I had to learn the hard way --
nothing comes easy
except pain
enough to keep
the poet's heart broken

now I long for
the little things --
the moon and stars
on a clear New Mexico night
a toke with friends
some time alone in a quiet place
a meal without rice!
a laugh unfettered by grim irony
a natural vista upon which
I could gaze for years
or even days

now I wonder --
will I be allowed these things again?
I'd give almost anything right now
to be with you -- where you are --
and hear your pleasant laughter.
 

no bleaker landscape could be imagined,
no more desolate limbo for the soul...
          rudely awakened
for a jack-booted midnight inspection
of the piss-pools, rat turds, and
smoke-stained graffiti-decorated walls...
          jarred from
nonsensical dreams of loved ones, who
never buried, are reborn
to share dharma-created
          meaningless conversation...
an unintelligible cacophony inside
of nasal Bangkok gutter slang,
slum street voices/traffic/dog fights oustide
dispel any quiescence or meditative calm...
          while
the gin rummy gang stays jailed,
but poker players are quickly bailed,
and I need some letters mailed --

"Hey, I'm losing all my cash
and I'm running out of pills,
I'm stuck in Don Muang jail
and there's too much time to kill."
 
 

         time has no value
in Bangkok prison, only abject humility
is recognized as valid currency,
          exchangable
on the slave trade market
where diseased human fleshings
with festering venereal sores,
malnourished rotting limbs,
retarded brains and souls
          squabble daily
for fish heads, weeds, and moldy rice
          where
blind man, zombie, and floater curise
the concrete football field begging
from drug lords and farangs with cash,
waisting days, wasting away, under
withering heat and mind-stupefying
neglect coupled with
consant violent abuse, taking toll,
though no one is counting
those nights psent horribly crowded,
suffocating slowly in the stench of
open latrine toilets, the decay of
pneumonic poisoning, the oppression of
blatant police corruption
time has no value
when hope deserts spirit, body, and mind
when all sweet joy
          and love you've known before
becomes a dream --
          a vision left behind,
while one must dwell in a dark
man-made Hell,
a place carved from fear, corruption, and terror,
where gloom abides
unremittingly

top  ~  Moongate