Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AN AMERICAN IN BANGKOK, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: Perhaps the polluted air Last Line: Still he's optimistic. Subject(s): Americans; Culture Conflict; Ignorance; Thailand; Dullness; Stupdity | ||||||||
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased and the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East." Rudyard Kipling Perhaps the polluted air of the city brings it out, just as strawberries raise up hives or brandy brings on gout. A middle-class, rosy, young man, called Ted, still jet-lagged, knows why the name of the town's Bangkok. In a dimly lit dive he acquires two figures in women's dresses who blow and roll and leave him chagrined by remembered caresses. The knowledge that history's bunk makes the sum of experience zero. He buys a blue spoonful of sapphires which smuggled and resold our hero intends as his final rebuttal to prove to his father who's smarter. But finding they're small, flawed junk, he hires a threatening thug who, with refund and gems, absconds leaving Ted to reflect that the only honest people are blonds. Down an alley's crooked elbow he joins a shirttailed circle of men dealing Eurasian poker. The antes gulp paper and coins of value unsure as the proof of their booze that burns like cayenne. Waking perfumed by his vomit, he searches about for his wallet. How come masterful, white, realistic, American know-how's misfired? Still he's optimistic. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BUFFALO CLOUDS OVER THE MAESTRO HOON by NORMAN DUBIE SIMPLE PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA by NORMAN DUBIE I'M WITH STUPID by PETER JOHNSON ELECTION DAY, 1984 by CAROLYN KIZER FESTOONS OF FISHES by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG TO A BLOCKHEAD by ALEXANDER POPE THE CASE OF SABRINA SIMPSON USCH by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS A BIT OF MULL by FREDERICK HENRY HERBERT ADLER COME HOME by WILLIAM HERVEY ALLEN JR. |
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