Once
Once,
About ten minutes ago in the year
2006 or
2549, depending upon which avatar or
Messiah is consulted, I
Tumbled out of my bed to the
Untranslatable
Predawn
Cackle of
Frantic voices
Descending.
So, with urgency
Rarely experienced since the
Evacuation of my spirit
From the Land of
Possession Addiction, I was called to summon previously
Unknown prowess
Chancing traffic choked streets
Of Nakhorn (used to mean “New City” 700 years ago but not sure now)
Chiang Mai.
So there I was
Aboard my mostly pint-sized for a European descendent Kawasaki 112,
Red-blooded American head
Protruding
turret-like out of an
Undersized helmet that,
If nothing else,
Officially pronounced me foreign
Blazing a jutted path around
Decrepit trishaws,
Ubiquitously red baht busses and,
Not the least, a motorcycle with a sidecar bandaged to its
Aching side just in time to witness a
Spit-shined just out of the wrapper BMW
Brusque aside a
Sardine packed dump truck
Loaded,
Not with dirt, but five dollar a day
Laborers.
All this and more
Just moments before
Mounting the silted Ping and
Stampeding city gates, I glimpsed
Censored Snippets of TV reports blurting something unintelligible like
“Bangkok coup”,
“Corruption”,
“A King”
And
Somewhere,
Quite uncensored, of a not so pleased
Laozi,
Lotus splayed in
Meditation
Kneading the Eastern soil one
Daoist grain at a time,
Before ancient city walls
Rose up,
Monolithic in my path.
And then the recall that
Centuries before,
Burmese raiders
Resplendent in warrior garb
Plundered the palace and soul
Of the kingdom Thai before stealthily
Creeping back to their lairs,
Buddha-fat with riches.
That leaves the Siamese of 1935
And me, to wonder
Where is freedom
When we travel so far
Pell mell and
Peril, only to discover
In a fleeting brief moment the road to
Iniquity marked, rather
Erroneously, with the signpost to
Promises?
Copyright © Jeff Troyer | Year Posted 2011
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