Within Singapore, Verena Tay (www.verenatay.com) has published two short story collections, Spectre (2012) and Spaces (2016), and four play collections, and edited twelve fiction anthologies, including Math Paper Press’ popular Balik Kampung series. She is now working on her first novel as part of her PhD studies in Creative Writing at Swansea University.

 

 

relations blocked*

 

woman sits

Today hot. Lucky I rest.

 

artist draws woman sitting

In her curves, there are lines, and her lines, curves.

 

friend paints artist drawing woman sitting

Get right – shape, position, colour – you have a picture.

 

i describe friend painting artist drawing woman sitting

I see. I like. I write.

 

you read me describing friend painting artist drawing woman sitting

Your view?

 

* inspired by Liu Kang’s Artist and Model (1954). Oil on canvas. Collection of the National Gallery Singapore

 

~

 

insouciant*

slit-

eyed

you

suck

a

cigarette

curl your shoulders

 

fumes feed your

i me mine

beliefs

 

you

exhale

words

exploding        then       rules

till now

you

shock

language

and audiences have learned

applause

 

illiterate i

read only your body and

wonder how you

won respect when all you

do is

fuck off

 

* inspired by Latiff Mohidin’s Aku (1958). Oil on board. Collection of the National Gallery Singapore

 

~

Curated Five: Only in Singapore

Each pencil-charcoal shaded paper

Human form perfectly caught

 

Three profiles facing left

Two girls, one man

Two shirtless youths

One full-bodied, gazing left

One seated, turning right

 

Note their ethnicity

 

Together,

Black-white

Correctness

 

Too much

 

~

 

the road oft taken

roads are never equal. poets always claim:

wander to wonder, explore bent undergrowths,

discover divergence. the efficient truth is

we’re forest shrews scurrying black

the everyday path until we know well

how many steps taken to and from home,

where to swerve, not trip over dip-holes,

when to slow down, not fly over bumps,

and crash into our enemies’ mouths.

surprise is far too risky. can we survive?

ages hence, the woods can be just as glorious

by absorbing how way leads on to way.

evolved into blind mole rats, we’ve kept alive.

so why can’t we hold our heads up high?