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Poems on the MRT

折叠的时光(下) / Excerpt from “Layers of Time” (Part II) by Chow Teck Seng (Zhou Decheng)

 

折叠的时光(下)
周德成

思念坐地铁假装在迁徙

地图忘了画候鸟
每个驿站我们在等巧合处相遇
所有相遇都是倒叙的夕阳

你的唇色是摩斯密码
夕阳和唇似乎都会溺水与泅泳
指纹与指纹接吻
是时间强行停顿发出嗡鸣
所有心事都游成内心超迷你版的台风
沙漏一并吞下

钥匙孔避不开斑锈
有人变成一纸信简
正练习着缩骨功
邮差将发皱的晚霞塞进门缝

猫在屋檐看我们的倒影
晾在玻璃夹层如同两枚邮票
等待被重新投递到某个未来的邮筒
读信者手中有如蝶型双翼的思念

—《赤道风》2025年6月， 页1

Excerpt from “Layers of Time” (Part II)
Written by Chow Teck Seng (Zhou Decheng)
Translated by Joshua Ip

She takes the subway, feigned migration

the map omits the migratory birds
at every rest stop we wait for a sliding doors moment
every meeting is a flashback of a sunset

your lips are the color of morse
sunset and your lips, drowning and tread water
our fingerprints kiss
time slams down the brakes with a squeal
a miniature typhoon develops in my heart
that the hourglass will swallow

even a keyhole rusts
a man practises the ancient art
of folding himself into an envelope
a postman slots wrinkled evening into the letterhole

on the eaves a cat surveils our twinned shadows
hung out to dry between layers of glass
like two stamps awaiting redelivery
to a mailbox in another future
where in a reader’s hands She spreads her butterfly wings

— Published in Equatorial Winds, June 2025, p.1

Singapore-born, Chow Teck Seng (Zhou Decheng) won awards including the Singapore Literature Prize, Golden Point Award and 2024 SouthEast Asia Chinese Poet award. PhD candidate at Cambridge University and part-time lecturer at NIE, he writes poetry and fiction, translates and works on art and calligraphy. His poetry collections include ‘The Daylight Makes the Night Fall into Silence’ (2022 Zaobao Booklist) and ‘The Story of You and Me’ (2012). His poems were translated into English, French, and German, and adapted into animated shorts, songs, and paintings. Besides musicalizing his poetry, he also adapted Chinese classics Hongloumeng and microfilm The Fourth Man  into contemporary fiction works. 

周德成，生于新加坡，曾获新加坡文学奖、金笔奖、2024东南亚华文诗人奖。英国剑桥大学博士在读，南大教育学院兼任讲师，兼及美术与文学翻译。诗集有《用整个白天使黑夜安静》（2022联合早报书选）和《你和我的故事》（2012），诗作译成英、法、德文、改编成动漫微电影、歌曲等。

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Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

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