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.

The Pool Players - Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Aunt Jennifer's Tigers by Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen, 
Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. 
They do not fear the men beneath the tree; 
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. 

Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool 
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. 
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band 
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand. 

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie 
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. 
The tigers in the panel that she made 
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.


We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.


We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.


Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.


We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.


Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead (1915) by Charles Hamilton Sorley

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore. 

Harlem: A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The Dead by Sylvia Plath

Revolving in oval loops of solar speed,
Couched in cauls of clay as in holy robes,
Dead men render love and war no heed,
Lulled in the ample womb of the full-tilt globe.

No spiritual Caesars are these dead;
They want no proud paternal kingdom come;
And when at last they blunder into bed
World-wrecked, they seek only oblivion.

Rolled round with goodly loam and cradled deep,
These bone shanks will not wake immaculate
To trumpet-toppling dawn of doomstruck day :
They loll forever in colossal sleep;
Nor can God's stern, shocked angels cry them up
From their fond, final, infamous decay.

Emily Dickinson- I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you- Nobody- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise- you know~

How deary- to be- Somebody!
How public- like a frog-
To tell one's name- the livelong June-
To an admiring Bog!

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.