Singapore, 1940

Night wore winter's heavy coat,
a silvering moon began to sink
behind the sails of exotic craft.
We sipped the cocktails of Empire's dream
on the jetty bar and didn't believe
the rising sun would eclipse a china moon.

In rickshaws lovers rode to moon
at each other allowing eastern glaze to coat
their daring with a kind of make-believe
permanence: the city a ship they couldn't sink,
except by divine whim from an Emperor's dream
- scoffed at by portly masters of the craft.

The exit called for better stage-craft.
Firework shells stained a gibbous moon
and soldiers, sailors and their women in dream
-like state bought favours for a ring or coat
on the way to camps, watching troop ships sink.
Marching, slouching, shuffling - did none believe

the yellow man would come? Did none believe
the might of empire could dissolve by witchcraft?
For what else could cause Leviathan to sink?
Asia's jewel, the bride on golden honeymoon,
the Eastern Fleet a nugatory trousseau coat,
the city woke from a foolish Eurasian dream.

Round-eyes herded behind stockades – daydream
the only sure escape as no-one dared believe
in any comfort save that of a turned coat.
So rats survived by cunning and wily craft
and secret liaisons under a complicit moon,
laundry later washed in private in the sink.

How low? Just how low did we all sink?
To gain the favour, the extra crumb, the chance to dream,
to be a man, a woman and not to howl down the moon?
And still there were some who could not believe
the fall by witch-or any other craft
and wore their patriotism, another useless coat.

In time, each shed their coat, with no further left to sink
dispensed with craft, began again to dream
in the setting sun and believe the rising moon.