Presences

This series of poems, written over several months, was an attempt to capture random moments, without judgment or imposition of self onto the scene. The poems were both a meditation and a poetic journal of time spent in and around Bangkok, Thailand.

Presences

i.

in China Town,
clutters of rusted engines
under the night’s red paper lanterns

sparrows at dusk fly
pink clouds over the tenements

we walk on pavements of lotus flowers,
orange Mandarin lights stretch neon down Yaowarat –

chestnuts on coals,
bright armfuls of persimmon, red cherries,
car lights rushing white arteries up the streets!

ii.

muslim, black turban, walks into Starbucks,
big water-glass eyes
dripping gold from hands –

suck of cappuccino steam,
cashier’s beatific girl-smile,
trans-sexual blue braces –

breath of wet lip blows upwards
to crooked awkward fringe,
Adam’s apple nodding, nodding,

stereo hip-hop closes up
the ragged seams of time:

fly suspended at cup’s edge
miniature fishnet scalings
silver wheel suspended from a girl’s ear –

woman in mirror-collisions
symmetrically departs from self,
fountains of cynical organic sound.

iii.

I have not slept –
coffee-house jazz
rumble of accelerating trains –

piano snatches shards of itself
Lao Tzu in my hand
waiting for Uncarved Block to hold –

O trumpet!
Young girl, worried mouth, walks alone
in Seacon Square –

blue lamps above Cadian Alabama rooms
bright blue Madonnas –

organ’s electric thumb
steam machine
pillow of jazz –

the beyond-window faces hold fast
their straight-ahead gaze:
blue-leaf mist of Li village in my heart.

iv.

cups of rain
on the black bark
of the palms

construction dust
vacant beer gardens

a lady in pink slippers, white blouse
weaves through traffic,
disappears

v.

canal water moves
floating berries and rags –

plastic water-skin reflecting
yellow bridge – tenements – national flag
in the sun

torn canvas over slums,
crusted bird stain,
leaves bending the roofs

old man, white vest at roadside
sits rocking on his knees

a falling balcony of white shirts drying,
shrine of old fruit and cans

fortune teller, sewing machine,
Holy Rosary Church of Portuguese spires,
Rosa Mystica, ceiling of gold stars

wood shutters under arches
open to laughter,
nuns in blue robes

fish of orange crates,
pewter hens, Mandalese stone monks,
bells of Tibet

and river-weed floats at Si Phraya pier
boats unloading schoolgirls, tourists -
a woman sighs -

cranes rise over tenement shells, gold-leaf water,
long-boats plow the white furrows -

a girl’s dark face against the light,
olive-mouthed, pink-tongued Raj princess –

boys leap barges mid-river -

vi.

sun far side of street -
folded silks -
journey of light over wet roofs -

sweet potatoes, blackened -
birds among high towers -
journey of dust -

windows of unicorns -
sun on Ming vases -
journey of shadows -

water-clouds in a lotus bowl -
sun on dry spices -
journey of light on the mosque’s dome -

purple burn of a woman’s face -
rippled scar -
journey of the sun in her damaged eye.

vii.

heat on the white bridge
smoking her cigarette
black waters of the canal
unsettled mind

viii.

fish steam rises –
no sun on those gay kimonos –

mute light
disconnected
plastic chairs

dust of aeroplanes

wall-TV heavy
like a rooster

grey brevity of travellers
brushtrokes – wet faces –

heads
reflect back
in a glass cage
like blackberries

ix.

headlights illuminate
unknown black land
and trees

white lines
eating up night
white friezes

indifferent sky
stars disinterested

weeping in my own void
face forward
to country of no name

x.

voices through the walls of this house
far north
on a hillside

unknown language
rising and falling
backdrop of geckos and TV

beyond them
cars passing
one darkness to another

xi.

The bridge is yellow across the Nam River.
White hats in the early heat,
long shadows of the trees.

Far below –
still brown boats –
long leaves on water.

Hushed bodies of buffalo
in the blue fields – mottled
like unglazed pots.

Ribbons of prayer from high trees.
Pale hills,
pale grey hills.

xii.

from high window-sills to arc of earth
a city of white fields, blank factories
and the canals –
black trashes of water
laid down under the cranes’
grey skulls.
Offices squat
on brown river moorings,
ripped quilt of rust and yellow gardens –
and the boats’ mad filaments –
planet-shrapnel burning
under the trees’ bone-dry cages.

xiii.

dust of blue snow
on the maple leaves
still horse bending
its neck
and the rider
white kimono
turns to see
luminous ink
brushes of blue whiteness
and drifting sky
in the lithograph
on the restaurant wall

xiv.

elegant woman, leaning into the glass,
white hand holding her phone,
turns her naked ankle on black high heel
and smiles across
empty chairs and tables
in the cafeteria –

windows reflecting spirit of red lamps
watery flakes of orange and green,
cross-hall, tin-drum echoes of advertising –

and folds her phone,
smooths the hair from her cheek with her knuckle
and is gone –

newspaper pages disturbed
on a table, overturned paper cup,
One Thousand Dead In Egyptian Ferry Disaster

seats shining in electrical emptiness
pop songs, white letters, merging in plates
of sealed glass
and stolen fingerprint mists of window dust –

images of rain and England,
New York and November.

xv.

sky-scrapers lean drunken
in Ray-ban Toyota windows,
power-lines rip black across
glittering corneas of high floors,
buildings crawl lonely in uprooted sky,
sun’s magnet of terror hypnotising
dust motes and sparrows –

O golden wreckage of travellers!
Mercury’d whirlpool sucking light-froth and smoke!
Inhaling with your wet throat
priceless atoms of salmon grilles!

Tender shop-girls walk home
aroused in your fluids of air,
raspberry lips quartered by telephone wires,
eyelashes deconstructed by concrete pilings
and psychoses of rubber –
under crisp medallion universes
of leaves of sky emerging
100 floors down on Honda roofs!

O urgency of slipping veils of light!
O grateful assonance of the last moments of the sun!

Tender apricot beauty crosses
the fractured metallic road
with her phone,
motorcycle colours spinning
among her shoes.

xvi.

trains cross the sky
yellow night windows syncopated
to beat of wheels
dogs unplaced bark between headlights
silent gates
tired feet go home