Lesson 2 Blog Post IT Home learning

HOME PURCHASE
With a homeowner's pride, you guided me around
the encased model of the estate laid out advantageously
with tower blocks, tennis courts, palm trees, playgrounds.

We peered down the long vista of terraced pools as if
we might catch a glimpse of future's reflection there.
No such sign, though they were almost wishing wells.

You explained patiently the calculations that went into
deciding between a bigger unit on a lower floor and
a smaller unit on a higher floor, overlooking South China Sea,

calculations he has gone through several times with you,
proving his prudence and your nervousness at committing
yourself to a blueprint that owns the quality of a dream.

What a dream! Re-imagining the show apartment into home,
a wall to be collapsed, floors to be covered, single space
made way for two. It is as much an act of courage, as of love.

FLOOR TILING
We needed something to cover the naked floor
delighted though we were with the concrete space
having moved from a smaller box occupied by others.

When a relative offered unwanted linoleum tiles
we gratefully accepted and my five-year-old arms carted
manfully the light and dark brown squares to the taxi.

With no floor plan in mind, my dad tore the paper off
and stuck a sticky tile experimentally to the floor.
The horizontal stripes were improvised side by side

before mother suggested an alternating pattern,
a prettier pattern. By then too many had been laid down
to start all over again, as a compromise, they co-existed.

We made the conscious aesthetic decision to tile
my parents' bedroom with light brown, which ran out
before the door and so the last square was the darker shade.

Tiles crawled out of line because of earlier mistakes
impossible to correct without ripping up everything.
I cut strips of tiles to complete the jigsaw dishonestly.

I remember my father stopping work. He went out
to the corridor to smoke a quiet cigarette, looked through
the doorway to see the whole extent of the work.

Afterwards, the inevitable flaws appeared: slits that seemed
trivial in the heat of work became permanent fissures.
That came later. Tiling made us simply grateful.

WHAT WORK IS NOT
Work is not love. It does not waltz
nor swing to the rhythm of blood.
It does not probe beneath the skin
nor conjure a metaphor out of an ice-cream
or a bouquet of roses walking down the street.
It does not sweat through the night
to make forever last but sees fevers
through to their necessary ends.

Work is not piety, filial nor religious:
it does not kneel to offer tea or incense
nor demand public approbation
for private gestures, or more loyalty
than a soul has a right to give.
It is not communal like saints' days,
birthdays, faith-healing meetings,
or mahjong in void deck funerals,
but a democracy of aims in a new house.

Work is not art, it does not entertain
nor legislate for mankind.
It cannot offer dark epiphanies
or transmogrification of the mundane,
to work, there is no mundane.
It is unconcerned with 'What If'
but with 'What Is'. It is not pop
nor classical nor modern, it is here.
It does not charge at windmills
but marches in a definite direction
and digs tunnels for pipes and people.

What work is - it is the play of minds
and hands on plasticine reality,
it is the extinction of differences,
levelling of hills and reclamation of seas.
It is a simple commitment to live.

But when work takes a rest,
it wonders what else is there.

These 3 great poems are written by Mr. Koh Jee Leong who was born in 1970. Having studied English in Oxford University and got a Creative Writing MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, he majors in writing therefore his poems are filled with deep and meaningful values.

I chose this poet as I feel his poems are filled with many mysteries that you discover each time you read his poem. Overall, I feel that he is a great poet and shows that Singaporeans can write poems that are equally good.

Credits: http://www.qlrs.com/contributor.asp?id=Koh%20Jee%20Leong