This Thai beachside paradise
of dribbled concrete streams
and well-kept swept lawns
is like the constructs of love
which also require maintenance
of surfaces and hid beams –
which need an ear to creaks
and underfoot complaints
Left unattended – even for a day
and the leaves will fill the pathways –
The beach will rustle with plastic
and the drains’ stink will stay
E100119
As if I were Crusoe
or you
with our footprints
but me three legged with my circles
my ringworm imprints off my bloody stick
and other differences
like weight and bearing
I read into each indent
with my father’s forensic hand me down observation.
This coach reverberates
and ever, ever, rolls north
with us four and a dozen
back-packed younger souls
in various curls of inertia
as a million, or more,
palm trees are passed
plus the same number
of shacks and scooters,
those and a thousand
roadside spirit houses
are disregarded
in favour of tourism’s
sleep of death.
The highway’s ghost island
has been raised up
for hundreds of metres
in concrete dormers
to reduce the risks
and we pass our final
7-Eleven before the ports.
‘The heavy weight of a lonely death’
I read
stated in bold at headline height
eye lined up to the old woman
here
English and abroad
reading her UK paper
as the onshore wind curled the other pages
held in her three score and more years of holiday-making
and with the other shaded septuagenarians
her clock refuses to stop
‘The heavy weight of a lonely death’
I read
stated in bold at headline height
eye lined up to the old woman
here
English and abroad
reading her UK paper
as the onshore wind curled the other pages
held in her three score
and more
years of holiday-making
and with the other shaded septuagenarians
her clock refuses to stop
