Lost and Found
Samuel Sim
What does it mean to dream?
As metal boxes chug through fog
left by chimneys and towers
a sign reads: “Welcome to Great Britain...”
What is raving mad?
a) Dancing in the rain
b) Dancing for the sun in the rain.
c) Dancing for the sun the in the rain
when NO2 and SO2 dissolves in H2O
What is life?
Standing in a vessel like a devotee,
staring, staring, nothing
Nothing but sea, see?
What is death?
In the sixth (seventh?)
mass extinction?
What is death?
What is peace?
the stillness of the fires
under the red canvassed sky,
where no mouth(sh/c)ould utter,
and no bird (sh/c)ould fly.
What is war?
War is knowing that
the air you breathe now is a pool:
Once, shared by your ancestors.
Soon, drunk by your progeny.
Then, by all of theirs.
On ‘Lost and Found’
The poem is a self-reflective response to intersecting crises happening all over the world. Feeling in this era can sometimes be, as it were, a dream; a cinematic collapse of the before, now and after. Other times, it is like the dissonance from exiting air-conditioned air, or a fingerprint on double-glazed glass. This poem grapples with the question of how we can reconcile the abject grief and unjust felt, and seeks to hold space for discomfort in hopes of finding solace, stretching our wildest (re)imaginings.
The art in the poem’s thumbnail is courtesy of © OnTungC (@ontungc).