Den's Rice Fields

No one works the paddies anymore. The old gave up the game. Enough Work like slaves. Good season, Bad season. Always the last baht in the pocket. Never the first. Work sunrise. Sunset. Breaking back Breaking feet Come home at night The radio on Playing Luk Thong. A good day Today. Children's bellies full Wife smiling Happy And a bottle of lao khao To celebrate The end of the day Happy Chai yo!!!a

BET ON CRAZY - 1ST DAYS by Peter Nolan Smith

Richie was more forgiving. They had made the move to a diamond exchange on 47th Street. No more Italian subs, but the pastrami sandwich from the Bergers Deli was built for two. Richie and I shared one.

“So what are you going to do?” Richie positioned napkins on his lap and chest to avoid any greases dripping onto his Armani suit. He had bought it ‘hot’ from Frankie Fingers, the street’s haberdasher.

“Work in a club, I guess.” Fifteen publishers had rejected my stories.

“Any ideas?”

“None at all.” I stalled getting a job for several months, while I rewrote my short stories. The amount of typos was astounding, almost as if my fingers suffering from dyslexia.

The New Year brought an eviction notice. I didn’t panic. My landlord couldn’t take me to court for another three months. The refrigerator went empty and the heating was augmented by the gas range, as I typed away at my kitchen table, imagining fame and fortune would save me two minutes after I wrote THE END, then the springs of my typewriter broke with a off-note twang.

I walked to the repair shop through a snowstorm. The man at the counter said fixing the Olivetti portable would cost $50. My “I popped both my knees skiing. I’ll be off my legs for six months. You working?”

“No.” I could see what was coming and realized THE END would have to wait until summer.

“I need someone to schlep around goods.”

“Goods?” I knew ‘schlep’ meant to carry.

“Diamonds, jewelry to repair, money. Someone I can trust. Manny, what you think?”

“Why not?” Manny glanced up from a small pile of iridescent stones. “As long as you show up on time and don’t break my balls, you’ll do fine. $100 a day.”

“Cash?” I hadn’t paid taxes in ten years.

“I’m not the IRS.” Manny dropped a necklace into a small manila envelope and wrote an address. “Take this to the setter. Have him call me, then come back here fast. I got more for you to do.”

“Okay.” I had become a worker in less than a minute.

“Don’t? lose anything.”

“Sure.” I stuffed the envelope inside my damp jacket. “What time is lunch?”

“Hasn’t been working for more than a minute and already worried about lunch. I’ll order you a sandwich for when you get back.” Manny resumed sorting the diamonds.

“Thanks,” Richie said from his desk.

“Thank you.” I would be able to pay off my back rent within the month.

“Can you two stop the love story and let the goy get going?” Manny sighed with annoyance.

“You know, Manny, I know nothing about diamonds.”

“Whatever y

There would be much more than one or two, because I had survived day one as a goyim on 47th Street and my life wasn’t going anywhere fast. At least not in 1990.

Cafe De Paris - 1984

1984 London Leicester Square The Cafe de Paris Music DJed by Albert de Paname Dancing The young The place to be Black Jack and I At the door A ten-thick crowd Other side of the ropes. We control the destiny of the night. In or out. Ingrid arrives with Alice Svelte Blonde English Jacques and I part the crowd Like Moses and Aaron Kisses on the cheeks Happy to be there Happy they are here. Friends forever Day or night.

Neo-Haiku 3

Haiku by Matsuo Bashō "Quietly, quietly, / yellow mountain roses fall – / sound of the rapids

A haiku traditionally consists on sixteen syllables. Three lines of five / seven / four syllables according to Japanese poetry.

I have been satisfied with a contrary configuration without the guidance of Zen calligraphy. The nuns at St. Mary's of the Hills had been hard pressed to instill in their grammar school students the importance of legible pensmanship ie the Palmer cursor method. I still some of the grace from their instruction, which had been backed by a ruler to the back of the hand for any uncrossed ts and undotted is.

I shall practice my handwriting on clean white sheets of paper in honor of Sister Mary Osmond. My ancient Egyption teacher from 6th Grade. 1964. Sixty years ago. my hand remains true, although originally I had been left-handed. A sign of the Devil. Sister Mother Superior beat the devil out of me. Not completely. I still deal cards left-handed.

A mirror
An image
My Image
Not me
Just how
A Mirror sees me

Moi

4/2024

Brevity
Three syllables
One word
Lasting
An eternity

Poetry
On the subway
To avoid
limbo
On the phone

Bangkok 1928

Back in 2009 www.2bangkok.com put this 1928 French map of Bangkok online. The city has certainly changed considerably in the last century. No more klongs or trolleys or trees, but then the old are always saying, "You should have been here before."

As a young man I thought they were full of cow paddy, but now I'm not so young anymore I know they were right.

"You should have been in Bangkok 1990."

It was really something.

TROLLEYS AND BARS - A POEM BY PETER NOLAN SMITH

Oh, the trolleys of Boston.
The screech
Of steel on twin seams of rail,
The Boston College trolley lurching into Park Station.

I don't know if I will ever return
To Boston.
Like Charley
The man never to return on the MTA.

Orange and white trolleys
Me and my older brother
With my Nana on the tram to Forest Hills.
Then the train to Washington Street
Confession at St. Anthony's
Grilled hot dogs at WT Grants.
A movie at the Paramount
Once THUNDER ROAD
Robert Mitchum as a hillbilly bootlegger.
Nana brewed beer during Prohibition.
She said with a County Mayo accent, "Don't tell your mother about the movie."
We held our sand.

My grandfather drove trolleys out of Forest Hills.
I never met the son of the Aran Isles.
Never heard tales of him
I only saw photos
Never in a trolleyman's uniform.
He died in the yard.
A trolleyman union rep
No money in his pocket.
Damned Boston cops robbed his dead body.

Still I dream the trolleys
Squeaking sliding from under the shadows of the elevated subway to Dudley.

Irish drinkers at the Concancannon and Sennet Bar
Listening to the trains overhead
Watching the trolleys leave the yards for Mission Hill.
Never saying a word.
A Gaelic nod said another beer,
Trolleys rolling all night long.
Yardbirds on the juke box
TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN'.

Not such thing as late in the bar,
If your beer glass was full. We there were us.

The steel rails ran in our Jamaica Plains bones.
From Forest Hills to Park Street to Boston College.
To the other Concannon and Sennett's on Comm. Ave.

There.

My girl Hilde,
Quarter beers,
A juke box
BU co-eds,
Brighton townies,
A HOT HAND pinball machine,
A naked woman atop a pink elephant painted over the bar
Up three steps
To the Phoenix Room.
Mexican food.
The only enchiladas in Boston.
A long-haired woman from Chiapas.
She had one-hand.
No one knew why.
Her enchiladas better than good.

Last trolley thirty minutes after midnight.
Last call 1AM.
The Flannery brothers waging a going home fight
On the sidewalk.
Interference was taboo.
Everyone's business was their own.

Drunken blood slushed through my veins. Listening to the last song. Aerosmith on the juke box. DREAM ON 1973

The band lived down Comm Ave.
By the Hi-Hat Lounge
I sold them mescaline in caps.
Laced with strychnine
Stronger hallucinations
$5 a cap.
We all saw the night.

At 1AM the music went dead
The bartender threw us out.
The doors shut.

I walked across the tracks.
With Hilde.
Making sure the teenage got home.
Hand in hand.
Safe
Sound
Her with me
And me with her.

Comm. Ave. quiet.
No more trolleys
Only the night

Foto Hilde and me 1974

Earth Day 2009

This evening I drank organic vodka in celebration of Earth Day. The mixer was organic ginger ale. Glass bottles. A glass glass. No plastic. It went well with my Happy Meal #3.

Supposedly civilization started when hunter-gatherers discovered fermented fruits. One of them drank it. He survived and explained his out-of-the-body experience. The primitives understood that to achieve this euphoria with regularity they had to grow crops.

Thus the birth of agriculture.

Unless you believe in alien abduction.