Memoir

After a certain hour buildings don’t make sense. Lights from across the street resemble nothing, my footsteps knocking on uneven stones, not bothered by their own discordant melody. I would see different people in different rooms, hunched over desks or gazing out at traffic, a phone nestled in the carapace of an ear, mouths shaping words that have no meaning other than the small importances we give them. To see my life before me would be to know the end of fear. Walking home on damp pockets of road, every lane drenched in its indifferent perfume of rain and dirt, I could be so smug as to find comfort disconcerting, catching glimpses of whole, unharvested years quietly burning in the shadows of a life still running its race for relevance. Somewhere in the middle there is adventure, maybe even love, and on nights when everyone leaves early my body aches with an inertia of past indulgences. What now? Only a record of undeserved kindnesses: a casual nod from the cafeteria waiter, an overladen sky keeping from release, new interns grinning in a glass elevator, things that wait for the night to end.

-- jerrold yam

Memoir

After a certain hour buildings don’t make sense. Lights from across the street resemble nothing, my footsteps knocking on uneven stones, not bothered by their own discordant melody. I would see different people in different rooms, hunched over desks or gazing out at traffic, a phone nestled in the carapace of an ear, mouths shaping words that have no meaning other than the small importances we give them. To see my life before me would be to know the end of fear. Walking home on damp pockets of road, every lane drenched in its indifferent perfume of rain and dirt, I could be so smug as to find comfort disconcerting, catching glimpses of whole, unharvested years quietly burning in the shadows of a life still running its race for relevance. Somewhere in the middle there is adventure, maybe even love, and on nights when everyone leaves early my body aches with an inertia of past indulgences. What now? Only a record of undeserved kindnesses: a casual nod from the cafeteria waiter, an overladen sky keeping from release, new interns grinning in a glass elevator, things that wait for the night to end.

Jerrold Yam

TRINITY

When she feels one isn’t enough for bargaining,  or if the task is so wildly magnificent she  assumes independence to be insincerity, my sister and I troop to her room, back-up soldiers, kneeling together on the bed where her  body perseveres, lifeless, at night. The words come unnatural to me, tiredly graveling  over my mouth, each vowel  hardened from the clay of my lips, as if painfully sculptured for the air to receive. Then  it is my sister’s turn, sounds pouring off her light, cavernous body and  off the largesse of her youthful heart as  easy as talent. I wonder what makes her so genuine in the face of people, even the ones we live with, or  especially the ones who have brought us violently into this world. I seek  out her tiny, iridescent  paper heart, like pure crystal, and  press it to mine as my forehead now lies seared to the thumbs of my clenched hands. When my mother speaks, her voice easing off  to surround us whole, all I see in the mineral dark is a three-pointed star, a diadem  of faith, made with pliable metal limbs of mother, sister, self,  our heads pointing like compasses to the hollowed  core of a soul, of souls that  ache after a family.

  JERROLD YAM

Symbal Magazine Giveaway: Jerrold Yam's Chasing Curtained Suns and Scattered Vertebrae

  Symbal Magazine, the official NUS publication is giving away a signed copy of Jerrold Yam's Chasing Curtained Suns and Scattered Vertebrae, in conjunction with an upcoming dialogue with the author.

Born in 1991, Jerrold Yam is a law undergraduate at University College London and the youngest Singaporean to have published two full-length poetry collections, Scattered Vertebrae (Math Paper Press, 2013) and Chasing Curtained Suns (Math Paper Press, 2012). His third collection is forthcoming in early 2014. (http://jerroldyam.wordpress.com/)

To enter, visit Symbal Magazine. Giveaway ends 20th August.

(Photo by BooksActually)

Geyser by Jerrold Yam

Jerrold Yam captivated us with this descriptive poem. Enjoy!

.

Geyser

.

Few things sadder than your inconsistencies. First, a quandary of rocks scattered in jest, each smeared with their own handwriting. Second, no place to call a sanctuary, no one there without taking you for granted. Third, an occasional burst of remonstrance to show you are alive, buried in melancholic soil. Anything that is beaten is impressive while it lasts.

.

.

.

Born in 1991, Jerrold Yam is a UCL law undergraduate and the author of Scattered Vertebrae (2013) and Chasing Curtained Suns (2012). His poems appear in more than fifty journals and anthologies worldwide. He is the youngest Singaporean to be nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Fences by Jerrold Yam

So I was back in my room, heaters tingling with responsibility, and I could hear someone fighting with somebody she loved, over the phone, perhaps that boy who mailed me greetings of sheepish glances each time I caught him leaving her room. Two months ago I would never have recognized her voice, how adamantly it rebelled against the walls to dump stories on me at three in the morning. If I knocked, there was a chance I’d see her naked and in tears. So I didn’t. But there was enough suspicion that we had too much in common, the way siblings would hate to acknowledge; maybe she too had closets plugged with cardigans and colourful socks, or two pillows embroidered with syrup from fertile strangers. One day I realized I couldn’t read the footsteps of my neighbours, each burdened by their own private histories, the carpet sometimes thumping hysterically at wee hours. Surely they left kettles to singlehandedly battle the cold. Surely our lives were accelerating with purpose, encased in sacs of concrete rind, heaters pumping contrapuntal secrets, the winter air not bothered by anything in sight.

Lanterns are exaggerated faces. Be quick  to judge but slow in remonstrance. See the fruit bowl stepping into a trompe l'oeil? Follow its lead. Stub your pencil out.

  *

  from "PICASSO II" by Jerrold Yam

Acquaintance // Jerrold Yam

Sometimes, when the earth prepares for rain, I think of having a child. Like me it shall not know, gathering life at another’s expense as cloud from lake, how cells become matter, how generously it lowers into being. And on nights when the weight of achievement bears down on its furs and wires, the cord like a ladder tucked away to keep from tripping, it may recognize who seeks behind grace, patient plougher sifting a harvest of arteries. No prize on earth will be equal to dust. Turning, its soil is renewed, bone panelled like oak and pliant walnut, seconds before birth he holds it, in love’s toothed harrows, and runs.