"Sitting there, stumps of legs / Like heavy logs."
The line "Eat, my friend, before the afternoon / Unhooks the sweetness with a silver spoon" is devastating. The image of an "unhooking" suggests a surgical precision (remember, Goh was a doctor). The sweetness is not simply fading; it is being deliberately detached, removed by an invisible hand (perhaps time itself). The "silver spoon" is a fascinating choice—it evokes both the spoon used to eat a halved fruit and the silver of middle age, the tarnishing of youth.
Goh Poh Seng (1930-2019) was a Singaporean poet, playwright, and educator. He is known for his contributions to Singaporean literature, particularly in the development of Singaporean poetry. His works often explored themes of identity, culture, and social issues in Singapore.
In the 1960s and 70s, Singapore’s countryside was dotted with fruit orchards—in Kampong Lorong Buangkok, along the hills of Thomson, and in the rural stretches of Changi. By the 1980s, most were gone. The poem’s repeated question, "You ask for my home?" is rhetorical. The answer is not an address but a ghost.
However, notice the verbs. The rambutan "with" their hair; the durian is "thorn-defended, kind." Goh personifies each fruit, giving them character and agency. The durian, notoriously feared by Westerners for its smell, is called "kind" because its thorny exterior protects a custardy heart. This is a poet who understands that ugliness or danger often guards the most tender truths.
In the canon of Singaporean literature, few names resonate with as much pioneering spirit as (1936–2010). A Renaissance man—playwright, novelist, physician, and poet—Goh was a co-founder of the prestigious Singapore Writers’ Festival and a key figure in the nation’s cultural awakening. While his novel If We Dream Too Long is often cited as a landmark, his poetry offers an intimate, sensory archive of a rapidly modernizing Singapore.
