Reader Submission: Poems by Rob

In 2012 I met my girlfriend in the Kanchanaburi region. Since that time I have traveled there four times a year. I wrote a collection of poems about my impressions. Below you will find a few. 

Since I visited Thailand for the first time about ten years ago, I fell in love with the country and a few years later with a Thai beauty. From 2009 to 2011 I was village poet of Overpelt where I live when I am not staying in Thailand.

The Silk Road

your skin,
silk.
The route,
a delight in every direction.

----

Song for Latt

“Like this?”
she asks
and she caresses me
with her eyes.

“Too spicy?”
she asks
and she caresses me
with her eyes.

"Want more?"
she asks
and she caresses me
with her eyes.

“Me for dessert?”
she asks.
And she caresses me
and she caresses me.

----

Stilt house

We live one floor up.
High enough for the dogs
looking for shade.
At night the chickens scratch,
at least I hope so,
around us.
The bamboo floor, our boomboom floor.
The chickens,
at least I hope so,
move rebellious.
A mosquito net, an old fan.
“Think you can sleep?”
she asks worriedly.
Not as long as you're next to me
I think and I say:
"Of course"


One meter high.
That should be enough
for the rain that clatters destructively on the corrugated iron
and the chickens,
at least I hope so,
washes away.

----


Her skin is brown
she doesn't want that.
I have white skin
she will.

----

The morning turns orange.
The sun, the monks.
A Buddhist polonaise
winds silently through the village.


Their begging bowl is filled
by the women kneeling in wait.
They prepared the food long before the sun
and the monks color the morning orange.


They get right with difficulty.
Cooking for their offspring.
Working in the field.
Hoping for a day without blows.


On the way back to the temple
consults a young monk,
the last in the orange row,
secretly his smartphone.