literary uses of history. His first collection of poetry, A Book of Changes, was published by Math Paper Press in 2016, under the Ten Year Series imprint. Daryl’s work has appeared in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Ceriph, POSKOD.SG, Drunken Boat and Softblow, and his poetry has been anthologised in A Luxury We Cannot Afford (Math Paper Press, 2015) and elsewhere. His work won him the Golden Point Award in English Poetry in 2015.

The Librarian

Too long have I lingered in the scriptorium and mistaken

the glowering spines for young British art. These days I use

an Oreo wrapper as a bookmark: its ultramarine like

the angels in the Wilton Diptych. What sets my announcements

apart from the Lord’s prank on Abraham? Demurring, I reject

the edicts that issue from the Hegelian hivemind. Instead, the silverfish purr

and unmake knowledge out of circulation. Now keep your volume down

lest you arouse the class consciousness. That day I saw a beautiful

octogenarian, all distinction erased between her

and the metropolis’s leading organ. Between you and me,

someone’s slipped something into my drink and it tastes

just like water. The story of my life has been a burr

on shimmering copper. In the new shelving system, poetry is beside

the dissident history of dry-cleaning. A youth corps

is always handy. This one makes sense, at last.

When I approach the threshold, sickness muddles my intestine

warfare. Out there lie worlds suffused with brilliant magenta, with men

whose arms are like wasp’s wings, and chess pieces are reserve currency.

~

Sunday

The dire stillness of Sunday leaves me

gasping against the parquet. Road-widening

continues. Ma is getting her hair done

again. In Bukit Merah, a man fitfully

pisses into a storm drain. Soft fruit

is stepped on, a gravelly paste on

gravel. They say fried chicken

has never been so widely available.

Trump thinks we’re Indonesia, Vietnam, North Korea.

Parliament is closed today, but so are

KTV lounges. In Canto, we say we’ve waited

so long, even our necks are long. After I’m dead,

please burn the epic poem I wrote

about conservancy charges. When is

the next election, asked nobody.

At the market, the uncle is somewhat

ethnocentric. This new development combines

retail, petroleum refining and jazz. Buy low

and sell before the ICBM is fired.

I deny everything, even my denials. I wish

to make a living writing haikus on teabags.

The nation’s favourite sex position

is tax-deductible. Like everyone else,

I cried. I get up from the floor

and make myself a highball. Tonight

I will dream of a snake made of

green smoke, sliding vaguely through

the mile-a-minute, either going home

or elsewhere, it’s impossible to say.

Poetry

Alice Pettway – two poems

October 27, 2017

Alice Pettway is a former Lily Peter fellow, Raymond L. Barnes Poetry Award winner, and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her first full-length collection, The Time of Hunger | O Tempo de Chuva, is available now from Salmon Poetry. A second book, Moth, is forthcoming in 2019. Currently, she lives and writes in Shanghai.

Burial

I changed shoes for the burial.

The earth, soft from rain,

was hungry for the black stems

of my funeral heels.

It was hungry for you too,

waiting only for lurid green turf

to give way to reality,

a hole gouged in a field.

The funeral director looked

away; your brothers

pulled back plastic ground,

took up shovels.

I grasped a handle too—bent

my woman’s body into pivot

of muscle and dirt until the throb

of earth on wood faded, until soil

landed on soil as softly as snow

on snow, until there was no hole.

The men stood silent. Burial

is no more a man’s task

than birth is.

~

In Montreal

the power failed.

Dark sifted through cold,

a halo of shadow around downed towers.

The city waited. The country waited.

Hogs lay frozen against the ditch,

smelling of snow, flesh crystallized

beneath skin. We waited

for the ground to thaw.

Poetry

Tim Tomlinson – poems from “Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire”

October 16, 2017

Tim Tomlinson was born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, where he was educated by jukeboxes and juvenile delinquents. He quit high school in 1971 and began a life of purposeless wandering that led to purpose. He’s lived in Boston, Miami, New Orleans, London, Florence, Shanghai, Manila, Andros Island in the Bahamas, and Cha-am, Thailand. Currently, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Deedle. He is a co-founder of New York Writers Workshop, and co-author of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. He is the author of the chapbook Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse, the poetry collection Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire, and the forthcoming collection of short fiction, This Is Not Happening to You (due late summer, 2017). He is a Professor of Writing at New York University’s Global Liberal Studies Program. He’s an avid scuba diver with just under 300 logged dives, and a 200-hr Yoga Alliance certified yoga instructor.

At Night, after the Screams

wake us

we hear him walk

to the kitchen,

hear

his callused feet scuff

the hardwood floor, hear

him mutter curses

at the carpet,

its edge

perpetually curled, hear him

go

silent

on the linoleum

of the kitchen

floor.

So much is hidden

by our mother,

in closets

behind cans and boxes.

So much

that he loves—

Mallomars, Mr. Chips,

Hostess Twinkies.

We hear him

rummaging,

the cans clinking,

the boxes tearing open,

and his hands,

his thick

callused hands

ripping

through wax paper

and plastic packaging.

Hear

the refrigerator suck

open

sense

its light through the cracks

of our bedroom doors.

When he stands

in that cold light,

when he upends the milk carton,

when he douses

the fire

in his throat,

does he wonder, as we

do,

what made him scream,

again,

this time,

his mother’s name?

~

Blood Bank

(after Dorianne Laux)

When I was sixteen years old and did not

need sleep to feel rested, or a job for

money, I joined the veterans outside

the Camp Street Blood Bank at 7 a.m.

where they smoked cigarettes peeled off

the cobblestones and drank MD 20-20

from pint bottles. They wiped their mouths on

the greasy sleeves of fringed jackets or jungle

cammies, looking for a piece of cardboard

or some old magazine to slap on the spit

and piss and vomit laminating

the sidewalks they slept on. I did not feel

soiled by the filth on their fingernails,

the grease in their hair, or the gravel in their

throats. I was enthralled by the lies they told

about where they’d been, what they’d seen, how

many they’d killed, and the way they told those

lies, as if they believed them. As if I

believed them, too.

Inside the clinic

we reclined on hard gurneys, flies lining

the rims of Dixie cups filled with urine.

“Shame, Shame, Shame” on the radio,

unlicensed nurses in tight white uniforms

dancing the Bump between rows of our

worn-out soles. They pushed thick cold cannulas

in our arms and our bloods drained into

plastic tubing. Arterial blood, slow

and thin. Blood over the legal limit, blood

so dirty it had fleas. Blood of our fathers

who’d disowned us, blood of our mothers

whose faces we’d failed to erase. At night,

I’d be back on Bourbon Street, a pint low,

a dollar flush, Buster’s beans and rice glued

to my ribs. Blue notes from clarinets

and guitars joining the termites spinning

in the halos of street lamps, go-cups crowning

the trash cans and dribbling into the gutter

with the butts and the oysters and the sweat

off the shower-capped jheri-curled tap

dancer from Desire Project scraping spoons

across the slats of a metal scratchboard.

Hawkers barking at the swarms of tourists

gawking at strippers in storefront displays,

and the runaway girls at the topless

shoeshine spit-shining white loafers

on the feet of insurance agents from

Mutual of Omaha. The veterans,

my blood brothers, they’d lurk in the shadows

and scan the sidewalks for half-smoked butts,

and I’d help them put together the lies

they’d tell to strangers tonight, and repeat

to me in the morning, forgetting half

of those lies were mine, and I’d forget, too.

~

Morgan’s Bluff

At dawn the gulls laugh again.

Two gray angelfish ascend …

… kiss the surface …

… recede …

the water’s surface wrinkles.

Pink light separates the gray sky from the gray sea.

Enormous clouds form like the aftermath of great explosions.

How pensive this daybreak,

a grenade without a pin.

In a needling insect heat the dawn’s final breeze fades

A jeep’s lights flash on, it backs out of the commissary.

Pelicans lift from the pylons.

The Cuban whore retreats up the Bluff Road,

her sandals dangling from a finger.

~

Night Dive

Once on a moonless night

I lost my companions.

Their beams were bright

but I’d edged over

an outcropping into

darkness and touched down softly

on a rubble ledge

where the wall pulsed

with half-hidden forms, eyes

on the ends of stalks,

spiny feelers testing the current,

feather dusters

vanishing

in a blink,

spaghetti worms retracting.

So sadly familiar—

things I desire withdrawing,

their forms

disappearing

the instant

I extend a hand.

The reef folding into itself

like a fist. Then,

from the stacks of plate coral,

the arm of an octopus slid,

and another, two more,

reaching

for my fingertips,

my palm. The soft sack

of the octopus followed,

inching nearer,

her tentacles

assessing

the flesh of my wrist,

my arm. My heart

pounding. Turquoise pink

explosions rushing across

the octopus’s form. At my armpit,

she tucked in,

sliding her arms

around my neck

and shoulder, her skin

becoming

the blue and yellow

of my dive skin.

She stayed with me

such a short time,

her eyes,

those narrow slits,

heavy with trust,

and my breath

so calm, so easy.

Above,

my companions

banged on their tanks,

summoning me to ascend.

Poetry

Tim Tomlinson – poems from “Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse”

October 13, 2017

Tim Tomlinson was born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, where he was educated by jukeboxes and juvenile delinquents. He quit high school in 1971 and began a life of purposeless wandering that led to purpose. He’s lived in Boston, Miami, New Orleans, London, Florence, Shanghai, Manila, Andros Island in the Bahamas, and Cha-am, Thailand. Currently, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Deedle. He is a co-founder of New York Writers Workshop, and co-author of its popular text, The Portable MFA in Creative Writing. He is the author of the chapbook Yolanda: An Oral History in Verse, the poetry collection Requiem for the Tree Fort I Set on Fire, and the forthcoming collection of short fiction, This Is Not Happening to You (due late summer, 2017). He is a Professor of Writing at New York University’s Global Liberal Studies Program. He’s an avid scuba diver with just under 300 logged dives, and a 200-hr Yoga Alliance certified yoga instructor.

The Storm (Father Hector, San Jose Nov 8 2013)

When the water came

I was alone hiding, taking cover,

anticipating that the roofing might not hold,

worried of dying.

The water came

the strong winds howling, shaking the whole place,

white mist like needles piercing through my skin.

I’m going to die in this place.

Later our neighbors came

scampering climbing shouting panicking.

This is okay, this is good—

there’s somebody to tell my relatives

I died this way.

~

The Giant Claw (Beatrice Zabala, 16, Palo, Nov 8, 2013)

Before the giant claw came, I was inside

the comfort room with my grandmother.

She was praying the whole time. My parents

called us to transfer to a safer room,

but the winds kicked up, slamming on our door.

The wind was like a drunken man punching

the door, kicking it, trying to rip it apart.

The strong winds against my father’s strength.

Then suddenly, I felt water on the floor.

I thought fresh water from the river, it

didn’t smell salty. It started to rise,

to our knees, our waist, our chin. Salt water.

How was it possible? The sea was almost

a kilometer away! Then, the giant claw came.

~

The Surge (Zenia Dulce, 46, Professor UP Visayas. Tacloban, Nov 8, 2013)

I called to her,

I called to her and then

we held each other’s hand

and then suddenly the water under her

inside the house it was eating up the whole house

and she said oh my god

and then suddenly

one wave washed her down then another wave

another wave brought her up

so I held her

another wave put us both down together

with the whole house

so all the house and us we were under

and we did not know what was happening to us

but we held on together

we are both safe she knows because I am holding on to her

I give her a signal to hold on tightly

and then we were engulfed by the water

and then we tried to go up

once we neared the surface I released her

so that we would be able to have the chance to crawl up and swim

well the water was actually pushing us up together

I was telling her to it’s OK you release

so she released her hold on me also

and we resurfaced but the problem

we were both trapped big debris uh, maybe big debris

like this four or six like this

I don’t know it’s big I was scratched

this is still the bruise uh what do you call this my remembrance

and that was how many months ago that was six months eight months ago

and that bruise is still there

I was struck here also at my back

and she was struck at the neck I heard the snap

like that super loud

and then there was no emotion on her face

I saw the blood blood blood coming out from her nose and mouth

I thought oh my god she’s dead

and then slowly slowly

she was sinking

Poetry, Translation

Scott L. Satterfield – translation of a poem by Wang Anshi

October 6, 2017

松间

偶向松间觅旧题

野人休诵北山移

丈夫出处非无意

猿鹤从来自不知

王安石

Among the Pines (On Being Recalled to Office)

Among the pines chancing upon old inscriptions,

Ignoramuses stop crowing my remove to northern mountains.

The man now comes forth not without purpose –

such as apes, cranes, never could understand.

Wang Anshi (1021-1086)

Poetry, Translation, Uncategorized

Chua Chee Lay – 同一片天 (translated by Shelly Bryant)

October 2, 2017

With deep interests across literature, visual arts, culture, education and digital technology, Chua Chee Lay’s literary writings reflect his diverse influences and span across modern poetry, prose, song lyrics and short stories. Chua holds a PhD in East Asian Language and Literature from the University of Wisconsin. A linguist, educator, award-winning poet and children’s book writer, he is also the Chief Editor for several books and series, including Keeping My Mandarin Alive: Lee Kuan Yew’s Language Learning Experiences (Chinese, English and China Edition) and Journey of Our Young, a Young Writers Project by the Ministry of Education.

同一片天

——为2013年国家图书馆全国阅读运动“读吧！新加坡”而作

蔡志礼

混沌天地

缓缓地张开

沉睡千年的眼

浩浩沧海

渐渐凝成万顷桑田

似曾相识的飞燕

来自天上来自人间

来自同一片天

青涩少年

改朝换代后

早已风霜满面

抬望眼啊

皆是不轻弹的英雄泪

洗也洗不尽的怨

所有悲悯所有爱怜

来自同一片天

不同肤色

不同的语言

不一样的祖先

命运嬗变

上天要我们紧紧相连

赤足走在赤道边

一样阳光一样雨露

来自同一片天

不能再叫

梦沉淀搁浅

不能再叫

悲情继续蔓延

撒下心愿

全情灌溉用爱耕心田

仰望渺渺云河边

明月微笑星光点点

来自同一片天

摊开浩荡的历史长卷

翻阅盘古开天的容颜

任豪情无限壮志伸延

让心与心手和手相嵌

我们拥有同样一片天

祸福与共

直到永永远远

The Same Stretch of Sky

written for the 2013 National Library Board “Read! Singapore” campaign

a world of chaos

slowly opening

eyes that have slept for a millennium

vast sea

gradually condensing millions of miles of mulberry fields

deja vu

coming from earth to heaven

from the same stretch of sky

sentimental youth

after the regime change

faces already covered with frost

lift your eyes

aren’t these the flickering tears of a hero

and the resentment that can never be purged

all the compassion

all the sympathy

all the affection

from this same stretch of sky

different skin color

different language

different ancestors

Fate’s evolution

– heaven wants us tightly intertwined

barefoot on the equator

the same sun

the same rain

from this same stretch of sky

never again to allow

dreams to founder, stranded

never again to allow

sorrow to continue to spread

scattering the dream

love fills the irrigation channels

cultivating the heart

watching the river of clouds above

the moon smiles in the stars’ twinkling

coming from the same stretch of sky

spread the scrolls of the chronicles

read of Pangu opening up the heavens

with all our lofty ideals

let heart and heart

hand and hand be joined

we all have this same stretch of the sky

our shared good fortune

now and forever

(Reprinted with thanks to The Arts House, Singapore)

Poetry, Translation

Chow Teck Seng – 出入停车场 (translated into English by Yong Shu Hoong)

September 29, 2017

Singapore-born Chow Teck Seng writes poetry primarily in Chinese. Frequently contributing to literary journals, anthologies and the Chinese press in Singapore and abroad, he has won awards such as the Singapore Literature Prize (2014) and Golden Point Award (2009). His poems in English translation are found in & Words: Poems Singapore and Beyond (2010), Union: 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing from Singapore (2015), SG Poems 2015–2016 and the online journal, Poetry at Sangum. They have also been adapted as short films by students of Lasalle College of the Arts in 2017. A former lecturer (in Chinese-language literature) at the National University of Singapore and National Institute of Education, he is currently pursuing a PhD at Cambridge University.

出入停车场*

车子持续倒退

到位、无回、不悔

不能够有发光的青春碎片

火箭降落了

回忆开走了

柏拉图像飞走的伞

停车场常伪装为一枚句号

习惯系上了安全带

预备在车程中观赏一段周而复始的连续剧

雨刷的动作让我以为这是一出怀旧电影

预感是影印出来的大海

眼神是指南针

望后镜中的目光终于接近最熟悉最普通的温柔

不是错位，不能忘记回过身

原来停车场亦不是逗号

明天和旅程不会重复

街灯和拉上的手控刹车器轻声告诉你

停车是一道暧昧不清、赤裸的分号

停顿的微光和下车的脚步声

连身裙似的把错落情节依次缝起

下雨的停车场像停尸间

送走的尸体刚走掉的幸福

Entering/Exiting a Carpark

By Chow Teck Seng

The car keeps backing

into position, no return, no regret –

no longer possessing the shiny shards of youth.

The rocket has landed.

The memory has wandered off.

Plato, like a flyaway brolly.

The carpark frequently disguises itself as a full stop.

Habitually buckling up the seatbelt

preparing to enjoy a repetitive miniseries during the journey –

the wiping effect makes me think of this as a nostalgic film.

Premonition is a xeroxed sea.

Between the eyes, the needle of a compass.

Within that rear-view glance, finally a most familiar and mundane tenderness.

Not a dislocation, but unable to forget ever turning back.

So the carpark is also not a comma.

The next day, as well as the journey, will not repeat.

Streetlamps and the pulled handbrake softly inform you

that a car, stopping, is an unclear and naked semicolon.

The taillights and the sound of alighting footsteps

stitch up the misaligned scenes like garment seams.

The carpark, in the rain, is like the fleeing

happiness of a corpse that has just left the mortuary.

(Translation by Yong Shu Hoong)

* previously published, without the English translation, in Chow Teck Seng’s Poetry of You and Me (Lingzi Media, 2012)

Poetry, Translation

Yong Shu Hoong – The Path of Least Resistance (translated into Chinese by Chow Teck Seng)

September 25, 2017

Yong Shu Hoong has authored one poetry chapbook, Right of the Soil (2016), as well as five poetry collections, including Frottage (2005) and The Viewing Party (2013), which won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2006 and 2014 respectively. His poems and short stories have been published in literary journals like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Asia Literary Review (Hong Kong), and anthologies like Language for a New Century (W.W. Norton, 2008). He is the editor of anthologies like Passages: Stories of Unspoken Journeys (2013), as well as Here Now There After (2017), which was part of The Commuting Reader series commissioned for the #BuySingLit movement. He is one of the four co-authors of The Adopted: Stories from Angkor (2015) and Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016).

The Path of Least Resistance

Sit back, relax… unclench the fists.

It’s peace of mind we’re paying for –

and we’re paying a lot – when we

entrust the task of navigating these

unacquainted roads to an assigned

driver-for-hire. But this hardly

justifies our trust in the system; or

is it a collective resignation to fate?

Fate, as in the game of chance,

or divine will that we assume will

always be to our advantage. Breathe

in and out, as our van weaves in and

out of traffic flow. We’d like to think

the driver knows what he’s doing,

though he doth tootle on the horn

too much, especially when he’s trying

to warn any car that gets in his way

and needs to be overtaken. It seems

one false move by one of the many

stakeholders could spell disaster, yet

everything hangs in balance. Faith,

I tell my agitated heart, faith! Let

nature – the human kind included

– take its course, as man and car meld

into a single deity, all-seeing, that

rips us through the slaughter of sun

and sheets of rain, passing road-

hogging tuk-tuks along mist-shrouded

winding roads… before providing

in these verdant hills and plantations

an elixir for the violence of our pursuit.

通往无碍之路

坐下，放轻松…握紧的拳头松开

为了安心就用钱来买方便
却买出个代价这是我们
到陌生地把驾驶工作交托

某一随机安排租车司机的结果这还

真辜负了大家对体制的信任或说
这只是种集体宿命行为？
命运一种或然率的游戏

抑或一种我们总误会会天从人意
的天意来来深吸一口气

再呼气小包车在车流中骄纵

蛇行我们本该信任

身为司机当知其所当为即使

他的连环追命喇叭按得着实

过多而且是为肃清自己前行车道防止

任何挡路、意欲超车者介入仿佛

警告其他公路使用者千钧一发

错误  将导致他们的灾难      信任
我告诉自己亢奋的小心脏  要信任
任一切  顺其自然   自是那种

人为的自然——人、车将

天人合一成仙成佛仿佛人在做

天在看我们如何穿透雨穿过夺命的阳光

穿过所有在蜿蜒路上挡道的嘟嘟车

九死一生后再为我们的横行霸道

用葱葱郁郁之山峦与稻田
豁然指引出一条救赎之道

(Translation by Chow Teck Seng)

Poetry, Translation

Chow Teck Seng – “穿上脱下 ——穿衣的哲学” (translated into English by Yong Shu Hoong)

September 22, 2017

Singapore-born Chow Teck Seng writes poetry primarily in Chinese. Frequently contributing to literary journals, anthologies and the Chinese press in Singapore and abroad, he has won awards such as the Singapore Literature Prize (2014) and Golden Point Award (2009). His poems in English translation are found in & Words: Poems Singapore and Beyond (2010), Union: 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing from Singapore (2015), SG Poems 2015–2016 and the online journal, Poetry at Sangum. They have also been adapted as short films by students of Lasalle College of the Arts in 2017. A former lecturer (in Chinese-language literature) at the National University of Singapore and National Institute of Education, he is currently pursuing a PhD at Cambridge University.

穿上脱下

——穿衣的哲学*

你脱下，我们穿上

穿上纯真，脱下端庄

美丽的幼儿园我们穿上校服

裹在一个哪吒还未被遗忘的年代

步向水漫小学学堂快乐的倾盆中

脱下原本刷了白油的帆布鞋

脱下，洁白的颜色如水脱下

脱，连濡湿的袜子都脱下

然后穿上明年，穿上成长

穿上睡衣、白衣蓝裙、衬衫、长裤皮鞋

穿上内衣、家居服、百慕达、拖鞋

扣纽扣、绑上腰带、拉平皱痕

拉上拉链、整理领口

女人画唇画眉、上妆

涂上香水、装上耳环

僧人穿上僧服、世人结上领带

树穿上像化妆品面膜的日光

穿上如网的年轮

脱下叶子、美貌

男人穿上军服，戴上爱国主义

脱下春夏秋冬

削了皮的苹果，《小王子》中摇尾的狐狸

蛇褪下过时的蛇皮，壁虎脱掉时间的尾巴

天使是穿上衣服还是赤身裸体？

魔鬼是戴上面具抑或是裸露狰狞？

在陌生的婚宴、政治正确的场合

我们最终穿上笔挺的西装

外套、面具，一副金框的眼镜

手中紧握着酒杯

酒杯，它戴着一副世故的光亮

Put On/Slip Off

– The philosophy of dressing

By Chow Teck Seng

You slip off, we put on

Put on innocence, slip off decorum.

For our beautiful kindergarten we put on uniforms

Tucked in an era where Nezha hadn’t yet been forgotten

Walking towards the school’s rain-soaked compound

Slipping off canvas shoes coated with whitener

Slipping off, the whiteness slips off like water

Slipping, even the wet socks slip off,

And then putting on the upcoming year, putting on growth.

Putting on pyjamas white shirt blue skirt dress shirt trousers leather shoes

Putting on underwear house clothes Bermuda shorts slippers

Button up, belt up, smoothen the creases

Zip up, tidy up the collar.

The women paint their lips, ink their brows, put on makeup

Dab on perfume, fix on earrings.

The monks put on robes, the heathens knot their neckties.

The trees put on sunshine as a cosmetic mask

Put on the years like a net

Slip off leaves and beauty.

The men put on army uniforms and wear patriotism on their sleeves

Slip off the four seasons.

The apples are skinless, the fox is wagging its tail in The Little Prince,

The snakes unroll outdated skins, the lizards shake off their timely tails.

Are angels fully-clothed or naked?

Is the devil masked or baring his fangs?

In wedding banquets of strangers, and politically-correct occasions,

We would still be putting on sharp suits

Jackets, masks, gold-rimmed glasses

Wine glasses tight in our clasp –

Glasses that wear a certain sophisticated sheen.

(Translation by Yong Shu Hoong)

* previously published, without the English translation, in Chow Teck Seng’s Poetry of You and Me (Lingzi Media, 2012)

Poetry, Translation

Yong Shu Hoong – Skin-deep (translated into Chinese by Chow Teck Seng)

September 18, 2017

Yong Shu Hoong has authored one poetry chapbook, Right of the Soil (2016), as well as five poetry collections, including Frottage (2005) and The Viewing Party (2013), which won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2006 and 2014 respectively. His poems and short stories have been published in literary journals like Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and Asia Literary Review (Hong Kong), and anthologies like Language for a New Century (W.W. Norton, 2008). He is the editor of anthologies like Passages: Stories of Unspoken Journeys (2013), as well as Here Now There After (2017), which was part of The Commuting Reader series commissioned for the #BuySingLit movement. He is one of the four co-authors of The Adopted: Stories from Angkor (2015) and Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016).

Skin-deep

When a batch of my books arrives

from my publisher’s warehouse, I notice

Added annotations: yellowed specks

and blotches; I worry about customer

complaints over such imperfections.

A more understanding reader accepts

these pages as living tissues capable

of aging gracefully with the weather.

Nothing remains in mint condition

For too long. When I part my shirt,

I try to decrypt the coded message

of moles new and ancient; scars

of different vintages; spots, like the

smattering on the sun’s photosphere…

Then learning how Roman soldiers

used to chisel faces off statues, I

consider what memories I wish to

blanch from history, which words

to erase from skin. And enquire:

Should I advocate a return to that

shrink-wrapped state of newness?

Or otherwise remain, like grand

trees that lent me their name,

peaceable within reams of barks:

What’s mottled, and overlaid with lichens,

is a new body for my remaining journey.

深入皮相

当自己一批诗集从

出版社货仓抵达家中赫然发觉

竟新添注脚：大小黄斑

点点。我有点忧心，会否

有人客诉，是瑕疵品

善解人意的读者一定理解：

书页也如生死的皮肤组织

是阴晴干湿、岁月的优雅见证

一切皆不能恒久弥新

太久。像舍一件上衣时

我尽可能为一切新旧斑、痣

属不同复古潮流的痕太阳敷于上

的一层浅薄光晕等密码般解密

在知悉罗马士兵如何

自雕像上锥除一张张的脸后

我更思索自己会从历史中漂白

哪份记忆把哪些文辞

从皮肤上删改剔除？并追问：

我是否还该鼓吹回归

裹上透明包装纸的那种新

又或，留。留如树会借我名字

留若树死留皮成纸成册留则

成就树之宏伟不朽与强悍巍峨——

而那长苔、长廯的将是我

留存人间最后旅程的新肉身

(Translation by Chow Teck Seng)

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* previously published, without the English translation, in Chow Teck Seng’s Poetry of You and Me (Lingzi Media, 2012)

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Put On/Slip Off

– The philosophy of dressing

* previously published, without the English translation, in Chow Teck Seng’s Poetry of You and Me (Lingzi Media, 2012)

Skin-deep

深入皮相

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穿上脱下

Poetry
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Literary Translation