Monday, June 12, 2017

David Norris writes


Because I am Poor, a Letter from Plaa 
 
There is a moment when we know
we will leave this earth forever.
The flowers, glowing blue in the dark
form into a perfect circle.

We treasure at those moments
every small joy and realize
they are as important as the largest.
Flowers perfectly form into a circle
glowing blue in the dark

I flew into Bangkok, drank a Chang beer
with a naked lady, slept beside her,
smoked some reefer, and walked
through the crowded streets of Patpong.

The rain caught me by surprise.
I sat for a long time in one place,
ready to go somewhere,
to go, but the rain . . .

Buddy, I love you a lot
                                      Plaa

Can she erase years of memories,
erase encounters and moments of pleasure,
of pain, of joy, of sorrow, the swiftly flowing
river through which we have passed?

Once the river has wound through
our lives, we will never walk
these streets again. The truth.

A lot you

Don’t cry
Don’t cry

If you have a lover
I don’t care
I am same   
  
Why not? How?
Because I love you a lot

Living on the edge
takes the edge off it,
for a while.

You can hope we some evening
But I can love you for now

I am poor
I don’t know your way

I live with you
Why not?
               
Poor a lot
I am very poor

Don’t cry today
Because you have me

The flowers are glowing blue in the dark.
We will walk through the perfect circle. 
 Image result for drinking with a naked woman painting
 Bad Boy -- Eric Fischl

1 comment:

  1. Patpong, two parallel side streets between Silom and Surawong Roads and one side street running from the opposite side of Surawong, gets its name from the Patpongpanich (or Patpongpanit) family, immigrants from Hainan island, China, who purchased the area in 1946 when it was an undeveloped plot of land on the outskirts of Bangkok that had a small klong (canal) and a teakwood house. The family built a road (now Patpong 1, the main street, with many bars of various kinds). Patpong 2 (with many similar bars) was added later, and both roads are private property, not city streets. Next to them is Soi Jaruwan ("Patpong 3"), which has long catered to gay men, while nearby Soi Thaniya has expensive bars with Thai hostesses that cater almost exclusively to Japanese men; neithr street is owned by the Patpongpanich family. By 1968, a handful of nightclubs existed in the area, but during the 1970s and 1980s Patpong was Bangkok's premier nightlife area for foreigners, famous for its sexually explicit shows. Patpong is still the only official entertainment zone decreed by the Thai government in 2004, which allow venues to legally stay open until 2am, instead of the 1am legal closing time in other areas. Many venues have shows featuring women doing stunts in the nude. Go-go bars feature women dancing on a stage; generally, they are available to customers willing to pay a bar fine to take them out. Several upstairs bars still feature sex shows such as the Ping Pong show which features women performing exotic feats involving their genitalia and table tennis balls. Some of the establishments employ kathoeys ("ladyboys").
    Chang, a pale lager which started production in 1995, is Thailand's top-selling beer brand. "Chang" is the Thai word for elephant, an animal with cultural and historical significance in Thailand. In 2000 Carlsberg and Chang established a 50/50 joint venture, Carlsberg Asia, to create a significant brewing company in Asia, but in 2005 Carlsberg terminated its licence agreement due to Chang's non-fulfillment of contractual obligations, resulting in Chang claiming US$2.5 billion in damages; Carlsberg eventually settled for US$120 million. Chang is a subsidiary of Thai Beverage, one of Southeast Asia's largest beverage companies, with over distilleries in Thailand, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, China, and France; in 2013, the firm announced a US$11.2 billion deal to take over the Fraser and Neave, a food and beverage, brewing, property, and publishing conglomerate in Singapore.

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