Travel Thailand Poem - Patpong (Bangkok) Poem by john tiong chunghoo

a 20 something japanese lady ogled
the whole time at the stage, a ring
minus the ropes, large as three single beds
put together, obviously worked up by
what she had seen

on the opposite side, across
the stage,quite disturbingly -
he looked like a similar in my office who
i never liked - a 40 something accountant
sort of man,Indian perhaps, stared with his large
bespectacled eyes, their whites penetrating
the sleazy enclave, betraying his long
witheld thirst and hunger for those hard
to resist baitsnow dangling enmasse
right in front of him

on another front to my left a 40
something woman watched
with a struggled detachment,
sometimes laughing to her
companion of what were on
the stage, all the time displaying this
'this is the world and we have
to get used to it' demeanor
she could have been thatshy
woman next door when in her 20s

and i, and i, looked around in
the Patpong outlet with stage
fringed by row and row of jaunty travellers
to see if there was anyone from
hometown who would spoil the
whole show and who i knew would
pop the the same question to me
if he/she were here: 'Wow, you
are here too.'

with the excuse of charging
everyone B200 or US6 for a glass
of beer or soft drink, on the stage
bathed in neons, strobe lights,
humping bumping rock music,
suction piston cadenced jazz,
chug chug chugging lolipop pop
free wheeling waltz and jabs of
spiralling classical crescendos
well endowed men in their
youthful prime graciously
peeled and unveiled to us
Soddom and Gommorah
in all theirfacets and manifestations