She is carefully crafted grace,
long legs ready to lope in retreat
when a misstep or hot breath
makes her ears twitch.
We enter the world wailing, fighting for breath.
First breath assaults the skin, offends the body.
Insulted, we weep, unsure we want to be here.
Issue 2 of The Tiger Moth Review is proud to present the poetry, art and photography of 29 contributors from Singapore and around the world, who each offer unique ways of seeing and engaging with nature, the environment and the world we live in.
Hanami refers to enjoying the transient beauty of flowers. The beauty of these lovers is also transient; it changes, fades and dies, but like the petals of the cherry blossom, is reborn again.
Here, I feel the earthly space
‘God is Great’ reverberating through the mihrab
caressing the wanderer’s solitude
Even in rain’s stinging wind, I
can see a wave of leaves swell
& tumble, like the tide coming in-
to shore with its bits of glamor—
I wait until all earth is quiet
and land falls away,
one side a map
outshining blue light
With “Redgate”, I want to be understood, to distil and make whiskey from dew. It meant a deeper engagement with language about a place my heart is fond of and what we might become when we work together.
Bogotá Feathers
The trampled feathers found in any city street around the world are a metaphor, or a trace of the beauty and the life that turns grey beneath our feet because we are so used to walking through the same streets every day that we become oblivious or desensitized to what is around us.
I want a love that burns the skies
but all you want is to dive deeper
into the ocean.
Moving past wild trees, feet covered in wet mud, every now and then she looks up to the sky, following the rays of the sun, praying she is not lost.
Stopped at a red light after class; we see Lake Erie.
All the life it holds trembling in its dark, still palm:
the yellow perch, the walleye.
The kite swoops in on the unsuspecting birds and the subsequent action attempts to simulate van Gogh’s painting style, one typified by energy, speed and dynamism. The constant maintenance of the zoomed out perspective sustains the viewer’s engagement as if one was watching van Gogh paint this scene.
I have known many great rivers in this world. I have known the Tigris and the Euphrates, fallopian cradle to human civilisation. I have traversed the vertiginous lengths of the Iguazu and the Parana, as they discharge the untamed heart of South America into frigid waste seas at the end of the world.