top of page

Triptych for June, June, June

with excerpts from The Waves by Virginia Woolf



Poetry, Ho Yi Lin



(“I have been traversing the sunless territory of non-identity.”)


Schopenhauer spoke to me in a dream 

one June night, a permanent stupor that only wants more than 

it can get, hungry days on end under

the sore summer heat/ we plied across 

creeks of solitude, through a mosaic 

of water-logged theories thrumming along these 

marshy fields, grass outstretched like asymptotes, 

curving towards nothing. Infinite and starved. 

I know I won’t make it here. I know nothing 

about Will Zum Leben or Euclidean geometry or 

Parerga and Paralipomena or 

Ethics, not even ethics. I never know what it takes for me to survive,

clean and just. I think about running. I think about 

these tarnished hands. I think about dissipating 

under the summer heat. A miasma 

of dampened longings. Infinite and starved. 

I know I won’t make it here. I only do Monday Crosswords 

because I’m lazy yet I ruminate about philosophy beyond 

reach. This is what is enshrined, philosophy or not, 

I dream. I scratch every itch I find.



(“We are forever mixing ourselves with unknown quantities. What is to come? I know not...”)


Reeking of diaspora I search for a 

belief. June always hits me with the

subliminal stench of desire, corroding like 

acid in my spine, immobilized but yearning. I’ve always been conflicted like that. 

Clutter rebirths into the plains of Eden. Everything relearns.

It’s how I’ve learnt to seek for divinity in a foreign 

tongue. I know that I always want something new, 

to slip into novelty during 

these dog days of genesis. I want more than 

the blood of archangels, more than 

waters that grant eternal salvation. Because  

Eden means creation and creation means change 

crumbling at my touch. I want to feel great like that. 

I ruminate about rain and boggy soil I can sink into, eclipsing 

these sweltering hours of revelation. I only search 

for what is missing. I only search for everything but the truth. 

This is what summer truly is. A seraph will open its arms for me to 

weep tonight. Yet I still want more from June.



(“I am immeasurable; a net whose fibers pass imperceptibly beneath the world.” )


I am here, ripened for the cosmic and 

tried for greatness. June will never make me feel 


more alive than this.


 

Yi Lin is a budding writer and student from Singapore. She was a participant in the Creative Arts Programme Mentorship Attachment and her works appeared, or is forthcoming, in the Eye On The World (2024) anthology publication. Her recent poems have been chosen to be read at Poetry Festival Singapore 2024. You can find her @leanzered on Instagram.

Comentarios


bottom of page