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Poems on the MRT

Singapore Night Song by Simon Tay

 

Where no owl cries its kill above city blocks
and the moon does not dominate
a night landscape
Stars are as bright as street lights allow.

Headlamps and meta colours,
horns and exhausts, car bumpers:
The traffic is the only other animal awake.

Walk past the Merlion,
spotlighted to an edifice
feel beneath shows, sidewalk trees shrug
off cement with roots,
and outside the concert hall,
where no concert is being staged,
hear the american top ten
spill from a walkman.

You know, nearby, people
relish a bite of satay
and maybe a walk after,
that the sun over the telephone wires
and sparrows with their gutter songs
will eventually come;
but neither horizons nor thrushes.

If you cannot learn to love
(yes love) this city
you have no other.

Published in 5 (1985)

Simon SC Tay is a writer and public intellectual. For his literary writing he has received the SEA Write award (2019) and the Singapore Literature Prize (2010) for the novel, City of Small Blessings. The poem Singapore Night Song was published in 1985 in the poetry collection 5 which received a High Commendation. His most recent work is ENIGMAS: Tay Seow Huah, My Father, Singapore’s Pioneer Spy Chief (2024) a creative non-fiction work about his late father. His other roles currently include chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and Ambassador (non-resident accredited to Greece).

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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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