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.

Untitled by Gwee Li Sui

Mother, mother
The kids in school
Call me kiasu,
But all I am
I got it from you.

You bought for me
Big uniforms
A size too soon
And until them
I look cartoon.

Primary Two,
You bought textbooks
For Secondary Three,
I'll get A then;
Now I get Dee.

Then you got me
Tuition for Maths,
Language and Science,
Music and Sports,
And Omniscience.

Recess, you packed
Gain-weight tabets,
Vitamin pills.
They call me Hospital Nostrils.

Mother,mother
The kids in school
Call me kiasu,
But that's not me-
I guess it's you.

Arthur Yap - a list of things

A MARKET AT UENO

gesticulating fingers of lentil, unwriggly eels,
spearheads of bamboo shoot, soothing water chestnuts,
green snakes of cucumber, jetsams of seaweed,
wrinkled-nose pickles, earspans of brown mushroom,
calm persimmons, outlandish roly-poly apples,
air-licking clams, dry earth-crusts of fish,
icy-eyed bream, powdered kabuki faces of cake,
paragraphs of beancurd, exhaling piles of garlic,
enpurpled piccolo noses of aubergine, lazy grapes,
no-nonsense tangerines, arms-folded-over squid,
shrine-pillars of celery, bullets of green chillie,
hibernating squares of handkerchief, fat tabi,
expandable sweaters, ventilated t-shirts, healthy cod,
alliterative clogs, knobbly topshell, discusses of sole,
lumpy puffy octopus, cheap skate, tight-jaw oysters,
brisk aprons, tough-guy pork, sectional ropes of radish,
whispery crinkled lettuce, placid sweet potatoes,
smarting capsicum, defiant crabs, sensuous musk melons,
humpy peanuts, leathery heels of abalone,
aerial spring onion, hour-glass pears, rotund avocados,
rib-caged pumpkins, chlorophyllic piles of iparella,
grumpy red mullet, macho beef, sassy tomatoes

are all there.

Sudder Street, Calcutta by Boey Kim Cheng

The blackout arrives punctually, bringing to life
the meagre light of so many brief candles.
This is the shrine of suffering's patron saint,
where man's body falls asunder, beseiged walls
crumbling, helpless, as death tunnels underground
with tonnes of dynamite, to blow the body heavenward.

On Sudder Street the same procession of beggars
in inexhaustible variations of deformity and need,
peddlers offering passages to temporary nirvana,
the brown sugar girl and her magic mushrooms.
A human rickshaw canters by, yoked
to the ledger of debts from previous lives.
He is dragging alone, his feet pain-proof,
the sum of things unexplained.
Deserted angels lie sprawled on Sudder Street,
beauty broken in God's terrible neglect.

The hands of this poem are useless stumps.
They cannot even begin to turn the page.
I come from a race that has no word for despair.
My culture is purged of poverty's germs, its language
a propaganda of faith in absolute health.
I even doubt my ABC.

Perhaps I am looking in the wrong archives
for my history, checking the wrong catalogues,
tracing irrelevant titles. Perhaps I should stop
subscribing to foreign publications which inform me
of happenings on the other planets.

On Sudder Street my mind is numb.
My legs are thinking hard. They hold long dialogues
with cul-de-sacs and turn to frail candles
for illumination. I had better decide soon
whether it is health or sickness that I want.

But tonight let me take my place
among the forlorn angels of Sudder Street.