KyiMayKaung

KyiMayKaung

Working elephants on the Mae Rim Road.
The famous writer Ludu Daw Ah Mar said:
Where the great elephants go
roads
appear.
Convinced she was right, she started writing –
in the vernacular
not in stilted flowery
traditional prose.
She threw away in full view of everyone, a ball pen, given to her
by the supposedly moderate general, now deposed
since 2004. He’s now himself
under house arrest.
An internal power struggle, in the junta
the permanent purge.

On the Mae Rim Road
the elephants
no longer do
real work, lifting, pulling
pushing teak logs, worth $10,000 each
in 1982.
But now I no longer know the price --
as am considering divorce and no longer
talking
to the teak man.
Since 1988, Thailand has had
a teak export ban. The Thai general immediately
made
an agreement, to exploit, neighboring Burma’s
teak forests. Suited everyone fine
except the Burmese people; the students who fled
to Thailand after the army clampdown of 1988; the ethnic peoples
on the border.

On the Mae Rim Road
the elephants entertain tourists
going around clumsily in circles, holding each other’s
tails, gingerly in their trunks.
The mahouts are all Karen[1]
have given each elephant
a Karen name.

The younger mahouts are
kinder. An old mahout
has so struck at his elephant
with his chun probe, the edges
of the elephant’s ears, are in tatters
storm tossed
banana leaves. Maybe only I
see this.

Everyone else is too busy
rushing around taking photos
and clapping.

I’ve read, before captive elephants
were taught, to paint
they were so bored
in a western zoo
they masturbated and tried
to fornicate
with the red fire hydrant.

On the Mae Rim Road
the elephants no longer
do real work, but it’s not bad
my tourist guide says:
Easier than hauling logs. Is painting.
My guide Tang who speaks
English.

Simultaneously
I am exploring
retiring in Thailand
but it might get
too sleepy, too boring
too political and
too dangerous.

The elephants on the Mae Rim
Road, no longer do real work.
They entertain.
Maybe some have been extras
in the film
Suryothai.[2]

Copyright Kyi May Kaung
Chiangmai, Thailand.
12-19-2006







[1] An ethnic group living in Burma and Thailand called Kayin or Karen.
[2] A popular film, sponsored by the Thai royal family, edited by Francis Ford Coppola and allegedly very anti-Burmese, but I did not find it so objectionable. To me it appeared to focus more on the court intrigues of the Ayuthia royal family and to blame them for the Burmese invasion. Suryothai was a Thai queen who went to war on an elephant to help her husband and was killed.