Gwee Li Sui (b. 1970)
SELECTED POEMS
Un bout de papier
My friends, the clock did not stop.
If you are waiting, still waiting, for normality—
then you have lost years.
Generations of faint dragonflies
have gone by in the space of your hope.
Each gallivanted, loved and supped through
its seasons of meaning,
then fell like a raindrop, shattering.
The sun—while you sleep—is still running
along the inverse arc of the earth.
The moon in the day does not retire.
People we are who,
in our quest for perfection,
invented transits, waiting rooms,
pause buttons, rewinds, retakes, remakes
and forget how all these rose
out of dreaming.
Time does not care for artistry.
Age sets every living thing in a race to run
until each can do no more for itself.My friends, freedom is not
waiting for you backstage with flowers.
Happiness is not a culmination.
All the truths you do not seek today will not be found.
This poem is not starting.
by Gwee Li Sui
from Look How We've Already Forgotten (2025)
