Poetry from Thailand

Original poetry written in and about rural Thailand.

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Location: Chong Khae, Nakhonsawan, Thailand

Friday, July 3, 2015

Goffstown





Think of the town as a poem with
its web of roads taking you always
in and never out of town to New Boston,
Weare , Manchester or God knows beyond.

Think of the poem as a town that you
can roll out as a map from Glen Lake to
Parker Station, from Barnard’s to the circle.
And if there are dragons and serpents
which never existed in a grown-ups’ world
illuminated along the edges forgive them
as art or of a boy’s mind not yet full grown.

Think of the townsfolk as Greek chorus
of Katsekases, Karanikases, Branches,
Bagnalls, Carrs, Sinks, Daniels, Pierces,
and Yianakopoloses all humming as softly
as an evening’s breeze.  The Greeks
called poetry the master art and knew
that it was all that we could ever know.

Think of the town as a poem.

FG  7/3/2015

Poetry begins with the sound of names.  No idea (outside of the Greeks) why I picked these folks and not the Beebes, the Koniecznys, the Anslows, Salos or Morgrages.  It might be fun to make up law-firm sounding names of people in town in the early 60s like Backus, Stevens, Hamilton and Howe.  Each name carries with it a memory and if we forget the name, we forget the memory, too.