Covid Couple
by YT
i. For the ‘coronavirus’ tag on AO3
So we’ll use the quarantine to
explore the possibilities of pent-up love and
unrequited hormones, of course, because
the mind is just as creative with fantasies as with fear.
Perhaps they’ll loot an empty supermarket
or go to Paris to kick the bucket, either is fine
because they hold hands in the casket.
All heroes go on quests, and maybe the
treasure is chicken noodle soup, the princess bound to her apartment
by the chains of travel history and law, or maybe
the dragon they fought over toilet paper was the true princess all along.
So tension is thick and “go away” gives way,
fourteen days aren’t quick and neither are they.
Rivalries slow burn and simmer
while they bicker over who makes dinner,
there’s only one bed but everyone’s a winner.
They have them in the palm of their hands
but can’t keep themselves calm despite plans,
after quarrelling they seem to drift further,
they’ll wash their hands but never of each other.
Reluctance relents and pity melts to passion,
they call it just concern but all they do is yearn.
So characters use proximity to atone and we
write fanfiction to cope with the unknown;
so we’ll use the quarantine to feel less alone.
ii. For the 88 couples in China who got a divorce the moment the quarantine was lifted
So the quarantine uses us to
investigate storerooms for the corpses of expired crackers,
instigate toilet seat wars, infiltrate empty convenience stores.
Slowly, silence sieves and strains us, boredom bending us bare,
the wait watching us wither. Adaptable as we are, we
hoard news articles about so-and-so and this-and-that
and load the same washing machine cycle of recycled anecdotes
and observed-path asymptotes. Someday we will run out of rush hours,
but until then we procrastinate promises and remotes remain remote.
Already we have sunk our roots into our rooms after
digging up old disappointments. We rehearse reasons
on repeat as we try to ignore the space we take up,
our idiosyncrasies sync as coincidences collide.
Of course you would need to use the toilet at the same time,
dishes sink in resignation after bedtime,
neither excuses nor expectations are crimes.
When we eat we slide small talk across the table,
numbers and nods and noiseless numbness
plated perfectly as we ration ramen and rationality.
So the quarantine lengthens
days and shortens my end of the stick, so
we realise we can’t teach ourselves new tricks.
So the quarantine makes us all homesick.
PERSPECTIVE
by Divyasri Krishnan
in the breath before twilight,
mars sets across the horizon—
an orange is peeled prematurely—
a pomegranate bursts within its
skin. within twin palms is a
reddening sun, some sort of
long forgotten stone fruit—
imagining a world where hands
were as big as galaxies and each
star could be sliced into pieces
between staggered breaths.
such creatures would have
to be lonely. such creatures
would have the mouths of
small rabbits and their voices
would unravel across the distance,
or lose themselves in the embrace
of a black hole or two—which is
to say as our world collapses
(as all worlds must) then
perhaps our words do, too.
if so we are all falling, if so
our soft hearts are all dissolving,
and so our veins and bodies
cannot be far behind.
by Joel Koh
Tempering Isolation
by Manuella Marie Pereira
Still orange, never red
Everyone’s on Zoom
There’s not enough room
So I’m stuck in bed
Every passing day brings dread
How much longer?
I don’t know what’s ahead
Back home my friends have fled
Sound the alarm
Corona tries to disarm
The warning rings shrill
Life seems to stand still
Cases up, the situation’s downhill
I’m too young to write my will
More and more are ill
Measures are too early to spill
Are we there yet?
Isolation nation
We’re trapped in frustration
What a long duration
Please pray for the salvation of all creation
This feels like damnation
Give this stupid virus an interrogation
Why do you force us to put up walls?
It is because of you that everything stalls
Everyone is doing a toilet paper haul
Begone! Let these case numbers fall
I need personal space
Life is at a snail’s pace
Yet, no sleep
Expensive keep
Bank ache, back ache
But this is for my own sake
Whose mistake?
It shakes our nation awake
Promises made of plastic
Our measures more drastic
Gosh, are we there yet?
Stocking up on rice
Don’t check the price
Nobody listens to advice
But seriously, don’t be a tool
Follow the rules and don’t use the pool
I actually miss school
Schooling’s training in a bathtub
They closed the pub
Please, just remember to scrub
I’d rather this end faster
Why is Zoom on mute?
Sorry, interviewer, I can’t even commute
Always in a state of waiting
What the hell? Why online dating?
Even YouTube channels have stopped updating
Coffee and tea?
I just want to be free
Can I have a guarantee?
Sigh, are we there yet?
Voting season will soon be upon us
Politicians have new ammunition
An ambitious mission
Is this the time, gov?
Masks and hand sanitizers are the only weapons we bear
Nobody shares, but we want fresh air
Travel plans? Prepare to declare
What do you mean, quaran-queen?
I don’t even have a routine
I’ll soon be myopic from all these screens
Trump, please shut up about hydroxychloroquine
It’ll make you sick, just keep clean
The challenges are scary and unforeseen
But now I think about it, the situation’s kind of serene
But going out without a mask is an offence
Our defence against Corona is still tense
Is there really light at the end of the tunnel?
Celebrities are going Live online
And things are slowly coming alive
Can’t wait till the city is revived
Soon, we will arrive.
this house
by Zelda Xie
this house has a heart of its own.
your blue-green irises,
shiny with tears. why won’t you
talk to me? sunlight splatters
softly on yellowed wallpaper.
your eyes glaze over,
swimming to a standstill.
this house has a brain of its own.
it tilts its head to the side, like this:
hushed whispers, harsh gazes, watching
as we hang on banisters.
step by step by step - it pulls
away what’s left inside of us.
this house believes i should let you
go. i should’ve known - your fingertips
were no longer warm.
this house gets on my nerves.
dying embers in the fireplace:
their last breaths continue
to warm the room.
i wait for you to say something.
but maybe, just maybe,
it takes a silence this cold
to heal this self-inflicted
heartbreak.
Isolated Dots
by Elliot Lim
Who are we
In a time of misplaced identity.
This viremic sword,
Slashing our bond,
Our cleaved hearts.
Drop after drop;
Reminiscent of our flooding parade.
We applaud
Those who offer themselves,
As lambs for the slaughter,
Who doctor the sick;
The ones picked of by this
Wretched enemy; disarming our minds
Triggering our alarms,
Doors once open, now closed.
We are mere coordinates in a bigger picture.
Stay another Day.
by Elliot Lim
The sun arises,
Heat swarming over our beating hearts.
The crickets of nature call again,
Ignoring the obstinate
Corona calls.
We traverse, in a world bigger than
Us; bigger than a pandemic.
Purpose found not in fear:
Not in panic, but in life.
In our tears we forget our joy.
In our suffering we cast aside each other .
The dots which plot our journey,
Coordinates by which a destination comes.
life is not linear.
life is filled with ridges and dichotomies.
A fleeting wind, strong as it may be
Shall not barricade our hopes.
Shall not isolate our bonds.
It shall not snap our bones.
Our flesh lives on, another day.
Tarnished
by Elliot Lim
See this cracked mirror,
It reflects my cry;
Of phantoms, of people,
Half mask and half human.
Desperately calling for milk tea
Queueing for yellow-red clowns.
Is it not alarming that -
We care more for ants than marginalised
People pushed out of photo frames;
Or crying mothers filled with pain?
The building-people of our generation.
Screaming for milk; the unimportant.
And not burnt skulls of
Souls we have banished:
We're so full of it, our selfish -
Image of you; us, tarnished.
Covid’s Telegram
by Elliot Lim
I warn
Of valleys and loneliness.
Of despondence; no response
To your everlasting words.
Posts for normalcy;
For what was normal.
But thy blood is different now.
Thy leaders weary;
Your Mortal bodies afraid -
Of death and of life.
You are jaded to the present;
And yet so scared.
So afraid, of what is a tool,
A tool in a toolbox of change.
This is just the beginning;
Of a watershed -
Crafting the new order.
A single emperor sits,
Plotting his maniacal ascension;
The return of Nero.
Portrait (Of A Lady) Quarantined
by Austin Ong
In the gridded window, a lady’s face
Fills the selfless squares, and an orange light ferments
The scene to an ancient hue.
Distinct and common in an evening plunged in blue,
The mysteries of daily strangers ruminate in the gridded window.
From below, a dog howls; a man wails; a family quarrels.
The squares of light always cease without a struggle;
The uncertain moon relents and chooses a shape for the night.
The sole witness is the lady in the gridded window.
In the gridded window, her desires are immune
To the moon’s anesthesia. The criss-cross lines
Mesmerise her, stretching on beyond consolation.
Memories conjure themselves in the confined absences of a pattern.
The past is never forgotten, but persists as tenants residing in the gridded window,
In the furniture, and the ordinary life pacifies our eyes from seeing
Lest we refrain from growing any closer to living-
The truth is only to be observed from time to time; in-between,
It awaits, in the gridded window, calculating and observing.
The Days Have Forgotten Their Names
by Austin Ong
While the city browsed through its vacant residue,
And the house winced at its once tender purpose,
The days have forgotten their names;
The weeks have found new digits on their hands.
Here, now, in this abstracted life, reincarnation
Is now routine, and each lull of sleep
Forms us anew.
When the previous Decade rode
The last crescent of a mynah’s fall,
And a discoloured light faded from its eye,
We prayed in our own ways, Tragedy
Would suspend its ruinous roars,
And we would praise our accurate hopes.
Now planes no longer rummage
Through the amnesiac sky.
No face renders complete
Beyond the apartment door.
Perhaps in our most earnest plight,
When absence pools beneath our most positive moods,
A terrible circuit is made, and this decade recreates
The same erratic light.
Now there is loneliness in the wind.
In the sunlight, in a metre’s spacing.
It is an unrepentant melancholy,
Coalescing in the glass of a train cabin.
So we learn to cherish from a distance,
To love with the tenacious longing of wind,
So dare I think I am prepared
For when you must return to wind?
Somehow, we will find a way to live,
Even when the centre of ourselves may darken,
Even when each dream of you still burns
The coast of my eyes.
We will find a way to live,
And find the pride in living,
And it may as well be silent as a lantern
Nurturing
Its own light
When the house sleeps.
Small Parties
by Ryan Yeo
"The rules are very clear. You stay home, do not go out." — Lawrence Wong
after Jordan Baker
I like large parties. They're so intimate.
There isn't any privacy at small parties.
The faces and walls start to mingle,
blank and grey. There is no variety at a small party,
no balcony, backyard, or bathroom to breathe in.
You only sniff the same air at this party,
hear the same tones echo off the walls.
There are fewer fights at large parties,
and more ways to avoid them. No one declines
an invitation to this one. The offending party
is plain to see. Call your friends, but they cannot
distract you from peripheral vision, or keep you apart
from bitter warmth. So breathe
into your balloons. Wear a mask. Party on.
Names
by Isabel Phua
Sparking at the back of my mind: bonfire
Of you, a crackle of flames, then the slow
Hiss of smoke. There! Your image an entire
Ocean away. Vowels reach where I go,
The stretch of an "O" like the wrap of your
Arms, enclosing me. And then consonants,
A sharp crack of light that opens the door,
Stringing together the tiny remnants
Of the alphabet into your name. Leap
Over the space between hushed "N" and drowsed
"R", the lovers separated by sleep.
Within these walls of stitched letters you're housed:
"Coronavirus", long dress on my bed.
Rolling off my tongue like pearls: "Dorscon Red".
The Sound of Myna
by Eng Yeow
There was a time we feared nothing can wake this city
for this slumber is not an act of habit but of imposition
where the most peaceful of lullabies are tinged with blue
yet the most familiar of alarms sound as peculiarly sweet
as the aftertaste of a month-old banana feebly clinging
onto its neck can possibly be. Out of curiosity I ate it.
I didn’t care if it would later knead and twist my insides
nor if I’d interrupt a worm or ant living deep inside its soul
partly because the remnant of a child in me felt adventurous
but also because that virus is too rambunctious
to convince me to dash out for a snack at this hour.
I ate it—while staring at the darkness of a sky so silent
save for the lyrics of cacophonous myna song and
craving for a fleeting tease of flickering moonlight
under which lovebirds used to flock in search of dark
someplace amid the once unhindered interim park.
Still, the myna will keep calling, how full of intention
to sell you not insurance but a humbling reminder
of the homely sounds we chose to hear annoyance in;
now in strangerly spaces we remember to cherish liberty.
To Grow A Garden
by Eng Yeow
1
Sila buka.
Haven’t even makan yet, buka what buka?
Before suhur I choked;
there was a jackhammering
of knuckles on my front door.
Perkuburan? Putar balik.
She was finding the garden,
there is a strange garden nearby
but she has come up the wrong hill,
Pusing kanan, bukan kiri.
so I told her to go
down the hill, to the signpost
she could not read.
Cari bunga putih krem yang mekar penuh.
The place she is looking for
has slopes after slopes of
dull, white flowers
but we don’t have flowers here, fool.
2
you call me foolish then forgive me / is it forgiveness you seek in return / for all the years you let earth be earth / all your dandelions have flown south / all your chickens have remembered how to fly / all your grass kowtow to you / never again to get up / your pond is a pothole exhausted of tears / your fish are bones buried under eroded soil / your only tree a balding spruce / how very eager / to behead your chimney / upon collapsing headlong
3
She would return the same hour every morning, the same hour I used to wake up to a rooster crow. She would prattle on about how the field behind my house used to be like that strange garden. At first my eyes rolled upwards without command, more in disbelief than anger at her for inviting herself to my doorstep to curse my land. I tried asking her if she was hungry, but she never ran out of stories to tell. So I shoved a rope-bound punnetful of lobak and timun into her hands. She would keep talking, never pausing to look down. I wanted not gratitude but to just be left alone. On the fifth day I simply left a generous basket of vegetables by my mailbox. I heard her come but didn’t open the door. She preached loudly through my window grille until the sun rose to her highest. Curiously lifting a corner of my blinds to check: she had indeed left the basket full.
4
there is a nightmare i remember / that nightmare lingered / akin to a familiar / retreated into a crevice / breath stale and staggered / yet far from dead / i can revive all of it at will / dreamt of my back being punctured by a bed / of grass whom i’d trimmed so tenderly / under a domic panorama of stars
might it be a magical orb / pearl white light emerging from afar / its shadow faded into a deadly shade of red / glowing with bloodshot anger / falling towards me / i seated myself / my head nestled between my thighs / and shut my eyes
a ground-shaking crash / the sound of rubble / suffocating smell of dust / opened my eyes / ahead a rock moulded into the ground / a hole the size of an upturned four-door saloon
as if a spell had been cast a gradient of orange burst throughout the sky / the rock shattered into a sea of gravel and a cloud of dust / save for an upright stone / like a runestone yearning to be carved / so i dragged it up and planted it by the hole / so that it might be found one day
5
Where fingers wriggled through the earth to find a seed
a cosy little pocket where it may snuggle to sleep, where
the flaming tail of a rock diving from the sky scourges her
from afar in a dream while hearing a hoarse whisper, a shy
prayer floating across this earth like a girl prancing around
in circles with a basketful of snowdrop bulbs. At the sunrise
where the seed springs up a seedling and sees her first light
staring right into her eyes, may a welcome breeze tickle her,
may she flutter her aquiline leaves in jollity
being hungry and hungry to learn how to fly.
6
if you wish for a fishpond there must be fish in a pond / these fish have to be alive enough to know how to swim / how dare you call that dried-up hole a pond / a pond has to resemble a pond / i think you have a useless depression / with patience rain will fill this space with water / water only / clouds will never rain fish / because fish in heaven will stay in heaven
7
say i go on a pilgrimage to the sacred istana / helo helo madam president i come with a gift for you / for your relaxation i have pitched you a khemah / right across / at istana park / do you think she would go / tidak masuk akal kan / kamu memang bodoh ikan
8
Pretend it is too dark to see that “NO FISHING” sign;
only so will there be a first time for everything.
Reassure yourself that you know what you are doing
as long as you wear a fisherman’s straw hat.
If you swirl your rod like a ladle in a cloudy hotpot
confused waves will scurry about in misshapen circles.
When you feel a weight tugging at your line, pull
and you will reel in what you have set out to bait.
9
Through your tender loosenings of soil
a curious girl whispers from below:
Must a tree fall so a seed may grow?
another reason to get better sleep
by Jedrick Goh
Even “existential” gets boring.
Screaming into the black at 3 a.m.
Shatters the dam;
And what of a mental breakdown?
It’s a crown of love worn with thorns
Inverted, a ghost town
In the bosom, distant thing unborn.
Sit for twelve days in some blackout afternoon
Hurried, dull typing of texts
I imagine what all crimes are like.
(Feels like sharpening an axe)
You learn to stomp denial’s teeth into the curb
Or you learn nothing, that’s that.
Whole panzer divisions dash themselves
In my mind, in lifetimes sorted as fluff;
Scaling infomercial malignant tumors,
This neon loveliness my friends don’t love
Is a hydrogen bomb, a scarlet tattoo,
It’s a poor bluff.
Squander tenderness, an unbefitting birthright
Chasing a fleeting dove:
Picture crawling about the pinky toes
Of freebase affection.
Taking my eyes off broken-hearted viscera
Well-famed to rot and appall.
Push safety pins into each
Glassy eye of a failed baby doll.
I know my ten mismatched faces fit no fashions,
Disenchantment echoes in regret of it all.
Ambivalent, modern pigsty lifestyles
Distend the fat yellow stars above,
Poetic sleight-of-hand hollows out,
Wasted interchangeably on some nameless rose.
But I resort to deferring to strangers in
The arrogance to make a judgement call:
All that’s gummy pop-song lyrics
Ringing in upscale shopping malls.
An underage toast to the heels of love,
Of some worst revenge-porno bloodlust!
I know it down-at-heel, dismal,
The burning smell of polystyrene still lasts.
All the world’s for sale,
Even heavenly fire now burns pink.
Some-or-other emasculation fantasies
Go better with a drink.
The death of god in heaven might nauseate,
But I know it perfumed and cheap.
Aggravating songs that always
Open scene in “tonight” .
Kicking the bucket beggars:
Why even bother with such a fight?
A hangman’s knot unfurled,
Hesitation girded in palisades and
Lost gods, alongside
Incestuous evangelical TV crusades.
Though the heart sings for freedom,
Each sundered sunset is a day’s waste.
Edging closer and closer
To the climax like eating a grenade.
My eyes shut and the invincible sun is
Nothing, every glad friend is dead.
Scum in the gutter is the
Rotten debasing of vocabulary,
Pacifying restless sex-and-death
Pads an emptiness’s dream:
Bluish, mutilating every limb I know,
A transparent boy with no seam
The unmoved night wonders:
What name is put to this spirit?
A time concludes, the disenchanted hangman
Takes a bow, having made his visit.
Pestilence
By Aidan Ong Zongren
In lands far from home, where I write this poem
Vile seeds have been sown, festered and grown
Then, with our help, they've bounded and flown
As thanks, they shall now devour our own.
Upon each head, a hundred crowns
Royalty nouveau
Its throne composes a million skulls
Its name - a portmanteau
Barely perceived, yet globally renown
Once seen, one hardly knows that they've been found
Till silent sirens sound:
INTRUDER! INTRUDER!
Why hadn't it come sooner?
Serenading the sea; in their fluids they'll drown.
Vigil ensues, scorning Alarm,
"Your actions drive mortals to panic and rage,
They turn on each other, possessed by their fear.
Yet when you are idle they abandon their cage
Eyes glazed, they wander into the enemy's leer."
"Had you left it to me, we would enjoy calm,
Yet in desperation to right a grave wrong,
Your recklessness proves you can do only harm."
The riposte came sharp, with condescending sneer:
"How swiftly you blame, with clear conscience you saunter,
Yet humans have always invoked ME in disaster
You arrive thereafter, riding on slaughter
Together we shall rend this whole world asunder."
Such are the omens that have come to pass
For divided we stand, one metre apart
When we should despair, our ambitions frustrated
How, in isolation, are our emotions placated?
Some are called upon for a noble cause
To pursue the carriers, the flouters, the flaws
Others take matters into their own hands
Vigilantes of justice, they uphold their own laws
The helpless amuse themselves with their own toys
Books, games, and shows come with such subtle joys
Or, like the spectators in gladiator duels,
They clap, they cheer, amidst carnage so cruel-
How easily kindness is construed as mere ploys.
Some acquire new skills, some swallow poison that kills
Some reflect on their journeys, of the thrills and the ills
Most place hope in the future and seek refuge in the view
That together, crisis will succumb to our nation's will.
For uniting is easy against external foes
Competition does keep us all on our toes
Against staggering odds, we demonstrated our pride
With a flag shining bright, emblazoned in red and white
Alas, just as age makes grown men break their stride,
Powers combined falter to demons inside.
Straining the bonds and sapping one's strength,
These vipers which writhe leave one gasping for breath.
Which is more moving - actions or words?
Which is more vexing - virus or soul?
The heart of these matters are pesky things
Driving us forward while holding us back
Returning to colours, a theme unforeseen
White represents virtue, purity free of sin
Disease has contaminated this lofty goal
To expose hearts of gold, and those of coal
Red recalls our brotherhood, the equality of man
In all except outcomes - an interesting plan
We value all citizens (some more than others)
Creating, exceeding, dubious frontiers
Prejudice the cartographer, gerrymandering fiend
Draws lines where there were none,
Provokes violence from within,
Lumping those thought alike into enclaves ill conceived
Tilling fertile soil for a far more vile seed
Perhaps here we can learn from parasites like us
While preferential, they do intermingle
This trait serves them well, much to our disgust
Seeing red, our anger resounds like a cymbal
Accepting our differences - surely this we can do
Much like malicious mindless molecules.
Or have they outsmarted us all, in lamenting that
The only thing men are equal in is death?
This plague has been an unwelcome intrusion
Yet it shall, like this tale, have a fitting conclusion.
It is easy to greet change with much derision
But to ignore it would surely court delusion
Our children will bear the price of retribution
For the sake of them all, to evade destitution,
Stay determined and press on with resolution
This is then the 21st century's great mission:
How will we adapt? That is your decision.
Ghost Story
by Ace
These days, I run at witching hour.
It’s cooler, I can avoid a tan, and besides,
Singapore is as safe as it gets.
I put some hard rock on and I’m the king
Of these empty, dimly lit streets.
I pace myself according to the broken white lines.
Last night there was someone seated at the bus stop.
He was eating out of a styrofoam box,
And looked up at me as I ran past.
I sped up.
I make it a point not to speak to ghosts.
to be positive
by Ana
the days have been trying
to test how long more we can last,
even the minute feels painfully longer.
we remain in our place, even as our
room breathes an air of stillness.
will weariness wear off on its own ?
i consume the daily delivery of
sanitized versions of reality,
each passing me by gently.
is losing count a sign of recovery
or a symptom of numbness ?