Four Poems, by Lydia Kwa

excerpts from EATING LAKSA

1.

in situ or
in neuronal 

taste fleeting

synaptic wings

from time to
new

2.

days of Glory
on East Coast Road 

steaming cauldron of
laksa broth
induces
an olfactory hypnosis 

 

CLOUDSCAPE, 8/8/20

pre-dusk phoenixes
with razor sharp wings 

pterodactyls of the ether

 

CLOUDSCAPE 2, 8/8/20

a dark pink trail
as light disappears

  

 

excerpts from FLIGHT FROM MEMORY

wings from a misspent phylogeny
vestigial & sunken
at the shoulder blades 

recent scar under the right armpit

the inside of the arm testifies to
feeling 

a minefield of deadened nerves

**

what did that side use to feel?
what did it fail to say?
or were you the one who failed to listen 

burden displaced from
a shadowy left wing 

until arrow of pain
from the right side
aims for the heart 

**

this is to document
what cannot be documented 

 

 

 

Lydia Kwa has published two books of poetry, The Colours of Heroines (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1994) and sinuous (Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2013). Kwa’s first novel This Place Called Absence (Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2000) was nominated for several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award. Her next novel The Walking Boy was nominated for the Ethel Wilson prize. Pulse was re-issued in 2014 (Singapore: Ethos Books). Her fourth novel Oracle Bone was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2017. A new version of The Walking Boy was released in Spring 2019 (Arsenal Pulp) as the second novel in the chuanqi 傳奇 trilogy.  She is currently working on the third novel in this series. Kwa has also self-published two chapbooks linguistic tantrums; and tree shaman; and has had two art shows related to those works.  Kwa's prose poem A Letter to My Former Selves won the Earle Birney Prize for poetry in 2018.