POETRY
-
Against the Wilderness
WONG PHUI NAM
For months, the sky was pale copper, withholding rain,
firing the fields into fused beds of clinker.
A subterranean kiln reduced standing grain and grass
to fibre, snakes and mudfish -
THE IMMORTALITY OF NOTHING and other poems
CECIL RAJENDRA
On one nothing-
much happening
day, a wandering
vole sidled up
to me to whisper: -
STATEMENT
LATIF KAMALUDDIN
Mistakes
Forgone Conclusions
Misapprehensions
Misconceptions
Rituals
Man Bodies
Trance Hypnosis -
Thoughts On Our Tongues
YEE HENG YEH
What we’ve inherited is their language—
not the one they spoke, no,
but the truer one,
the one that lay under the one they spoke,
-
BOOK-DATE AT A CAFE IN MUAR and other poems
JACK MALIK
three slices of marbled cake;
a bottle of nostalgia-flavoured
local orange soda
—we gorge all of the yellow warm lights
& the cool estuary’s breeze the night
offered, feeding our love. -
Love Across the Causeway
JUDITH HUANG
Instant sparks
You striding down the corridor
after your comedy set
You killed it.
I say.
To my delight you take the seat right next to me
and before the night is over
you ask me out. -
Leavings – A Poetry Series
MOHAN AMBIKAIPAKER
Mutes circumambulate the city of
mud, whose people of the past are
knockoffs
sold in back-lanes & after the
bribe, counterfeiters hustle
compendiums of porn -
kami yang kekal (after Usman Awang’s 'Kambing Hitam' and GE15)
SOOK JIN ONG
tertulis dan terujar perasaan sebelum our ballots bloom
lima belas kepeluangan pakcik penjual, puan pencerita, pelajar-pelajar
with a finger inked intimately, we made a mark on each other.
-
The world is not masculine
DANO CHOW
hitherto modern man has only reiterated
masculinity, sowing enlightenment
upon man who do not ask for it
as in the first dealings between man
and sultan -
Monsoon winds and other poems
DAVID TNEH
I feel the tropical winds
caressing my face,
like soft kisses
blown from pouting lips.
The winds bring the rains,
and they creep slowly with
the blankets of
damp clouds and dark -
From the heart of the rainforest
ANGELINA BONG
Bats dance in dragon moves
across the skies leaving Deer Cave deep
in the rainforest hunting in packs
of millions. I was one of the hornbills
who left for the land of the tigers strapped
with the White Rajah’s tongue searching -
The Woman Who Said Yes and other poems
SALLEH BEN JONED
Trembling with terror, he reached for her skirt;
The echo of the fierce voice in the cave
Still thundered in the depths of his soul:
"... from a clot of blood... the Most Beautiful..."