leader's lament

… as I fly over the South China Sea

leaving Ha Noi below

I don't look back

I don't want the small marihuana plastic bags

The cheap boom boom

Take me anywhere

… as I look out of the window and see the lake

and wish it would rain again

even on the brand new taxi

taking me to the airport

in the serious faces of the martyrs

and the empty bookstores

the skinless alleyways, the street beer

the pagodas that look like warm, tender, golden wounds in the mist of the tropical sunset,

in the clueless halls of the expensive malls in French town

the feet of the 4 meter tall Buddha are so chubby

and I would love to rest my boiling head between them

sleep over the dried up lotus flowers

the fake money and all those boxes for donations

echoes of the fishermen rain pools

postcards to far away

so far away that it seems impossible

even to imagine them

once that you get surrounded

parasited

wrapped

in this cotton-like heat

with all the songs coming out from the

karaokes and the crowed tin shops

and the ricksaws driver with a Vietcong helmet

that just wants to give you a ride anywhere

and some of his water tobacco pipe

nights coughing

barefoot kids playing on the street

dragon fruits

phoenix feathers

half-naked animal-headed goddesses

that dance in the middle of the fields

in their magic gasoline capsules that burn and then turn

to smoke and get to your lungs

right bellow the military controlled mausoleum of the old leader

who is now under 30 meters of stones

and marble

quiet

under the air conditioning

wishing nobody else was here