Vietnam

Vietnam looms
Vietnam looms
Enticing
Mr Chips slowly
Closes the door
Chaos and stress
Lingers
 
Faces on the poles
Slashed, by
Freddy Friday
Looming
Striking a pose
 
One foot on the loading ramp
Smashed by a global crisis
Don’t panic
Life will return
To normal
Trust me
Wails the banshee
 
Flicker faces
In Saigon
Tell
Freddy exposed
But
Not defeated
 
Stress sneers
 
Winking lights
Twinkle
Eyes in the sky
Watching
 
Safety in security
Massaged by lithium
Lost, numb
Gone from reality
 
Curtins twitter
Exposing dark lights
Watching closely
Monitoring
Mind
 
# # # # # #
 
Hanoi cabs
Scamper
Reined by bikes
Lurching hands
Seeking prey
 
Workers in the fields
Toil
Till dusk, from dawn
Scrapping luxuries
From barren earth
Hundreds, millions of
Smiling faces
Bemused
Weekend factories
Of toil
 
Tourists flock
To jump on junks
Halonged in a bay
Briefly kissed
By querulous fagans
 
Cabins creak
With the ambition
To be rich
Beyond the paddy dreams
Within teak walls
 
Vietnam
Long nights planning
To campaign
Seeking re-election
Before tripping
 
Dirty tricks played out on poles
Bested with a cycle
Arguments about posters
Bring tempers to the boil
 
Crash
Worlds falling, imploding
Time to get out, not Australia
But world markets
 
Arguments, to and fro
Pressured to respond
Cautioned to sit tight
Right before a flight
 
Read all about it
Not the crash
Maniac loose in Chatswood
Where is he now?
 
Another day, another time
Memories are short
Aren’t they
Hope so
 
Cities come and go
Some persist
Suffering replaced by laughter
At me
 
At night
Cities energise their soul
Taking breath
Deeply
Spirits emerge, covertly
Sending shared light
Into the eyes
Watching
 
Minute fingers
Twisting the dial of fear
Messing with reality
Unsettling reason
 
Ho Chi Min
Daunting
Perverse
Discouraging
 
Life lived by ninety million sprites
Coming, going
Listening looking
Laughing
 
Fear emerges swiftly
From behind the curtains
Reason transcends
Realisation
 
Every move
Threatening
Time to bunker
 
Hanoi lingers as a,
Memory on the edge of the moon
Trusting no-one
Forever vigilant
 
Dark eyes probe
Deeply coring minds
As puppets
Soak the brain
 
To the east, the sun
Countryside full of life
Bustle
Perhaps new hope
 
Then
 
Smiles hide dark intent
Calculating
Condescending
Circumspect
 
Again the sprites
Have they travelled with us?
Playing with the mind
Hot, cold, hot, off
 
Noise tinkles as the sprites
Wander
Laughing
Sneering
 
Where have all the people gone?
On Monday
 
Life settles
Worlds spin
Normality returns
For a short while