In line with the festive season, here's a poem from my book
Two Baby Hands (see sidebar for more details about the book):
NATIONAL DAY PARADE
I had a small part in a
Big show of a great little nation.
My uniformed mates and I were
To march out, swing left,
Turn twice, and get off the grounds
In twenty seconds flat.
Meanwhile the music boomed,
The lasers splashed,
And the darkened crowds hit
A new high of pre-planned,
Programmed excitement.
Later at home, my mother replayed
The video tape five times
But couldn't tell her tiny toy-
Soldier son from any of the rest.
"That one is me," I said,
Pointing at the screen.
I couldn't be sure.
Still we laughed and clapped
Our hands like children,
Knowing that it was not
Supposed to matter.
The above poem was also previously published in an anthology entitled
From Boys to Men, which contains poems and prose from 30 Singaporean writers on the theme of National Service.
From Boys to Men was edited by Koh Buck Song and Umej Bhatia, and in their introduction to the book, they briefly commented on my poem as follows:
"At times, the solder becomes acutely aware that NS must involve public performances, where there is pride in achievement to be shared with loved ones. And yet the performer himself has come to realise, only too well, that success is sometimes best accomplished through teamwork. And this means not so much the extinguishing, as the irrelevance, of individual identity. Personal aspirations must fall in line, in the parade ground of the larger scheme of things. Gilbert Koh's poem National Day Parade puts this across subtly ...."
What they didn't say is that my poem is also about the artificial engineering of
national identity, heheh.