SELECTED POEMS

The Fate of Singaporean Poultry

Someone says we are killing poets now 
and I jump, both feet pointing to the door.
“Must kill them, ya? They dangerous because 
the bird flew!”
         Those words sweat me even more.
Poets are being lynched for some lost bird?
“He means poults,” a voice bends close to retrace.
“They are culling five thousand at the 
farms just in case.”
Just in case what? “Just in case” 
should never be used to end sentences 
like, you know... whatever.
                                “Why, just in case
we get a case!” comes the reply. “We can't know 
how every chicken feels at a place— 
so, if even one rogue is suspected, 
we must slaughter all two million on cue!
This measure, then, is but a practice run 
to check our response to a grave issue, 
to try our haste, keenness, resolution, 
competence—”
        And our conscience, I advise.
“Yes, to a degree—”
                To that degree, no!
What we fail to do is to humanise 
with a crisis. If this is a mere trial, 
not the real thing, can't the deaths be virtual?

Can’t we act as though we have culled? Why fix 
a quick end to creatures whose medical 
downfall hasn't arrived, might not even?
Besides, as there is no contagion yet, 
every drill of this sort will always prove 
a success. We are rehearsing to get 
a piece of horror fiction defeated— 
never mind the tied-in moral effect.
But, if our plan is never to negate 
a threat, only to test speed and correct 
procedures, then we surely needn’t 
use good chickens or they needn't be dead or 
it needn't take five thousand—or we might 
as well say the flu did hit Singapore 
and five thousand chickens had to be killed!
Why make it so difficult to love life 
in a premise? Turn it round: would we butcher 
real people to simulate civil strife?

“All this you say,” the cool voice jabs, “while you 
gorge away on chicken rice?”
                        I startle,

look down to see a broad slice of the bird, 
steamed white and succulent as a bubble, 
still pinned to my fork.
            “It seems that, despite
what you say, your appetite understands 
better how chickens and humans are not 
the same—”
         “That's right!” the other voice now blends 
in his terror. “Chickens and humans not 
the same! You a poult, not a poet! See 
this poetry we must kill and kill, poultry 
we care less!”
        Pavlov-trained, I jump to flee.

by Gwee Li Sui
from The Other Merlion and Friends (2015)

 

SELECTED POEMS: excerpts from Haikuku >