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)