Tag: Travel (page 10 of 12)

I’ve been lucky enough to travel to some pretty interesting destinations over the course of my life so far. Here are some posts from some of the more memorable places I’ve visited.

Takraw Monkey

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 & jump
like a crazy monkey there is no end to my
energy for the game & no one can tell what i
am thinking at any given moment - monkey!
ha! your name? david? david beckham? ha!
football!—takraw!—monkey!—you think i'm
crazy? i am mud as in good—good at takraw
see you next year you want sprite? 1000 baht!
yes! you want room? 1 million baht! yes! time
to practice again! & off he goes into the innocent
night—relax bay thailand keeping the peace

Oh Blossom

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 let
the wind blow your fragrance
in another direction blossom
let me be the lucky little bee
climbing ever so carefully
towards your sweet sticky
centre oh blossom who’d dare
pluck your perfect beauty?

Mountains of Pai

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 coming over the mountains 

along the surface-tension's wire as quickly 
as it came the raincloud retraces the thirty 
miles back to thailand if only the skies would 
remain blackened by something like smoke ...

Mr Tui

mr tui you'd have to win the "safest driver
in thailand" award you were a man of few
words but smooth driving actions eg your
easy familiarity with the nine hundred &
forty two sharp corners between chiang mai
& pai mr tui you knew when to sound your
horn around a hairpin bend when to change
down to second when to accelerate & swerved
superbly to avoid collapsed road shoulders
but mr tui the one criticism i would have
is that you flicked the windscreen wipers on
& off unnecessarily - it really was raining
quite heavily mr tui & you could have saved
yourself the trouble by leaving them on for
the entire trip - record time nevertheless :
2 hrs 56 mins start to finish khob khun khrap

Emaciated Buddha

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 before he discovers the middle
path still there are thousands of hungry
children in the buddhist world – more than
a thousand monks & nuns forced to cross
the burmese border in search of alms –
they are all still hungry – count their ribs