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Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Untitled by Hamid Roslan

 

Besok sunrise egg still put
inside cup He is aware that Europeans eat their soft-
boiled eggs in cups., correct? Kaya Kaya, or coconut
jam, is made of coconut milk, eggs &
sugar.

can sign petition, sure can—if you stupid
believe sheep can campaign, factory

chicken can Speaker’s Corner no permit. His use of the
counterfactual suggests that inanimate objects & farm-
bred animals cannot organize politically. Your heart
so good go debate with their nasi lemak Nasi lemak is
a fragrant rice dish cooked in coconut milk & pandan
leaf, served with a side of chili paste called sambal, a
hot sauce. lah.

Sambal sure win. Over here your face cry
no use. Will still happy, He will appreciate the bad
food because he has no choice. will still
say thank you.

Even shrimp got brain know when to give up
& kena knife. You haven’t.

You write write & write, come back here
want to try sup tulang Sup tulang is made of sheep or
cow bones cooked in a spicy cumin &
chili-infused stew, cooked until the marrow becomes
soft. but when they serve

got no bone. Then bang table. He is angry. Talk
& talk. There is an altercation with the shop-owner. Eh
how you tell me how? He wonders what is to be done.

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Sometimes it happens between aisles
in Waitrose. I mistake marmalade for

kaya, think of toast, mouth "nonsense"—
but not alamak. It leaves slowly: trust God

to curse the tongue with groceries. For even
an epiphany needs some state between

betweens. Too pliable the thought, they say,
will end in nothing to eat. Or: trim only

the edges lah. So I trim, am trying, reading
dialect in tea leaves, pretending winter-rain

in England is monsoon season. Presume cheese
is cheese is cheese. Trust only simple nouns—

despite knowing that potpourri has nothing on
rojak. Ridiculous how a radiator tinkers with

air in reverse. How remembering is
an exercise repeated fruitlessly.

Published in parsetreeforestfire (2019)

Purchase the book here.

Hamid Roslan is the co-editor of The Second Link: An Anthology of Malaysian & Singaporean Writing (Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2023), and author of in all the places I could not find you (self-published, 2022) and parsetreeforestfire (Ethos Books, 2019), a finalist for the Singapore Literature Prize 2020. His poetry has appeared in New Singapore Poetries (Gaudy Boy Press, 2022), the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Transpacific Literary Project, minarets, The Volta, Of Zoos and the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, among others. His essay contributions can be found in Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays in Translation (Tilted Axis Press, 2022) and Practice, Research & Tangential Activities (PR&TA) journal. He graduated with an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute.

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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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