David Wong Hsien Ming (b. 1988)

SELECTED POEMS

Letters to Bone

i.m. Wong Chai Kee, 1952-2013

1. Red Tulips 

All the day death 
and the spring bloom of death

cells like red tulips
along his spine 

visible only when the roots deepen 
and he closes his eyes 

2. As With All Abandoned Vehicles 

As with all abandoned vehicles 
the mechanic tries a long recharge 
and says to hope for the best 
which means a year or less, 
sometimes more. 
It would take hours 
before his assistants come
to warn that if too much has been spent 
the only thing to do might be to wait 
for the batteries to die—

I found you in the morning, 
pain like an ignition switch left on overnight. 
In their eyes they were ready 
to replace everything.

3. A Kind of Spring

You are less 
and all else 

must become more. 
A kind of spring 

where death packs itself into a moment 

so other things 
grow and begin 

to die. Still, 
there are things 

that echo back 
your absence;

fast eaters and loud laughs 
and fathers dancing 

for their kids in shopping malls, 
their wives embarrassed; 

Vitalis hair tonic
and runners’ back profiles; 

parts of a life resurrected
and resown.

It is not that God 
seeks to compensate;

shadows argue for light 
well enough.

4. Pascal Returns to Lecture

The man wakes to continue working 
towards death, making names for it, trying 
to apprehend the thing. To pretend that death 
is more than death, that humanity 
is more than what is human. God 
is the last name he finds 
and he asks God why. 
It is a question to the air 
but the air has become more than air 
and the man’s pretending more 
than a pretense of bravery, 
the way the unkissed lie about knowing how 
and so kiss all the more passionately. 

It is in pretending there is more 
that more is found. So the man wakes 
to apprehend the thing.

5. Your Father in Heaven 

Would you have me say instead 
that God has come as cancer? 
O God, why did you come? 
Why did you stay when the machine dutiful 
puffed out its last breath of radiation 
and warned that visiting hours were over? 
Christ. Your Father in heaven 
—hallowed be His name—
has he checked the clocks 
in the book of names? 
Tell me, son to son: 
is anything divine
to a waiting mind? 
So if His kingdom comes 
and if His will is done: 
see that it is so 
in my father’s body 
as it is in heaven. 
Take back this day 
my daily bread 
and tell me, timekeeper, 
teacher, old-maned 
name-breaker, 
tell me, just tell me, 
is it today? 

6. Now I see the Sender of All Bones 

Now I see the sender of all bones, 
love heartgrippingly woven and achingly naked 
ripping through every street and wire and ventricle 
that in the hush of a birthday surprise waits to be found. 
I see it in the subnatural buzz above pain-moistened skin 
the torrent of extra-ordinance and omnilogic 
that is God. 

God, who lets us say to his face 
there is no God. And to that face 
brave is the hypocrisy of my father’s smile 
brave is the sound leaking from his punctured trombone mouth 
brave is the rout on this nowhere bridge his spine 
brave is the cocoon of his hand holding mine 
brave is the it’s okay he says when I ask is it today 
brave is the parade of urine jugs the nurses have become 
brave are his muscles, that like old dogs whimper and drag themselves to his call 
brave are the generations of painbearers whose stories are written in piss and shit 
along the toilet bowls of his ward. 

So I say wreak joy to my wreck when she asks is it today: 
wreak joy into the nightlights 
wreak joy into his bones 
wreak joy through the valley till the valley is a road 
wreak joy with fenced eyes and bent breaths, make them into joy-clouds 
wreak joy, my mother, my root’s river 
wreak joy into today. 
It is today, it is today, 
it is today.

by David Wong Hsien Ming
from For the End Comes Reaching (2015)

 

SELECTED POEMS: "Imagined Days" >