Venice masks

Saturday 9 July 2022

Addicted - Angkarn Kalyanapong

Scoop up the sea, pour it in a bowl,
and dine on it and rice,
reach out, gather some stars,
and mix them with salt to eat.

Look at crabs and oysters dancing with joy
and playing nostalgic songs,
or chameleons and galley worms flying
to eat the sun and moon!

A toad climbs on a golden palanquin
and floats around Heaven on special tour.
He goes together with a bull frog,
and the angels there escape, into the shell of a coconut.

Earthworms woo maids,
the Apsaras who sleep in Heaven,
and every amoeba
sticks up his nose because of his very high status.

The gods are bored with celestial abodes
so leap down to eat the dung on earth.
This waste matter they praise,
for its taste is most splendid and can't be described.

Groves of trees and forests
can talk deep philosophy.
Sawdust in its sleep
can calculate the weight of shadows.

Anyone who doesn't go up to Heaven
and remains below on earth is stupid,
for the heavy would be light,
and the world is very, very drunk.  

Angkarn Kalyanapong (1926 - 2012) Thailand 
Translated by S. Sivaraksa and H. Woodward

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