poems by edwin thumboo + robert yeo cheng chuan ( singapore ) - TENGGARA 5

TENGGARA 5 - Dept. of English -
 Univ. of Malaya/ Kuala Lumpur-
 Malaysia 


                                                  Edwin Thumboo

                                                       Edwin Thumboo


                                                 NEW POEMS


              Colour

These days are taut with colour,  disbelief
Uncertain of its sun, the air
Blooms in misshapen brown.
My trees turn green without relief:
Soft and black, your hair
Is now the colour of the town.

For in the town they talk of sin,
Cry deep into the night,
Twist the legend, twist your arm,
Your hair, the colour of my skin,
Prejudice lies tight
Beneath the surface of a modern calm.

The evening rides upon a pin
Of light, congeals disastrously,
Will twisting symbols so awry
Know simple feelings deep within
Or learn that language painfully
Engendered in the lover's eye ?

                   
           An Ordinary Man

Mr. Quick would have lived almost happily
Had not the powers that be
Disturbed the peace
Disturbed his orchid nursery,
The arrangements of his life,
Even his researches into Buddhist history.

He kept regular house,
Tolerated nothing disorderly,
His children, he noted with proper pride
Had his habits, his regularity,
His fastifious determination,
But quite by chance had developed their mother's patience
They benefited from his attention, were brought up by hand.
Naturally the children respected his hand in all matters.

Out of the blue Malayan sky,
Out of that blessed place,
Out of some obscure administrative slip
He was transfered to the Federal Capital
The Head Office was bad,
Its work uncertain, routine irregular,
The contact with inconstant men most painful,
Bahasa Kebangsaan proved only too real,
The peons no longer offered to draft his letters
(or run his errands)
And the instruction on 'Malay Without Tears'  
In thirty easy lessons, was in Malay
Confirming his worst fear
One bad to sink or swim, he thought, then
Sank into the language and fell silent.

To top it all his wife
Undid her patient suffering,
Learnt mahjong, permed her hair,
Painted her nails, put on airs
After her face was lifted, brows plucked,
Her double chin tucked in, and  she'd
Taught her hip the secrets of the cheongsam.
But Mr Quick at his age,
Laid low in spirit and body,
Anxiously the energetic avoiding
Could not benefit from her change .

He quickly thought of something else that gave security,
His children, the joy of his heart and hand
But the children too were strange
His sons kept their hair,
And the girls bought wigs,

And so Mr. Quick  sank, gradually
Without fuss, without funeral
Finding his own aesthetic,
Dreaming of sky-scrapers, monsters
Snarling in the traffic, across the fly-over
Near the Mosque, the Railway Station,
The new model women in his house,
Hairy children
Mr. Quick sighed enlessly for his orchids
And the orderly house.

Mr. Quick is an ordinary man,
Slightly bald but not threatened by virility
Or glandular disturbances.
Perhaps Mr. Quick has arrived among us.

    EDWIN THUMBOO



                            Robert Yeo Cheng Chuan


                      In a Temple

To entertain  profanity
Apart, in a pipalled sanctuary,
Headbowld, feetbare, the incense strong
The sing-song chants that seem so long,
See suddenly the Lord Buddha
Smoke chandu on a saffron sofa,
In the mind's law, the heart's regret
We cannot cage within a net
Divinity, though saints may weave
The water must slide through, as Eve
From Adam did, when Satan teased.
The impure streams of Eden hissed.

Please enter on bare feet  -- but the mind
Is not a temple brow can bind
Or cell enclose.  We may keep free
From mud or sand, that eyes may see
The carpet neat, limbs feel bow smooth
The floor, and regulate the truth
To suit all faculties of flesh.
We may but we can't the mind enmesh
We can resolve to sit no more
Or see no more, if we know where
We shall nest go.  We simply close our eyes,
But the mind  -- we cannot close his eyes.

     ROBERT YEO CHENG CHUAN

                                                                       ( TENGGARA  5 -   p. . 34- 37 )