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Poems on the MRT

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Upsizing by Daryl Lim Wei Jie

 

after Alvin Pang

Give me a bowl of bak chor mee, with extra noodles, extra lard, extra
ter kwa, extra chili, extra vinegar but please don't charge me extra.

I want a steak big enough to sleep on, a gravy boat you can drown a
child in, fries you might mistake for new lanes of the PIE.

Give me wall-to-wall salami tiles, bacon blinds, more cans than I'll
ever open, cheeses that I'll melt to use as concrete.

I want an eclair so capacious I can park a Jaguar in it.

Two Jaguars. I want all the other pastries to feel threatened, to quiver out their cream.

So huge, the mountaineers will scale it for a challenge, taking celebratory licks when they reach the chocolate-coated peak, this Kilimanjaro of choux.

I want it because I'm so goddamned hungry.

I want a youtiao so massive I can go spelunking in it, explore the caves of dough, sail on the lakes of grease and find a soft, fluffy place
to snooze.

Of course some sup kambing. Make it Olympic-sized, ocean-sized, a body of uncertain green visible from space, huge islands of mutton bobbing in the oily waves.

Give me a prata so huge it'll be its own country. I'll keep it warm with volcanoes, I'll feed all of Asia, there won't be enough curry in the
whole wide world.

While we're at it, how about a milo dinosaur as well, with a heap of milo powder the height of Everest. I want the sugar to keep me
awake till the second coming of Christ.

Then calamansi juice with sour plums, the volume of Lower Seletar Reservoir, to get my appetite up again

Published in A Book of Changes (2016)

Credit: NAC

Daryl Lim Wei Jie is a poet, editor and translator from Singapore. His poetry collection, Anything but Human, was a finalist for the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize. He conceptualised two anthologies: Food Republic: A Singapore Literary Banquet, which won a Special Award at the 2023 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, and The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian and Singaporean Writing, shortlisted for Best Literary Work at the Singapore Book Awards. He translated Short Tongue, a collection by the Singaporean Chinese poet Wang Mun Kiat. In 2023, he was awarded the Young Artist Award, Singapore’s highest award for young art practitioners. www.darylwjlim.com

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Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

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