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Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Singapore River on Exhibit by Eric Tinsay Valles

 

Majestic in the middle of a frame,
a green streak undulating like grass snake,
pristine on uncluttered canvas,
you draw orang laut dreaming of tomorrow
on a boat pulling away in the muddy water
until they are washed away from the scene.
They bend down, count the day’s catch,
watch you run past them.

Cycles of drought and rain, urban renewal
neither detain your dance nor silence your hum.
You are slighted by tourists distracted by the Merlion
spitting in envy at the floating Sands garden.
Shoot a spray at the passing glory
as you rush home to the strait.
Twigs of time scrape against imagery
as you pass by and through me.

Published in From Walden to Woodlands: An Anthology of Nature Poems (2015)

Eric Tinsay Valles has published the collections A World in Transit and After the Fall: dirges among ruins as well as co-edited Get Lucky: An Anthology of Singapore and Philippine Writings, Sg Poems 2015-2016, Anima Methodi, The Nature of Poetry, The Atelier of Healing, A Given Grace and Finding God in All Things. He has won a Goh Sin Tub Creative Writing prize as well as the Illumination and ELit Book Awards. He has been invited to read poetry or commentaries at Baylor, Melbourne and Oxford Universities as well as Kistretch and Jakarta Content Week. He is a director of Poetry Festival (Singapore).

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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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