Poetry

I live near the beach in Hua Hin; so close to the sea that I can see from up high on my balcony the beach life below in front of me...

Doesn’t make sense not to live for fun...

As the sun sets I feel a particular ecstasy...

When I was a young man, ~ my life ahead of me ~ I had to choose a path to take.

We meet many people on our journeys, we quickly part from them with barely 'good bye' and never see them again.

To all you Scots out there - and all poetry lovers - happy Burns’ night! As my contribution to the festivities, here’s my take on what Rabbie might have written if he had forsaken his Scottish lover for a lady in the Land of Smiles.

As a follow-up to ‘Bangkok Don Juan’, I’ve attempted to render into English verse the story of Khun Phaen - the Thai Don Juan. The original is a classic Thai poem (c. 1500) of 30,000 lines - but don’t panic, this is only an extract! A commentary will be posted in the ‘Cultural’ section next week.

A short poem about breakfast

A poem to the Siamese women I know, and have yet to meet.

This is the solution to the adventure game poem, Ramakian Revisited - but it won’t make much sense unless you have read the poem first!

Victorians like Robert Browning might have felt very patriotic about England, but today’s politically-correct Blairland drives many of us to feel patriotic about anywhere but. This poem turns the tables.

Was it that visit to the Grand Palace, the som-tam gung, or your Thai girl’s pheromones? Whatever the cause, you are dreaming that you are in the middle of the Thai Ramakian epic - but can you help Pra Ram get his beloved Sita back from the giant Totsakan?

This poem, inspired by a poem by Ernest Dowson, might provide a useful excuse for you ‘butterflies’ out there - not only to your teerak, but to yourselves!

The original of this poem needs no introduction, and like the original, it is written from the heart.

Who knows what may happen should you linger to long in Bangkok's Chinatown..