my name is mud as in good i help you with thai translation i am monkey & i am crazy good at takraw & at takraw kicks—do you see me where i practice? yes? at the beach with a ball of flotsam-styrofoam & a piece of string tied to a tree so i can kick…

come here blossom fall down here on my lap & let me run my fingers through your delicate pink petals the way you used to like it in spring- time when you were all in bloom oh blossom remember every season is another reason to love you tender blossom come on back over here don’t…

pai bursting through the fog to fly in low across the rice paddies dumping its deadly load & setting the pond a-tremble with aftershocks the size of frogs now skipping the mountains of pai untold numbers of karen separatists pray fervently for a rain cloud to carpet bomb the ponds of burma we saw one…

fireworks rupture the temple on the hill’s serenity the interior’s panorama suffocated by a buddhist vision of hell flavoured with more than a dash of hindu horror – here’s a massacre of men & women sawn in half by grinning & willing fellow men & women here’s old buddha himself count his ribs this is…

armed with their hideouts & slingshots & smiles they gather at nightfall beside a rocky river road to compete in monied contests dodge tuk-tuks & flurries of laughter now pulling the notes from their pockets & placing them on the road’s river brown & then throwing their thongs from line-marks towards jackpots of fluttering notes…

depressed as the prices no longer deluded by smiles passing signposts kilometres coming no closer to what were once called destinations – border crossings & pass-outs different games same rules waiting for the photo-op that might make the cost of the ticket worthwhile – low season, last days & the promise of last rains again…