2 - Golden Triangle

If free scope is granted to her,
Slavery sits on the head

– The Hitopadesha

Mekong Sunset


Lines of inundation
sap the fields
dream landscape
water-towers
like Martian war-machines



Lao-Burmese Border


I was in Saigon
waiting for a mission
last seen at a toilet-stop
in Northern Thailand
bound for Vientiane

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 3].

In the Opium Museum

Sign in the foyer:

Drug addicts are mentally sick people. Drug addiction, then, indicates mental sickness. Curing mental sickness is the only way to help drug addicts.

The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.
– Picasso to Cocteau

•

The questionnaire:

In your opinion, opium smells like:
a/ the smell of gunpowder
b/ the smell of sex[lots went for this.]
c/ factory smoke

Selected replies:

Johny Bravo:No opion [sic] sample today!
Karen, England:how can it smell of
anything that its not?

1 - Hill Country

To one whose feet are covered by shoes,
Is it not indeed
As if the entire earth were covered by leather?

– The Hitopadesha

Ban Rim Lai


Elephant-head
she must be friendly with
Meet me in Chiang Rai
tomatoespaddiesopium
marching up the sky



Chiang Rai


Dusty northern
towncrank up
the volumeDarren
If you look for long enough
the letters come in focus

[Summer Book from Eye Street, ed. Raewyn Alexander
(Auckland: Bright Communications, 2005) 2].