Poetry from Thailand

Original poetry written in and about rural Thailand.

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Location: Chong Khae, Nakhonsawan, Thailand

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Ode to Forgotten Patterns (“like” if you remember this - or not)




 
TV stations use to sign off with a short
patriotic film and a singing of the Star
Spangled Banner.  A test pattern followed.
I have no idea what this test pattern was
for but imagined TV technicians working
through the dark, wee hours of the night
tweaking oscilloscope knobs in small,
cluttered labs to fix broken TVs while
the rest of us slept.

I rarely saw this “End Of Our Programming
Day” film but I remember how the summer
nights beyond the open windows and screens
seemed more peaceful then than they do now.
House doors were left unlocked. No one cared
about or even knew what test patterns were
for and the starry sky reached into cool pajama
pockets while we slept under a single white
sheet  . . . until the morn.

Forrest Greenwood  1/18/2015

I put this on Face Book ergo the "like" appeal