Photo: Othello Tunnels, BC/iz.joshkho.com

This poem is written in twin cinema form, a Singaporean poetry style that is structured in two distinct columns that can be read vertically in their individual pillars as well as horizontally across each line.

My poem imagines the responses to Jesus’ parable in Mark 7:14-23 from the perspectives of a Pharisee and a disciple, and also conveys a “hidden” third voice—representing the poet and/or the contemporary reader—through a horizontal reading of the text.

Mark 7:14-23 (ESV)

And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.