A Catch-22 Nonconformist Haiku Poem by Andrew Lee

My Heaven stretches its arms across the beach and inside the smiles of hippie girls at Karom Beach, their hippie glasses and varnished nails paint a glittering picture of Phuket. Soon the waves become rows of orange cupcakes that appear and disappear near sunset and I continue to daydream...

With a shock, I realize I've been taking pictures of tsunami-stricken spots. And all around those spots, the roots of trees have elongated ears and spidery fingers that clutch at the exoskeletons of crabs, spinning webs of shadows for the living and the dead.

I become stiff, shrunk into a tiny creature and stranded on a giant rumpled beach-chair, which is a thousand times my size. And I wonder why we are still here, frightened of the next quake.