LONTAR issue #2 (7 page)

I will write it all down. After you read it, Grace, I urge you to pick up your pen and to do the same. They did not take the letter. If you are reading this, they have not taken this book. You'd like to think you've outwitted them, but more likely, confiscation is an unnecessary bother. You will read this account to the last word and you will feel more alive than you ever remember feeling. When you are done, you will write as frantically as I am doing now, to bring us to life again in the future. Exhaustion and resignation will eventually make you close this book. Hope will compel you to return it to its hiding place.

Perhaps you will brush your teeth, change into your pyjamas, and go to bed. Perhaps you will simply flop down on your sofa. Either way, you suspect you know how you will wake up. To a firm gloved hand stifling your cry. This time, they're not so patient. Even before your eyelids fully descend, you see the machines being wheeled in. And you will drift into sleep once more.

Doppelgänger

Jerrold Yam

Jerrold Yam (Singapore/UK) is a law undergraduate at University College London, and the author of poetry collections
Scattered Vertebrae
(2013) and
Chasing Curtained Suns
(2012). His poems have been published in more than eighty journals and anthologies across twenty countries. He has received poetry prizes from the British Council, National University of Singapore and Poetry Book Society, and is the youngest Singaporean to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He has been featured at literary festivals across Singapore and the United Kingdom, and his poems have been translated to Spanish. Find him at jerroldyam.com.

On nights when

the moon uncracks

half her plated silicon,

the other like a disc raised

against the thick sludge of the

reeling universe as if to collect it,

culls existence from it, becoming one

with vastness, then an oath would echo—

homo homo!
—playful as a child taunting another,

its assonance crisp like the sound of irreverent joss sticks

set on fire. Maybe he hears its melody of hurt—
homo homo!
—

but does not dare answer; the word itself could be truth, how the

way he looks at boys swiftly assembles truth on its own.

His friends would sneer at such behaviour, something

unnatural, something to fear and courageously

resent. On such nights he could see himself

adrift in a window, strewn like sand over

the moon's terrain, the unnatural weight

of the universe raging on his back,

his face another of nature's

mysteries, another myth

he cannot concede to

call his own.

A Script

Tse Hao Guang

Tse Hao Guang (Singapore) is interested in form and formation, creativity and quotation, lyrics and line breaks. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in
Ceriph
,
QLRS
,
Softblow
,
Prairie Schooner
, and
Third Coast
, as well as in anthologies and visual art exhibitions. His chapbook is
hyperlinkage
(Math Paper Press, 2013). He is currently studying at the University of Chicago.

Hanacaraka

"There were two messengers,"

two tongues, two paths

or ways of being. Dora:

"I am fluid, ocean, second-

wave feminism, I transport like

a metaphor, I bring our master

his Pusaka, McGuffin, Snake-oil,

Whatever, translated so

everyone understands."

Sembodo: "There are

rules. I keep them. These are

our orders. Try moving me;

I know where I stand. This

Treasure, Loveliness, Truth,

Beauty, is not for all eyes and

ears. Think of inheritance."

Data Sawala

They "had animosity,"

naturally, any storyteller

could tell you that. Dora:

"Rising-action-climax-falling-action?

Phallic nonsense. You have

another thing coming if 'Truth

is Beauty, Beauty Truth' does

not make you weep with

shame. I will not fight against

you because I am 'drunk on
 

the variousness of things'.
 

I have tasted the lips

of shamans and the wildness

of weed. I fly like Ariel over

the dome of this purple-green

sky. I come bearing Gifts."

Padha Jayana

"Equally powerful" apart,

they weakened in loving

embrace. Sembodo: "This is like

Zen but not Zen. Who you

are makes who I am
―
more

Hegel if you can stomach the

name of a dead old man.

I trust the playwright and thus

I see the future 'through a glass,

darkly'
―
we are sacrifices, like

it or not. You misrepresent

the speech of others, and I quake

before I quote word for word.

Come, my arms are wide open!
 

The Treasure is safe. This is and

has always been so."

Maga Bathanga

"Here are the corpses,"

Death and Life-in-Death.

What is left for us but Truth?

Holy, holy, holy Truth.

Bookshelf Truth, musty-with-

the-years Truth. When the

King returned to bury he

sought to grow a garden

over all this Truth. He thought

to write verses that would encompass

the world. He took a Secret and

formed an Alphabet. For why

should death not smell of

the deep ripeness of fruit

or the sting of

fresh-cut grass?

Waiting for the Doctor

Ang
Si Min

Ang Si Min (Singapore) is easily identifiable as the tall one, sometimes mistaken to be male. Dabbles in linguistics, history, physics and archaeology. Terribly geeky, and frequently distracted by the conversations in her head. Dreams of traveling in a blue box. Amateur writer, long-time cross-stitcher. Intently learning human social interactions, though maybe not quite there yet. Her poem "The Immortal Pharmacist" appeared in
LONTAR
issue #1.

The metal girl and meat boy meet

in the quiet of the specialist clinic

off North Bridge Road.

The boy opened the conversation,

"Why are you here, comrade?"

"My heartbeat makes my ear tickle,"

her voice tinkled like wind chimes.

"Ahh... I comprehend.

As for myself,

you can see..."

he gestured.

At the reception counter,

A squabble of mixed

Hokkien and English swells

then subsides with satisfaction.

"You ate the seeds

of an Apple by accident?"

one of her eyebrows clicked

a bronze question.

"Watermelon, actually,"

he scratched nervously around the

sapling sprouting from his head.

"That would be quite unpleasant,

should the tree reach its fruit-bearing stage,"

she leaned in, concerned.

Street noise roars

momentarily.

Someone walks past

the sliding doors.

"I've heard that Doctor Wong

is good at removing

Unwanted Arboreality—"

he cut her off,

"as well as being extraordinarily lazy,

and an excellent orthopædist."

she grinned at him,

one finger firmly

scratching her left ear.

"And I reckon

the Doctor Smiths here

will find your loose connection,"

he offered,

nodding at the metal door.

"Thank you,"

the girl's eyes lit up

a soft blue glow of pleasure.

The waitlist number beeps sharply,

summoning the boy away,

through the wooden door.

They exchange a wave,

two strangers

briefly having occupied

a bubble of intimacy.

Naga, A Khmer Myth

Shelly Bryant

Shelly Bryant (USA/Singapore/China) divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a teacher, writer, researcher, and translator. She is the author of five volumes of poetry—
Cyborg Chimera
,
Under the Ash
,
Voices of the Elders
,
Harps Upon Willows
and
Unnatural Selection
—a pair of travel guides, and a translation of Sheng Keyi's novel
Northern Girls
for Penguin Books. Shelly's poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions, including
dark 'til dawn
,
Things Disappear
, and
Studio White • Exhibition 2011
. You can visit her website at shellybryant.com.

from the mystical lands of the west

home of holy writ, ancient sages

and sacred waters

the wanderer comes to a flooded plain

the spirit of the land

ancient dragon, clever serpent

watchman over the bounty of the plain

keeps vigil as his daughter shapeshifts

taking her form for the upcoming encounter

the guardian spirit watches her wooing

raises up to his full height

gazing down on the earth through the clouds

from his celestial perch

he watches the sun's glint play

on the emerald face of the floodwaters

stooping to the earth, he opens wide his mouth

into that gaping maw the waters are drawn

expanding the beast's belly

as if formed of the rubbery sap

that runs through the trees on the plateau below

beneath the canopy of the jungle

the couple makes their bridal chamber

the cradle of an ancient race

Funkytown

Daryl Yam

Daryl Yam (Singapore/UK) is an aspiring writer of prose and poetry currently reading English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. He has been published in
Esquire (Singapore)
,
Ceriph
,
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
and elsewhere. You can learn more about him at about.me/yammonation.

1.

"Our time has come," they said.

"Let us be young. Let us be brave."

"Hold my hand," they said. "Then let go."

2.

Have you looked out the window, recently? Out into Funkytown?

Do you see the night sky, that canvas shrouding the Earth?

What constellations, what stars, what distant suns and earths could compel us so?

Like tides, they pull us; like tides they drag us beyond the shore, send us into orbit.

3.

Look! Look! Look!

Look at the women! Dancing on the pavement!

Look at the men! Wandering on the streets!

Look at the elderly! Dragged through the threshold!

4.

There are no lights in

This city. Where night is noon

And noon is night.

The children step towards the windows:

The children make their way across the carpet:

The children put their hands on the frames:

The children watch the women dancing, the men wandering:

The children watch the elderly float towards the skies, dragged through open windows

and doorways, grains of sand swirling in a dark ocean, rising towards a great

cloud.

5.

Cirrus! Stratus! Cumulus! Nimbus!

Towering, eternal! Bloom, perpetual!

Mortal, immortal! O, chariot! Toroidal!

6.

The parents navigate between the dead and the dying

Hands on the wheel, feet on the pedal:

The women are dancing and the men are wandering

And the children are looking out of their windows.

"Are you my child? Do you belong to me?"

The parents move onwards

Quietly watching the face of each child

Limned by the glare of their headlights

(Swathing its reach across