Part II – To Carve Out the Soul of An Elephant.

I've had just enough time to...   see how life was breathed into the elephants of wood.

Taken in a handicraft shop on the way to the River Kwai from Bangkok.

To carve an elephant

First, feel its might pulsating

Under your finger tips

Feel its gentleness

Feel its strength

Feel its tenderness

Towards its young

Feel its complexity

Feel its friendship

Feel its relationship

With its herd

Feel its rage

Feel its anxiety

Feel its freedom

In the wild

Dream what it dreams

See what it sees

Feel what it feels

Under its skin

Your hand will know when it is ready

When its spirit course through your vein

When tears well up in your eyes

As you touch the soul of the royal beast

Part I – I Dreamt of Elephants

I've had just enough time to...   dream of elephants.

Found this colourful elephant during one of my aimless wandering in Bangkok

I dreamt of elephants

One stood in my way

And would not budge

No matter how I pushed

And huffed and puffed

I used all my strength plus my will

But what is it to an elephant’s bulk

There are things that cannot be pushed

Like an elephant that refused to move

I walked to the elephant’s ear

Whispered into it earnestly

And saw its eyes blinked

It listened to the stories

Dredged from my belly

Pushed itself off the ground

And walked away just like that

I dreamt of elephants and learnt

The only way you can move an elephant

Is to move its heart

_______

The Elephant Song - Kamahl

Tell me said the elephant 

Tell me brothers if you can 

Why all the world is full of creatures 

Yet we grow in fear of man 

Tell me said the elephant 

tell me why this has to be 

we have to run from man and hunter 

never safe and never free 

Pisces Cannot Swim

I've has just enough time to...   swim outside the boundary

Taken in the Maeklong Railway Market Bangkok of fishes uniquely presented for sales

Pisces caught in a vice

Unable to escape.

Out of its element.

Boxed in.

Where is the dream?

Out of ocean

Out of water

Out of space to swim

Out of a land to be free

Is this world an illusion?

Or is it a dream?

Is reality written in the stars?

Or is it sold two for twenty?

Rule by emotion

Kill by cold steel

Misjudge the tide

The water retreat

Pisces are left

Floundering on the beach

_____________

Some times my life it seems like fiction 

Some of the days it's really quite serene 

I'm a living proof of all life's contradictions 

One half's going where the other half's just been 

And I'm a Pisces fish and the river runs through my soul 

I'm a Pisces fish and the river runs through my soul

George Harrison - Pieces Fish

The Young Boxers of Lumpini Stadium.

I've had just enough time to...   watch young boxers fight for their family.

Taken from the ringside in Lumpini Stadium, Bangkok of the young fighters.

“Violence is not the way to a better life.”

Try telling it to these children from the slum.

“It is not!” You insisted “The solution”.

Do you have a better one?

“But it is not right! Having children to fight!”

No it is not. But you live in a different world.

You do not know hunger. You have a roof over your head.

They do know love. Their fists look after their family.

Ironical isn’t it? Love, I mean.

Bashing the daylight out of your opponent so your family gets to eat.

They will bash you too if you get into their ring.

You know what is wrong but you do not know how to put it right.

What good may I ask, is that?

So leave this world of broken noses and bloodied lips,

So you can get some sleep,

In your world where children don’t have to fight to eat.

______

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of ev'ry glove that layed him down

Or cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

"I am leaving, I am leaving"

But the fighter still remains

Simon And Garfunkel The Boxer

Before The Red Gate.

I've have had just enough time to...   pause at The Red Gate.

Taken of myself by myself wearing a T-shirt bought from Bangkok.

Before the Red Gate,

Only one choice to be made.

Enter or escape.