The Best of Robert Yeo by Robert Yeo

Author:Robert Yeo [Yeo, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789810731908
Published: 2017-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

It’s marvellous to see

How much the grimace of ’65

Has relaxed into

The confident straight face of ’68

Leading on to the congratulatory beam

Of ’69 and your 150th birthday.

I exult,

As time rewards you, deserving City,

After a search, relentless and short,

With a historical identity.

But O the demands you make

On us Singaporeans!

Since you didn’t choose us

But we chose you

(Most of us, at any rate

And we still have that choice)

Your demands shall be commands.

They shall be observed:

The schools’ daily litany

Five mornings saluting

Five stars and a crescent;

Our young men shall bear arms

To deter unnamed enemies;

We shall accept as treasonable

Strikes not in the national interest;

Southeast Asia’s cleanest city

Shall be Asia’s cleanest city;

We shall enlarge the airport

For the Jumbos

And develop Sentosa

But only for the tourists;

Our already low birth-rate

Shall further decline;

The world’s fourth largest port

Shall become the world’s third largest port;

We shall keep our hair short,

We shall continue to view Art

As an adjunct to Culture

Serving Politics.

And me? Knowing you

Knowing you demand acts, not gestures,

I chose a medium not so cool

To spread your message hot

From the repetition and elaboration

Of your likewise leaders.

After two years, hoarse with belief

Reeling from the nearness of you

Supersonic Singapore

I thought it best to opt out awhile

The better to view you from afar.

However, I’m prepared.

Like any filial first son

Of responsible, stern parents

To defer my going away, Singapore,

For a week or two

If you’ll just indicate

You are going to miss me.

That whether I’m

Coming home, baby,

(Where were you then, Singapore?)

Or leaving home, mother,

You are concerned

Will see me depart

And publish it in the gazette.

Ok?

No? So ungazetted,

Although The Straits Times gave me three paragraphs,

And distinctly not part of the brain drain,

I leave, a sort of representative

Of Singapore in Bangkok.

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