Ode to Saigon

I weave between metallic shine
Of white hot hub cap, cyclo frame
And taxi bumper: brake, and pause,
Before gearing off again.

I know these roads, littered as they are
With street-vendor, conical hat and coffee stalls.
I know this city, its adrenalin glory
Bewitches travelling hoards who
Melt the sidewalks, daring to cross.

I know this city.
Am rooted here, breathing in
A now familiar pulse.
Saigon.
Sentimentally I am yours.
Energetically you are the calm and constant
Backdrop to my life.

Your ebb and flow at once collide
And soothe, and guide.  And hold me tight.

Before too long I’ll view you from afar,
Becoming me, indebted as I am to all you stand for.
For all you are.

 

June has, and continues to be, a month of travel for me…

It is also the month I will remember introducing Florence and Martha to Shel Silverstein, whose poetry is now recited daily by them both in mock recitals at bed-times!

With that in mind, and in the hope that one day they will read this self-indulgent journal, and remember Silverstein’s “Lazy Jane” verse (Flo’s current favourite) I hope they also like this one from Daddy.

Advertisement

6 thoughts on “Ode to Saigon

  1. Joopenelly and elly. De groot June 22, 2013 / 12:30 am

    Hi Tim, what a lovely poem, I do not know Saigon, but throug this poem you can have a little feeling how it is there in the east…!!!
    Greeting to the girls and good luck with your travelling !!! Love Elly and also Joop

    • saigonsays June 26, 2013 / 9:49 pm

      Thanks guys! Greetings from Connecticut! Xx

    • saigonsays July 4, 2013 / 11:37 am

      Thanks the de Groots!
      Hope life in Holland and France going well – I hear Joop can now control everything from his ipad, how exciting!
      Tx

  2. Jenny June 26, 2013 / 3:04 pm

    I am sure both your girls will be proud of Daddy the Poet! Excellent! xx

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s