the Queen as a victim of circumstance

mirror, mirror on the wall

who in the land is fairest of all? – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the

abyss gazes also into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche

triumphant Dictators waltzing in with both

heads held aloft

trumpeting their victories when

while treasure chests have burst at their seams

vaults can still be rented

where they are again

immortalised and savouring pride long gone

naked swashbucklers without being reminded of breaking their buckles.

virgins want to cast no coloured shadow in the reflector

that acknowledges their cubicled existence

rather prefer a stay in the anonymous dungeon cell

and its ceramic-tiled partitions

unlike certain parrots who perch up the highest rung and reign

with talons wide open, even on the shoulders of their giants.

yet all lasses eventually skip to the loo

(collectively because they are too afraid to face themselves alone)

dainty darlings who between hops and spins to draw applause

question their art privately in a studio of mirrors

isn’t ballet supposed to be choreographed so?

still when it comes to en pointe

all they can hear are commands to spread or lift

and work them for grunts of approval.

when exile comes via infirmity

they’re bestowed Her Majesties in lone thrones

abandon polishing to slice apple skin

vain attempts to prevent fair maidens from committing the same sin

but only divining one count behind or in front

condemned to the same time-lapsed pirouette dance.

close one eye.

no wins, no mentions, so everything's out in the open.

You died

Starving

Not the only one

with a three second memory.

Scavenged treasure chests

deserve a sea burial, no less

opening the creaky hinge

I stare into (my own) greed already sunk

and then I walk you 9 storeys high

to plank you down in refuse

while you sailed your membraned globe

I was the lone constellation, the northern star

the one sailors of your kind worship, devouring

your radiance with beige palm-shaped clouds

when it pleases me -

yet darkness engulfs us both

I peer into my blinkered periscope and observe

how your scurvied skeleton surface

when I drop rusty depth charges that are

defused, with equal parts desperation,

disdain, and contempt

you’ve lost your bearings, and so too my moral heading

I remember now

what Guilt forgot

obfuscated under a childish grin of

smoke and mirrors and

a selective eyepatch.

what's your motivation?

everytime there's a slight, nurse that internal fury and fester it deep down inside, until an explosion into something beautiful. spurred on, just to prove everyone (and no one) in particular, dead wrong. there is, and must be, a universal arbiter. or just build the damned system that respects you.

grandma’s in Wonderland.

something i submitted for movingwords, but it didn't win. I suppose for good reasons: a somewhat magical, imaginative leap of dementia, with a sprinkling of artistic and factual liberty. on the other hand, i did win the Before We Forget Photo Challenge, which perhaps was an all-together weaker competition. I would have preferred this though. But it still makes for a good combination.

Mad hatter

Buck-toothed, crazy-eyed,

even logic’s said its good-bye.

Literary nonsense couldn’t prepare us more

For You licking gruel off the ground floor

Track-marked face

North-south, or East-West?

now the cheshire cat asks in jest.

your habitual grandson-to-grandson trips a month ago

that’s when Your mind’s concession decided to go

We can afford it

A private car, private carriage,

only when your mind’s turned to cabbage.

Grant you your shimmery rosary beads

Drawn by a foreign tanned steed

Your last

Train is coming, train is coming

In case of emergency, press to hear the fat lady sing.

Or if You’d prefer, I have Your storybook, let’s go

Thud-thud-thud-again, down the Rabbit Hole

because every dog has its day.

because between a taxi-driver and a factory worker, between sharing 6 years of education culminating in a PSLE certificate, between a 3-room HDB flat that we can never seem to get out of, between hilarious attempts at learning (broken) english greetings, between life, till now, and the sum of its parts, between sorry-i-can't-take-you-to-another-continent-but-at-least-a-malay-palace-with-a-head-of-state, we can finally look back and laugh, with hope, pride, and vindication.

scrutinise the party manifestos, okay?

sick and tired of 'concerned' Singaporeans groveling for concrete ideas (instead of vague rhetoric) from the incumbent or the opposition. Perhaps efforts spent espousing your political alignment would be better served googling for more information. The net, unfortunately, makes it much easier to whine than to click search.

PAP
Additional government policies - to its credit

WP

NSP

SDP

SPP

SDA