My Thai

It was my second trip to London,
When I found myself living there,
From my provincial fields and forests,
A rural buck , in headlights, snared.
It was heady,
It was magic,
New sights, smells and tastes,
I thought I’d lived so fully,
But I’d sampled the merest taste.

An eager, thrusting undergrad’ student,
Trusting, still rich in his misspent youth.
Avowed to meet and greet each day,
Clad in purest academic truth.
I walked in sweet distraction,
Enjoying such an easy pace,
Senses lured beyond distraction,
By limb and form, and race.

Oh, I had had my turn with women,
Well two, the rest were my own age,
Into the lists I, eager, charged,
Sharp hungers to assuage.
I found so much bemusing,
Enchanting, as any Fay spell,
I lost time to lust’s abstraction,
To indulge myself right well.

I had joined a league of nations,
All seen as true equal in my sight,
And to embrace that new egalite,
Oh, I strove with all my might.

There was Ahn’jel , she hailed from Ghana,
So tall and ripe and firm.
Warsaw sent me Anna,
And deeper skills to learn.
‘Persia’ offered Yasmine,
France volunteered Danielle,
And with such joy I embraced such sin,
And, gleeful, mapped my roués route to hell.

Upon my wall I hung a chart,
At which I would stare and grin,
For each willing wanton conquest,
Spawned a new flag ‘pon bright new pin.
I loved that map, that plotted course,
My symbolic trek from land to land.
I loved the path my journey took,
Through forest, plain or desert sand.

Sandy ! from San Francisco,
Shimun from Tel Aviv,
No lies were told, nor offered,
No promises did I give.
Instead, I always told the truth,
Of what made up my holy quest,
To sample all that wide wide world,
Laughing they’d unfurl their own flag, And set it brave among the rest.

I loved that time,
Of summer’s thrall,
That time, that heady pace,
Where we entwined, as both friends and lovers,
Without death to match our pace.
I am glad my time was then not now,
Glad the worst we had to fear,
Was a discomforting anti-biotic shot,
Administered in the rear.
Joy on joy I escaped that too,
No crabs nor STD’s.
My slate stayed clean,
My card stayed filled,
Three years of living that dream.

Like a child locked in a toyshop,
I sampled this and that,
I knew no bias or preference,
I sought full chests, and waiflike chests full flat.
Long limbed and lean,
Compact and curved,
In jeans or microskirt,
If I had a raison d’etre,
It was to fuck, seduce and flirt.

Those days they passed, I knew they would,
And what profit did they leave,
Beyond a sea of memory,
And the knowledge I’ll never grieve,
For moments lost, chances set aside,
No, I shall always , warmly , own recall,
Of those sweet fleshed girls,
From a world so wide,
Oh, how I loved them all.
I saw, Japan, Malaya, India, Thailand and Burma too.
I ‘travelled’ free of let or hindrance,
Yet never sailed , nor flew.
It was like some sensual empire, where noone sought to hard oppress,
Any soul from any nation,
Even while plotting sweet undress.
IT was sharing, never stealing,
That 3 year long summer of sin-soaked grace,
A summer of faded denim and frail cheesecloth,
On the heels of hippy crochet, paint and lace.
And God bless those freeloving rebel hippies,
Though I missed their day,
For they set the rules we lived by,
Framed the heady games we played.

I was rummaging through my study,
Just two short days ago,
And I thought of Deshtarte so lovely,
Deshtarte was full-blood Navajo.
There were more, all sharp remembered.
their images freshly trapped,
Because my rummage unearthed a redundant, replaced, guitar case,
And in it I found that filligree’d map.