While waiting to board my flight back home to Manila, I felt it – as pungent as a ripe cheese, as persistent as a broken promise, as irresistible as Wendell Ramos: It was the urge to write!
And not in prose, the urge insisted, but in meter, in rhyme, and in verse!
And so I succumbed.
This is a poem I wrote in honor of Thailand. It’s REALLY GOOD.
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Where The Elephants Go To Die*
Thailand smells of lemongrass,
Cilantro and hot chilies.
But sleeping in my bed alone
Sure did give me the willies.
A ghost came by to visit me;
I could have done without.
It made me want to scream with fear
(Though real men should shout).
But gosh, the malls! The retail stores!
The shopping boulevards!
Telling myself not to whip out
My credit card was hards!
(…OK, that was a bad rhyme…)
I almost bought a pair of sneaks
From Onitsuka Tiger,
But I recalled the girl back home
And gifts that I must buy her.
By that same logic, I felt obliged
To find a snazzy present.
But nothing seemed to catch my eye.
Coke sure is effervescent.
I had a blast, but shan’t return
To good old BKK.
The “girls” that populate the bars
Are ladyboys or gay.
The Ladyboys of Thailand
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* Please note that the title of this poem had absolutely nothing to do with the content. If there’s one thing I learned from The Dave Barry School of Poetic Profundity, it’s that the less a poem has to do with what it’s called, the more spectacular its chances of winning an award. It’s true. Just look at all the hardware he’s won for poetic achievement. Really.
