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The SEA Ghazals
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These poems are my contribution to Beyond Borders, the anthology for the 35th Anniversary of the S.E.A. Write Awards, annual literary prize for Southeast Asian writers given by the Thai royalty. I received my award in 1988.

1.   After Watching “The Chase of Benyaki”

 

Bangkok, 1998

 

Lightest touch of daintiest feet, silk-

Smooth teakwood touched by feet of sil.

 

Fingers, toes, curl and curve ethereal,

Heavenward: faintest rustle of silk.

 

Ching bells tinkle, infinitesimal,

Strands of light next to skin: crinkle of silk.

 

Eyes flutter, demure, defiant, disarming

Daemon’s mocking masque of sculpted silk.

 

I sit here in waft os spice, coconut, mint,

Heady with incense―the sentiment of silk.

 

Garlanded with rose and jasmine,

Seldom have I been given the miracle of silk,

 

This gift of Thailand fit for a king:

My soul levitates, now made of silk.

2.   Oriental Eisteddfod

 

Pekanbaru, 2011; For Rea Febry

 

The full moon rises behind the oil palms

Of Pekanbaru, the poets open their hearts like palms

 

At the steps of the city library. Beyon the city

Fringes, the voices reading books like palms,

 

Southeast Asia spreads like strings of worry beads,

Smoke of forest fires creep from under the palms.

 

Among ruins and high rises, over smooth blacktops

Braiding with the Siak River the poets speed among palms

 

To Muara Takus into the past, greeted by children

Singing, red brick of olden stupas among festooned palms.

 

The jungle is the past of Pekanbaru, where snakes

The ghost of a Japanese railroad under the palms,

 

And the steam and oil wells of Chevron churn,

And Dutch East India has closed its books like palms.

 

Oriental Eisteddfod: the poets’ voice open paths

Among the undergrowth, endless rows of oil palms.

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☞
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