Jennifer Anne Champion (b. 1988)
SELECTED POEMS
Paradise City
Take me down to the paradise city
Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty.
Oh won’t you please take me home?– Guns N’ Roses
Take me to a coffee shop.
Any coffee shop will do.Someone will swear it has:
The best yong tau foo. The eggiest telur prata.
The gingeriest teh halia. The quietest... air-conditioner.
Because no place survives here without being the best
At something.Take me to where the grass is green
And the sand uncovered, unrubbered, unprotected
From the children joyfully skinning their knees in your mind.Take me to the pretty girls streaming out of the bottom of the skyline
On lunch break. Like an ant farm.
A colony of pencil skirts and reasonable heels.Take me to the wheels of our best minds churning.
Take me to the book-loving gangster. The millionaire cab-driver.
The flat-dwelling cat feeder who knows that a dream,
Is the most expensive asset to own
In this city.(But Oh how lovely! to own something non-taxable)
Take me to paradise city
Where the grass is green and the people
So shiny and new and always knowing where to go
—where do we go—how do we move forward—always
moving forward—MAJULAH!Take me
Home.
by Jennifer Anne Champion
from A History of Clocks (2015)
