Lock-down shopping
I always seem to write shopping lists
That seldom leave my pocket –
Returning instead with unexpected treats.
It feels a luxury of sorts
To wander the aisles
Quietly
As an interloper.
I prod at flagons of yellow-crested olive oil,
Visions of flour-caked aprons
Kneading the dough
And pouring the Pinot –
Soothed,
In that moment
Of ordinariness.
That freedom of choice.
This morning’s dawn on our bed-sheet
Glows as it did yesterday.
Summoning into consciousness
A mundane familiar –
Jumbled thoughts,
Whispered finger-tipped
Touches, stretched out limbs.
Nothing here lies
In deference to a higher code,
Nor to a haunting pandemonium.
Through our window yellow sunbeams taunt
And pierce translucent bowing fronds,
Blinking time into place.
In steeped Earl Grey,
A soothing balm – a Blessed relief! –
Nothing here pretends
Any difference need unfold,
Nor mask that which matters most
In each wondrous, sentimental stroke
Of this morning’s dawn.
Our Time
In jasmine-drenched heat She tilts to one side And catches me Flush on the cheek With a knowing smile. Our toes inches apart Fingers tracing strange fabric, Eighty pairs of eyes Twinkle In the fanned breeze. Afterwards, as newlyweds, We step out together - Smoke plumes curling Toward ocean sparkles And a sinking crimson sun. Our revelry now sepia-stained These months behind us, These days before us Unfurl, As lazy afternoon birdsong.
Dawn in Lumphini Park, Bangkok.
Pulse
This man sleeps in five-star
rooms
high above and
looking down
on that man
squatted behind
a pyramid of limes,
waiting for a customer.
This woman feels forever
late
and ill prepared
to teach the class,
outside
that woman
sleeps under a tree
quietly breathing
whilst traffic stuck,
shuttling him and her and them
onward to a new
moment of playing at
who they are.
We are all in sales,
scouring time
to feed the
pulse and curiosity
of where each
investment might take us too next –
a better paid job
a clearer conscience
a meal.
The Sun House
A dark pink ginger petal
Curls round my wine glass stem,
It bends
As if to listen,
And I breathe in.
Frangipani trees watch,
As incense wisps through shuttered doorways,
Extinguishing inside on the
Scorched spines that stand in line,
Their perforations couching simpler times –
Joyce and Milton,
Sophocles and Ovid –
Mankind’s canon rests
Underneath these high ceilings,
And their enduring brocade.
A flickering breeze through palm leaf
Stirs,
At once a soothing balm and a fantasized being –
As I breathe out,
And place my glass on the table.
The Commute
A young girl stands weeping,
Waiting in line to board the plane.
Behind her a family of four
Shuffle forward their assortment of
Bags and purchases.
Teenagers splayed out on the floor,
Entangled phone chargers and
Preoccupied chatter.
Tannoy announcements ripple in the distance,
White noise to all.
Outside, convoys of suitcases
Zig-zag across the concrete apron –
The sky painted grey and about to strike.
This motley queue of human cattle
Inches forward,
Marking territory, clenching fists.
Talk of putting “a man on Mars” seems over-stretched,
As the minutes tick by and I wonder why
Putting one hundred people
On an airplane appears so much of a test.
We are airborne as my eyes open
And wince through the glare of the clouds,
Broken up and disappearing.
Many thousands of feet below and Monday morning
Crankily tilts on its axis.
The ennui of emails, the promise of lunch.
As tail winds pick up, the urban fringes of Saigon blur,
Our metallic tube arcs over Cambodian borders,
Paddy-fields and water buffalo,
Agrarian pastures – a daily grind of different stock.
Through glimpses of rubber smoke we land,
Suvarnabhumi airport, again.
Ten years of touching down here,
Too familiar a pilgrimage,
On auto-pilot
My toes twitch as I wait once more.
The young girl has long stopped her tears and stands nearby,
Nodding politely at the customs official –
Breathing in new beginnings,
Or the tingle of something left behind?
Beneath lavender rosemary scented calm,
Vine-laden squares of golden green
Lie framed
Within this morning’s bright ceramic canvas.
Staccatos of gravel crunch underfoot,
Off beat
And lost amidst nature’s purring symphony,
Forest warbles,
Farm percussion.
Nature’s purest offering
Distilled to nourish,
Dust-coated vessels
Preserving ancestral norms.
To breathe in again
This cicada dawn chorus,
This bejeweled vista,
Is to silence the heart –
To love once more.
Under darkening clouds,
A dew-soaked earthen
Scent, cicada shrill,
Bicycle wheels drift on,
Whilst wood-smoke plumes
Hide Blue Band livery –
Oh, dawning hour of dusk.
The anticipation of tomorrow.
saigonsays 