{"id":3759,"date":"2014-07-02T16:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3759"},"modified":"2014-07-02T16:05:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T16:05:18","slug":"the-pied-fantail-the-magnolia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3759","title":{"rendered":"The Pied Fantail, The Magnolia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pied Fantail, The Magnolia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone who submits to his own impulses is bound for trouble\u00a0<\/i>
\n(inscription at Loha Prasat temple, Bangkok)<\/p>\n

Accustomed to live under
\ncorrugated zinc, in transparent houses,
\nthe afternoon is a gated community
\nof silence and butterflies, finches in
\npairs, moving among the leaves, until
\nthe wind and rain return, moving
\nthe world into darkened white noise.<\/p>\n

When night falls, the house opposite
\nis porous with children\u2019s screams, the swoop
\nand fall of intonation, and birds call like
\nsingle, ricocheting stones across the gravel.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

As it thunders, somewhere among
\nthe bushes, a bird whistles its answer.
\nThen the rain cascades
\nand the temperature does not fall,
\nonly rain and the wind falling.
\nA small crocodile circumspectly swims
\nin the pale green drainage ditch
\nbeside the verandah. The thunder
\nruns; lightning holds the sky.
\nThe birds are silent, the butterflies,
\nhuge and solitary, have stopped.
\nUntil a moorhen with curved beak
\nworks and reworks the brief storm pool
\nbeneath the trees. The small crocodile
\nslides from the bank back into the stream.<\/p>\n

The bloom of the storm over,
\namong the foliage, a frog begins
\nto pink, pink. For a while, we all sit out
\nexperiencing it, the couple in the end room,
\nthe driver in the middle room, and us.
\nPerhaps, to the driver, I am the silent farang
\nshe sleeps with, and what he does not know,
\nhow she kisses me hard on the mouth,
\ncups the back of my head in her hand,
\npulls my face into hers.
\nSo I am glad that she speaks
\neasily to the others, and I sit outside
\nknowing our intimacy and how fond
\nof her I am. In the night, we wake,
\nentangled and sexless; outside,
\ncicadas ceaselessly rake gravel.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

On the Khao San Road,
\nthe Guns and Roses t-shirts
\nhum along to Coldplay,
\nand the girl with the perfect
\nline from hips to buttocks
\nwalks with a slight limp, a white top
\nand soft clinging trousers.<\/p>\n

The tourist\u2019s silent conversation
\nis with those at home; but
\nthe neighbour asks,
\n\u2018What does your farang eat?\u2019<\/p>\n

Breakfast is deep in the hotel area;
\nEggs fried in a shallow dish and
\nheated bread with sugar and \u2018margarine\u2019.
\nShe draws a map then drives to park.
\nI cross the street to the fish market.
\nMany of the fish are still alive;
\na catfish moves, its body slashed,
\nits innards open to the air. Toads
\nand crayfish move in their nets.
\nIn some cans, there is water.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The monastery complex, garish
\nand crude. The lake fetid and torpid;
\nin the shallows, snake fish hang
\nunmoving, terrapins paddle
\nslowly on the surface. All the fish,
\nit seems, turn at the surface to gasp
\nfor air. On tiled terrace, in bare feet,
\nI tread on the headless moth
\nred ants are scavenging and
\nmoving noiselessly across the tiles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s raining quietly on the temple, on all nine
\nstoreys: the first floor praises rural life,
\na mouldering, broken loom, a fish trap,
\ncabinets with farming implements.
\nThe murals, largely blue and white
\nwith rural scenes; in one, a couple
\nshare a bed, the woman asleep
\nand the man wielding a large sword.
\nThe floors above have statues
\nof gold abbots. On the ground floor,
\nin front of the relic of the Buddha, people
\ncome with \u2018monk offerings\u2019, the women
\nnext to me have toilet rolls for theirs
\n\u2013 \u2018why not?\u2019 she would say.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In sunshine over forested hills,
\na stain of clouds rises and falls.
\nAt the temple, on the plate
\nthat describes the lintel,
\na spider makes a web.<\/p>\n

The mynahs in their cage clean
\ntheir mute from their feet;
\nthe dog becomes dry, atavistic,
\nscruffy, testicular. It seems only
\nfinches squabble in the bush and only
\nlittle egrets fish in the salt pan.<\/p>\n

The butterflies, black and gold,
\ncome dipping down the far side
\nof the hedge, round the gate post
\nto probe the cautious florets
\nof deep orange on the garden side.<\/p>\n

A pair of pied fantails (Rhipidura javanica)
\n– \u2018The pied fantail ends with three white half dots
\non the edge of its tail; most charming and sweet little birds.\u2019
\n– skitter and play round trees in the garden.
\nIf one is feeding the other, oh, it is difficult
\nto know which is which as food seems
\npassed from one to the other before it is swallowed.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

The Mekong\u2019s rushing wide kilometre;
\nLaos on the far bank,
\na thousand miles from the sea.<\/p>\n

In the soap operas, everything is
\nexpensive: houses, interiors, clothes,
\nthe strikingly separate heroes and villains;
\nin early sunshine, father interviews
\nson beside the wide river
\nwith vegetation flowing;
\ngirl-next-door\u2019s with boy-next-door
\nwhose mother\u2019s died expansively,
\nher funeral broadcast over two whole episodes.
\nThe actor who plays the girl is only fifteen.
\nThe actors all shed tears with real facility.
\nMelodrama, expensive interiors
\nand lashings of winsome, that
\nand a good shoot-out.<\/p>\n

How early the men rise
\non a Sunday morning, to sit
\non the back of a Hilux with the others,
\nwith their heads swathed in towels.
\nThey stand with garlands
\nof jasmine at traffic lights, or wave
\ntraffic towards them to sell yam,
\nrice and coconut packed in bamboo,
\nthat\u2019s made since five, in the hut
\nfive hundred metres from the highway;
\nhow they run to get the prime spot
\nin front of the other four.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

When all I need is to walk
\namong the trees, look at the leaves,
\nfeel their sharp edges against
\nmy finger tips, tongue, eyelids;
\nwalk deeper,<\/p>\n

\u2026 like the flower of magnolia
\nopened upon the tree,
\n\u2026like magnolia placed
\nin the pocket of language
\nto rot, die, lose its scent.
\n\u2026 like magnolia,<\/p>\n

listen for the wind
\nmoving the branches, feel the divots
\nfull of water, my footing fail,
\nmy trouser legs soaked, muddied, thin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Pied Fantail, The Magnolia Anyone who submits to his own impulses is bound for trouble\u00a0 (inscription at Loha Prasat temple, Bangkok) Accustomed to live under corrugated zinc, in transparent houses, the afternoon is a gated community of silence and butterflies, finches in pairs, moving among the leaves, until the wind and rain return, moving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[303,306],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Pied Fantail, The Magnolia - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3759\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Pied Fantail, The Magnolia - 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