my intoxvacation

Koh Tao Island
is a gnarled volcanic speck
off the coast
of teeming Thailand,
a land of jagged black rock,
gourmet pizzerias,
and meter long black monitor lizards
crawling about the perpetual hunt
that's lasted millions of years...
now conflicting occasionally
with taxis
carrying tourists with iced mochas
to dive instructors
to safely swim
with black tip sharks

me,
I'm getting accidental arsenic poisoning
but I don't know it:
just that something's horribly wrong
and I'm waiting for a plane
to take me back to the U.S.A.
where something might be done about it

nonetheless,
the outdoor cafe is interesting
to my young yankee eyes:
lusty Belgians and frenchmen,
a joint shared
with a dusty old Spaniard,
some Thai "brandy" shared
with a few decorous young Japanese,
a sober but lively German instructor
who becomes my friend...
a vivacious red-haired Spanish dame
who becomes a friend
and low-burning flame,
enormous spotted green geckos
that lounge near the lights
feasting on confused insects

and then there comes the pain
and the weariness,
trapped in my bamboo hut
truly feeling mortality
for the first time in my life...
pounding head,
disoriented,
trying to lose it in Bob Marley's music
or a paperback volume of "the beach,"
a few lines of cocaine,
a protected tumble with a woman,
opium smoked
with a tattooed old Thai ninja
(for which I hold a flash-light
on a heroin-making session)

all around near
to death and disaster,
still eating the poisonous tuna every day,
doing a waltz with Parvati
as nymphs stand
on the glow-blue waves
and let their bone instruments sound
melodies confused and profound