The Night Jasmine Page 3

Journeying homewards

  Automobile hit and run

  Final act’s reward

  23. Free Meal

 

  Introducing Kuhn Chaidee

  As you can see, he’s in good shape

  That’s on account of his diet

  All he can eat grows freely

  Or it swims, or crawls, or flies

  Kuhn Chaidee realizes

  The value of possessions

  Is something that’s relative

  Emotional or intrinsic

  Nevertheless he takes pride

  His single-roomed residence

  Is a permanent work-in-progress

  Although a temporary construction

  Built from salvaged timber, bamboo

  And recycled cement sacks

  24. Salon Isan

  Al Fresco Beauty:

  Irregular intervals

  Facial hair removed

  Essential tooling:

  Half a bottle of Lao Khao

  Mirror and tweezers

  Use blunt instruments:

  Don’t even think of razors!

  Respect complexion

  Firm grip; steady hand:

  Tug those tendrils; ditch that down

  Splash icy water

  Apply final touch:

  A shot, or three, of Lao Khao

  After shave potion

  25. Planet Isan

  Star date, Thirty Maesayon

  Twenty Five Fifty point Three

  Entering Phrutsapharkhom

  Ninth phase, Rama Dynasty

  Atmospheric properties

  Hot, humid, but breathable

  Forty Celsius Degrees

  Survival; conceivable

  Welcome to North East Thailand

  Amazing Land of the Smile

  Stick around for a while and

  Discover the Isan Style

  Sabai dee? Wow Lao dai bor?

  How are you? Do you speak Lao?

  Chao si pai sai? Eeyang kor?

  Where are you going? What now?

  Het nar, kin khao, fang Morlam

  Wan yut; welar muan lai der

  Work rice, eat food, hear Morlam

  Holidays; time for laughter

  Life on Isan; laid back, slow

  Conducted on your own terms

  Recommended place to go

  My experience confirms

  26. Beun Bang Fai

  Now that Songkhran is over

  and the water’s all dried up,

  we’ll make today, tomorrow,

  two days of bun bang fai –

  (home-made fireworks; sky rockets,

  another superstition

  and a good omen for rain).

  Two metres of blue plastic

  Waste-pipe, filled with gunpowder,

  strapped to lengths of bamboo cane.

  Three…

  two…

  one… …

  BLAST OFF…!

 

  27. Isan Heartland

  Deep in the Isan heartland

  Beyond banana, pineapple

  Across untended rice fields

  Baked hard by the summer sun

  The unforgiving landscape

  In cynical dry-season mood

  Questions the wisdom of cars

  That risk its impassable route

  Our focus zeroes in on

  The slow trickle of a stream

  Where once flowed a full-blown river

  Supplying diesel-driven pumps

  Used to moisten rice in plant

  Via discarded rubber hose pipes

  Or home-made earthenware pots

  Hand-crafted by silk-clad women

  Deep in the Isan heartland

  28. Casting The Spell

  Sheltered, not isolated

  Village Isan life goes on

  Influences, attitudes

  Filter through at their leisure

  Nature’s barriers exist

  At all points of the compass

  Pu Khao and Pu Pan ranges

  To East and West horizons

  Converge at a point due north

  While the Southernmost defences

  The waters of Ubol Rat

  Reservoir that fills bellies

  With its rich, living harvest

  As well as helping to feed

  Technological habits

  Hydro electricity

  Surges unpredictably

  Into our cell phone chargers

  And Personal Computers

  Isan’s own influence spreads

  To the South and to cities

  With a gritty-edged northern

  Border region tone of voice

  As it fuses traditions

  With more modern attitudes

  Providing a wider choice

  Reflecting changes in taste

  That Morlam girls know about

  And can’t dance their dance without

  That their writhing gestures shout

  Bridging the culture divide

  They’re casting the Isan spell

  29. Isan Market Day

  Twenty five mile of rice fields unfold

  From fork to first traffic light

  City limit, better watch your speed

  Traffic cops are everywhere

  Population, just sixteen thousand

  Can’t find a parking space

  Stop for roadside barbecued chicken

  Stuffed full of lemon grass

  One side order of sticky rice

  Something wet to wash it down

  Kafae ron; Doi Tung will do the trick

  Served from a bicycle

  Market stall holders open up now

  Cuts of freshly-slaughtered beef

  Pigs ears, trotters, noses, lips

  Chickens, alive till sold

  Just three types of chillies on the aisles

  Yu-ak, chee far, khee noo

  All that shopping sure makes a thirst rage

  Cool drinks go down with the sun

  Shophouse bar beer Chang on draught

  At six point four ABV

  Driver knocks back a pint of Red Bull

  Won’t nod off at the wheel

  Homeward; thirty five minute journey

  Full beam to light the way

  Step on the gas man, don’t slow down

  Traffic cops’ day is done

  Rewind twenty five miles of rice fields

  Never a traffic light

  30. The Night Jasmine

  The Night Jasmine awakes

  at the coolest time of year

  and on evenings such as this

  its perfume fills the air

  while imaginations drift

  downwind of the Twilight bloom

  that doesn’t love the heat

  of a summer afternoon

  preferring instead the dead

  of night at cooler times

  when the intensely fragrant scent

  unleashed by the Night Jasmine

  exposed by encroaching dark

  enhanced by the chill night air

  floats free till the new day breaks

  when sunlight ushers it on

  uniting it with the scents

  of forest field and farm

  that flow from far upstream

  of the swollen river bed

  fed by the flash-flood falls

  that form from the overfill

  of underground reservoirs

  high on the mountainside

  where the evening mist hangs low

  obscuring the silhouette

  on the distant underscore

  till dawn when the rising sun

  chases the fallen shroud

  back to the space between

  her golden glow and the earth

  that harboured its one-night-stand

  tolerated its presence

  but welcomed with open arms

  its life-sustaining moisture
<
br />   before showing it the door

  in order to allow

  the scent of the Night Jasmine

  and those scents that flow from upstream

  of the swollen river bed

  to conjugate and bear fruit

  so ripe it melts in the mouth

  to leave a lingering taste

  of morning mountain slopes

  and hopes and fears and dreams

  of men and women who

  inhale the fragrant air

  of the valley veiled in mist

  that falls with the setting sun

  on evenings such as this

  when the Night Jasmine awakes

  ###

  About The Author

  Stanski is the kind of guy who doesn’t do things by half measures.

  For example, he’s the guy who went to Thailand in 1999, to see in the New Millennium.

  He enjoyed it there so much that he decided to stay on for a while.

  He didn’t return to the UK until October…

  October 2010…!

  Stanski began writing in earnest in 2005 while recovering from a motorcycle accident, in the northern city of Chiangmai, in which he sustained serious head injuries.

  Find Stanski on Facebook

  https://www.facebook.com/stan.ski.9

  Examples of verse by Stanski can be found on his Blog, ‘Elephant Small’

  Crawling Distance

  In Decline

  All photographs in this ebook © Stanski, except for those in the section ‘Papaya Pok-Pok’ © Kanpirom Srisongnang.