Cracker Jack Box Poem I don’t wear my pocket watch anymore it reminds me of my age, 73, soon more, outdated gadget, time hanging where moving parts below don’t belong nor work anymore. I don’t like to think about endings. Age is a Cracker Jack box with no face, modern speed dial, no toy inside, when it stops, no salute, just pops.  Lesson:  “What young men want to do all night takes older men all night to do.”  South Chicago Night    Night is drifters, sugar rats, street walkers, pickpockets, pimps,insects, Lake Michigan perch, neon signs blinking half the bulbs burned out.  Young Couple-@ Heart Attack Greasy Grill  I was a little boy, tad hillbilly son, patterned then in present tense, hardly old enough tall enough to work nor notice if I had pubic hair -large or small endowment growing up self-conscious about short comings narrow chest.  Just a teen aged nighttime boy looking 4 a part-time hook up-little girl play, with a five-card stud.  Preacher daddy raised me, back-seat Christian boy low on faith high on doobie rolled cigarettes.  I took my 1st job, pancake flipper@ Heart Attack–Greasy Grill, 24-7pocket coins 4 tips, a few greasy dollars, pancake short stack, secret menu was that boss’s daughter, blood on hands,my bun busted now stale, stained, & baked. Eliminate lines unessential: waitress injected me some spice old time recipe.  Unknown Poet from Rue Montpelier  I warned you darts with advice strong words tripping over emotions like an imbecile- so you think you’re Leonard Cohen loving some naked Nancy in a cluttered matchbox apartment overlooking European culture simulated, above some obscure narrow Montreal street? For your information, straight poetics from insanities Almanac, Leonard Cohen died years ago in a twisted pickle poem he entitled “Narcissism.”  Do you and your welfare lover desire to be the 2nd generation, deceased, unnoticed, unheard of, unwarranted for failure artists inside this thin, onion-skinned wall dingy with your dreams? I warned you darts with advice,tapering off with your impotence.  Michael Lee Johnson lived 10 years in Canada during the Vietnam era and is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada.  Today he is a poet, freelance writer, amateur photographer, and small business owner in Itasca, Illinois.  Mr. Johnson published in more than 1092 new publications, his poems have appeared in 39 countries, he edits, publishes 10 poetry sites.  Michael Lee Johnson, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prize awards poetry 2015/1 Best of the Net 2016/2 Best of the Net 2017, 2 Best of the Net 2018. 194 poetry videos are now on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/poetrymanusa/videos.  Editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Moonlight Dreamers of Yellow Haze:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1530456762; editor-in-chief poetry anthology, Dandelion in a Vase of Roses available here   https://www.amazon.com/dp/1545352089. Editor-in-chief Warriors with Wings:  the Best in Contemporary Poetry, http://www.amazon.com/dp/1722130717.

Over 200 years ago, William Wordsworth thought poetry was “emotion recollected in tranquility.”  More recently in “An Argument with Wordsworth” Wendy Cope has observed that while there is plenty of emotion to go around, “there’s a serious shortage of tranquility in which to recollect it.” (Cope’s poem is included in a collection of responses made by female poets to male-dominant perspectives over time—The Muse Strikes Back: A Poetic Response by Women to Men, eds., Katherine McAlpine and Gail White, Story Line Press, 1997). In many volumes of fine poetry Carol Smallwood has taken up the challenges faced by poets who wish they could eek out at least some tranquil time, and she has found great power in her observation of everyday experiences. In her latest collection, Patterns: Moments in Time, she not only stirs powerful emotions but fulfills Wordsworth’s famous goal to present “ordinary things” to the mind “in an unusual aspect.” Smallwood’s poems re-create ordinary events, places, and experiences for her readers who then find or make even more new patterns through closer observation and sharpened imagination.

The structure of this collection bookends the variety of the many ways it is possible to see in fresh ways what we already experience nearly every day. The Prologue sets the stage for how even a day’s most monotonously ordinary events can be imprinted with fresh and lasting imagery. In “Driving into Town,” pine trees that have fallen into snow become “filled green cellophane toothpicks/ next to slim bare-limbed trees/ as if at a cocktail party” (17).  Will that allow you to take an ordinary drive without perking up ever again? Nothing fancy on this morning drive or in the stop at the car wash where a routine customer becomes a “strange woman driver” and “green hula girl plastic strips rotated/ warm water streams each side the/long empty fogged car wash tunnel’—at last tossing the car out of the tropic back into the snow “to make a solitary track of white” (23). Routine car washes are over. “Grandmother Said” transforms the most routine needle-and-thread hours into creative energy that renews the earth.  The oldest doll in the collection, Betsy is “entirely fine” as she sits resiliently for so long “as an anchor and a lifeline” (89). The penultimate poem in the volume, “Rain Began Hitting the Window,” begins by quoting T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” With memories flooding in, the rain brings the speaker closer to the knowledge and acceptance that we will become part of the soil we love with Aunt Hester who would “see I wore Clorox-clean underwear” and Uncle Walt who would somewhere still be saying “I got a wife who would bleach the hell out of the robes of God Almighty” (99).  Of course the earth spins, the wind blows and the house wraps itself around all that is folded into the earth—and it all comes back around again as if new: “As part of the soil—my exploration just begun, I’d know for the very first time” (100).  A prototypical pattern of whirling cumulus clouds brings the challenge of the “Epilogue” to choose one cloud “to secure the secret of time and space” (103).

Formally, the villanelle is the perfect poetic pattern to circle around and back to the place one started: renewed, surprised, refreshed. Repeating rhymes and refrains set off on a quest that meanders through new places, yet winds its back at the starting point with the freshness of shifting perspective and context. It’s the persistence and musical patterns that “language” their way to penetrating insights while always seeming to circle back and yet deeper into what is seen and felt to be effervescently fresh. “A Villanelle for Betsy” is vintage Smallwood. The poem revisits a very old doll with a cracked head who, we learn, has been for some time “an anchor, an unfailing lifeline” (89). She sits patiently through all.  She sits proudly through the patterns of repetition that reinforce resolve that is known to be “entirely fine.” “The Wonder Spot” examines an educational tourist spot unlike any other on earth that takes us beyond school bringing change that we become convinced is “undeniable” (29). Another breakthrough to what is remarkable in the mundane is “Grandmother Said” where the best uses of a needle and thread turnout to be staving off loneliness (69).

The villanelle follows rules exactly as does “the way to row” in a “tradition set long ago” (21).  Without any doubt “It is the Rule,” (“A Matter of Rowing,” 21). Ambiguity receives its charge from understanding through rules “how many ways” something can be read (“Ambiguity,” 87). “Hopscotch” where the chalk marks seem indelible, impervious, defies the rules swishing forward “with no thought/of rain—or tomorrow” (48). “A Mainstay” holds on to the rules of hard-cover book publishing, now challenged for so long and ever widely by new forms.  Asked because its girth and weight almost no longer fits if the volume is her bible, the speaker treasures her disheveled work of art, pining that “all books would last, match the quality, continue a mainstay´(19).  Some rules even bring comfort, and when disturbed anxiety follows. “A lack of sleep encourages awareness in the safety of predictability,” the wise speaker reflects; there is fear of the unknown and worries about civility and predictability and a new respect for all that we take for granted—appreciated most when threatened or disrupted (“Safety of Predictability,” 68).  In one more example, a trip to the grocery store celebrates the defining powers of counting and naming in adherence to or defiance of the ubiquitous rules.  Not everyone pauses to observe “which aisle had the strongest overhead fan,” how many brands of Extra Virgin Olive Oil there are to choose from, or feel like an honored guest given precious “time to bask among the plastic plates, marshmallows, and feel proud” (“Shopping Today, 96).

Most of Smallwood’s collections of poems have suggested ways that we can experience more fully what happens just about every day. More than any other, this book looks to individual moments in time to explore the processes through which we recognize patterns already there, create new ones through creative sensibility, and learn how the processes of engagement make us more alive. Quilting pieces recall earlier moments and then themselves become new moments in “a war fought by women with a needle” emerging as a new creation “the next day fresh as a primrose” (“Shallow Boxes,” 27). The book’s Midwestern roots win out as the moments are meant to savor the essence of each seasonal change, building memories that create pattern (“The Seasons,” 40). Savor also the ambiguity of trees “reflected upside down in puddles on my way to school” or puzzling over the syntactical puzzle of how many ways we can read “Sam blew up the door” (“Ambiguity,” 37). Does it matter, many of the poems ask. Are the patterns already there, wherever “there” is, or do we make the patterns “there” or later through memory and imaginative reshaping?  It matters in “Stop Look Listen” when a “sleek red car with large letters NASCAR” turns out to be “NURSECARE with someone flicking a cigarette out the driver’s window” (26). Memories of the nun who uses nonsense to retool becomes profound through proud incantation: “I recall it” (“An Unlikely Introduction,” 41).

Moments in Time is an unobtrusively great book that will sneak up on you, wear well on the coffee table, stay with you, and change the way you experience much that happens every day. Smallwood springs us from some of the traps even good writers and readers can fall into.  In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig has suggested in a well-known quote: “We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness and we call that handful of sand the world.” The poems in Patterns would be happy if we were grabbing any sand at all instead of dozing, but each poem asks us to look closely at what the sand is, how it got in our hands, and how and why we name it the way we do.

This large and roomy collection never loses its focus on the many ways we make moments in time that flourish in memory and last a lifetime. In “Select Moments,” the speaker lies flat in the making-angels-in-the-snow position feeling for movement in the rhythms of life itself, hoping for clues to “what it was all about” and trusting that the moments would make sense: “Surely if I stood tall as possible/ Long enough, tried hard enough/ there’d come hints, some pattern.” And so this long and packed volume meanders patiently to the prologue of cumulus clouds where a focus on one single cloud hopes to “secure the secret of time and space (103).

Faults in the book? Always—but maybe just flawed enough to secure the genuine aesthetic pleasure that requires some imperfection.  The collection might be repetitious at times; some poems maybe try too hard.  Long time Smallwood fans might be disappointed that some poems are reprised from early publication. But the moments that wobble also become part of the haunting and satisfying patterns we carry with us from our reading. Puzzlement, ambiguity, surprises, and the ordinary stuff of an otherwise sleepy afternoon—everything feels just a little less ordinary. The structure of the collection matches the unfolding of renewal steaming out of memories. The feel of the book in one’s hands seems right, the typeset and pristine editing, the soft beauty of the cover design—all these are the work of a Lifetime Achievement Award winner who has much yet in the making.

Ronald Primeau

Professor of English Emeritus, Central Michigan University

Adjunct Instructor, University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee

Carol Smallwood’s Patterns: Moments in Time is available from Word Publishing here.

The Raven’s Daughter by Peggy A. Wheeler

The Raven’s Daughter by Peggy A. Wheeler is yet another exciting winner. This novel is suspense horror and has a bit of the supernatural. This will grab your full attention from the first page to the last and have your adrenaline going into overtime.

Tall Bear Sloan is half Native American and half Irish. She is retired from law enforcement but has worked with the Wicklow Sheriff’s Department in the past as a consultant. When twins start disappearing and turn up murdered, Jake, the Sheriff and Maggie’s very good friend, goes to Maggie and begs her to help in solving the case. At first Maggie will not do it, but eventually she relents. Maggie has dreams that become all too real, and she tries to find explanations for them. Maggie does not believe in anything supernatural or in ghosts. She believes there is always a logical explanation for events that happen.

The dreams Maggie is having now have to do with her destiny and Ravens. The dreams seem to be visions, and she finally accepts that there might be something to her dreams. This book will truly keep you on the edge of your seat and have your adrenaline pumping all the way through. When you think you have it figured out, there is a twist that will surprise you. As with all of Peggy A. Wheeler’s books, this book will captivate you and have you wanting more. This would be perfect for older teens to adults. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it.

Peggy Wheeler’s The Raven’s Daughter is available here.

The Drunk Poem

Ahmad Al-Khatat

I am the drunk poem without rhymes
the bartender asks how I am still surviving
I tell him that I never listen to my heart
but I hear to the voice of my loneliness

I talk less about my miserable life
but when I am drunk, I colour the darkness
and ignore the clouds of my journey
I lie to death when I ask for another chance

The musician plays with a passion
the singer sings with a fine pleasure
the poet writes with crying eyes, and with
a spirit dancing between the lines of the drunk poem

Love will be always arising in my head
if a woman comes to my soundless attention
I will be happy for a temporary moment
I will fly her to my fantasies above the island of peace

I’d Rather Be Alone

I’d rather be alone
then talking to double
-face people I meet
those people will stab-
me until I die on my tears

I’d rather be alone
take my gadgets away
give me a low-cost coffin
I am not physically tired
but mostly emotionally tired

I’d rather be alone
I can’t fly from my sadness
my heart is broken from the
-cage of Baghdad sorrows
the door is open and I’m drunk

I’d rather be alone
waiting to autumn to farewell
-more dreams under the dust
I cried more than a wounded
warrior who will slaughter me

Growing Up

Growing up
we learn more
about the mistakes
we had made before

the only difference
you tend to smile more
than I do, with your wounds
above my sensitive open cuts

you walk into the sunlight
and I run by the blowing leaves
It’s crazy how much love does
I miss you even if we just kissed

Growing up in your eyes
It’s a dream that can be found
anywhere near your breathe
let the people behind me and

-enlighten me on my imaginations
to draw a path that will be the best
map to own you, far from everything
dark, cloudy, or that cause you to cry

My New Bio

Ahmad Al-Khatat was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His work has appeared in print and online journals globally and has poems translated into several languages. He has been nominated for Best of the Net 2018. He is the author of The Bleeding Heart Poet, Love On The War’s Frontline, Gas Chamber, Wounds from Iraq, and Roofs of Dreams. He lives in Montreal, Canada.

OLD AS OLD GROWTH 

I’ve been stuck here awhile

counting the growth rings

on the redwoods he’s hauling
it’s not his fault but I hate him anyway

as I clench my teeth

and squeeze the wheel 
it ain’t just me

you’re slowing down, pal

it’s the way time screeches by

like your brakes

around every downhill curve
finally, the turnout

he eases the big rig in there

and I gun it, sail past

with a honk and a wave
he’s my new best friend my hero

he’s just pulled me

from quicksand
the moments tick by again

a blur like tree trunks

out my window
the moments that stand

between me

and dirt or ashes
and suddenly I wonder

if the favor’s really a favor 
but no matter

I think I see an RV up around the bend
I sigh and slump in my seat

as I settle in for the slow ride

behind my new savior

a bicycle hangs from the back

of this behemoth on wheels

its front tire rotates

ever so slowly 
there’s a lesson here

but I’ll never learn it
you’d have to be old

as old growth to learn that

ONE LESS SOUL

Nan always worried about me being alone—when she still lived in Florida she tried fixing me up

with a young nurse

at her doctor’s office 

showed her my picture

gave her my email address 
(never mind the couple thousand miles

between us…)
poor old woman—she actually thought

I’d be a great catch

for some pretty young thing
she died believing that
now I see

what a shame it is

to not have her around

to believe such a thing
to have one less soul

out in the world

so deluded about me

ROBBED
his name was Rob

“like, to steal”

as he used to joke

and he gave me my first ever snort

and taste of the crystal

in his single wide up in Sun Valley

“Felony Flats” or “Scum Valley”

as we locals call it
it didn’t feel

like anything had been stolen

more as if he’d handed me a key

to unlock a door

I’d never known

could be opened
as we drove to the store for more beer

I swore I could move the stars

the city lights

like chess pieces
where had this ability

been hiding?
some time later

after three days and nights of nonstop partying 

I saw my face in the mirror

after a darkand dehydrated piss
there was definitely something missing

besides about ten pounds of meat from my bones
but from the living room

my new friends

called to me that the pipe was filled

and was I gonna hit this shit

or not?

I turned from my reflection and went out

with a clenched smile

heart racing

fingertips eager to burn

on the blackened hot glass

OBVIOUS

today I say to myself now is now
it is not tomorrow 
or yesterday 
or even five minutes ago
with that stranger’s eyes
staring through me
and this is obvious—
so obvious 
we need reminding of it
like we do
that the earth is below
and the sky above
that the ocean is to the west
and to the east too
and the fire is everywhere 
like a worm of sunshine
crawling through the dark tunnels
of our veins
the shielded chambers
of our hearts

LESSONS LEARNED FROM PAC-MAN
as you run the maze
and gobble up all you can 
invariably, you’ll zig
when you should’ve zagged 

you’ll know it
the instant you turn the corner
as the ghosts close in
to end your brief existence 

it’s easy to forget about them
when you’ve got your eye
on the colorful, shiny fruit

but they’re always closer
and close in faster
than you think

could have
and should have—
why place these nooses
around your own neck?

it’s just a game…
everyone loses eventually 

so don’t kick the machine 
too hard
you’ll get thrown
out of the arcade

Down Under and Far to the East

by:  Norman J. Olson

on October 17, 2019, we packed up and took the #74 bus from Maplewood to MSP for a flight to LAX…  the flights were pretty full, but we got seats on a flight that got in a bit after 4 pm… to get from LAX to our daughter’s house in Riverside, we take the Metrolink which is a commuter train out of LA Union Station…  since there is no train that starts at LAX and the bus would take several hours to get from there to Union Station, the only real option is the Flyaway Bus which is kind of expensive ($9.50 each) and slow at that time of day…  due to rush hour on the insane LA freeways, it takes an hour to get from LAX to Union Station on the Flyaway bus…  the Metrolink however is half price for seniors, so very cheap for us old folks and also fast and efficient… 

so, we got to spend a week with our amazing daughter and her family…  and soak up some of that warm dry Southern California sunshine… 

on Thursday, October 24, we took the Metrolink and Flyaway bus back to LAX and caught the night flight to Sydney, Australia…  we flew Quantas because our favorite airline was sold out, but, it was a real treat to get on their enormous Airbus 380, an entirely double deck plane…  our seats were downstairs, for the 15 hour flight to Sydney… this was our first experience of this gigantic plane and we found it comfortable with a lovely smooth, if a bit long, flight…  we went through a very efficient customs operation at Sydney and got on another big plane, an airbus 333 for the 4 hours from SYD to Perth… 

Perth is a very nice city…  the bus from the airport looked brand new, as did all the buses and trains we rode on…  the city is clean, no litter anyplace…  our hotel was downtown and there was a free shuttle bus around the city center that took us to the train station for day trips and around for food at the many Asian eateries located in the area…  the entire city was nice with parks everywhere and no sign of the armies of homeless people you see in American cities…  the Aussies were friendly and helpful to a person and we met tourists from Malaysia and elsewhere but none from USA… the first day, we took the train and bus to Rockingham where we hoped to get the ferry to Penguin Island, a sanctuary where the small “fairy” penguins live…  when we got there, we found that the ferry was not running that day due to rough seas, so instead, we went to Rockingham beach…  it was a hot day, in the upper 80s, but there was a nice breeze off the ocean, so we found a restaurant looking out over the beach and sipped a cool drink while watching the families playing on the beach…  it turned out to be the grand opening of the new beach development of walkways and parks that they called the “foreshore” and so we watched the talent show and enjoyed the warm shade before heading back to the train…

the next day, we did get on the ferry to see the little penguins…  there is a discovery center on the island where tourists can see rescue penguins who cannot live in the wild…  the wild penguins are at sea fishing most of the day, so it is rare for tourists to see them…  these little penguins are adorable as one could expect and following a tip from the ranger to look under the boardwalk stairs, we actually saw a wild penguin hanging out in the shade of the wooden staircase that went to the lookout at the top of the island…  so looking out from his hiding place, with his head cocked sideways, he seemed as curious about us as we were about him…  anyway, the ranger said we were very lucky to have seen one in the wild and we were thrilled…  we saw many seagulls and large pelicans nesting near the wooden paths and stairways around the island…  on the seaward side, the waves were crashing on the jagged rocks and on a lovely warm day, it was a beautiful sight…  after we left the island and were walking back the mile or so on the sidewalk that ran along a grassy area which bordered the sea, to catch the bus back to the train station, we saw a sign that said we should not leave the sidewalk because there were poisonous snakes in the grass…  we had no problem obeying that sign!!

the next day, we took the train and bus to Caversham wildlife park, which is located about a mile from the bus stop in the middle of a huge area of bush called Whiteman Park…  we had the path to ourselves and on the walk across the park saw many wild kangaroos…  they were in family groups sitting in the shade looking at us…  the Australians were not impressed when we told them about seeing kangaroos, as they are apparently everywhere and are often considered a bit of a nuisance in urban areas…  the wildlife park was full of Kangaroos and other Aussie animals… so, we had a super afternoon walking among the kangaroos who are very docile and used to tourists…

the next day the weather changed from hot and dry to cool (highs in the 60s) and intermittently rainy… and we spent the day at Kings Park, a huge botanical garden that is on a hillside overlooking the city and the Swan River that runs past Perth, about 15 miles to the sea and is wide like a harbor…  we enjoyed the huge trees and the plethora of flowering bushes and gardens…  as well as the scenic views of the glass and steel towers of downtown Perth, the busy ferry docks and the fresh breeze coming off the Indian Ocean… 

the next day, we took a ferry to Freemantle, the port for Perth, a medium size port with the usual cranes and container ships being loaded and unloaded…  Freemantle is a gentrified area with a nice beach and lots of trendy shops and restaurants…  it was a little chilly for beach time so we took the free bus around the town and had a nice dinner at a little Italian place…

the next morning, we took the train back to Freemantle with our bags and walked from the train station to the cruise pier, about one kilometer…  there we got on a Princess cruise ship, an older medium size ship, for a 12 night cruise ending up at Singapore via Malaysia and Thailand…  we did not see any other Americans for the whole trip…  but we got on well with the Aussies…  we had formal dinner for the early seating, which is usually sold out by time we book a cruise, so it was fun to get to know the six other people at our dinner table…  they were all Australians and were a bit older than us… this was not a young cruise by any means!!  and they were all avid shoppers for jewelry, especially pearls, so, it was kind of fun for us to learn a bit about that as we are not jewelry people…  they knew all the best places in the ports to get the best genuine pearls at great prices…  so, after ports, they would be wearing their new jewelry purchases…

we spent the sea days in the warm, increasingly tropical weather, sitting on deck reading and drawing…  the sea was rocky for the first few days but then very calm for the rest of the voyage…  the Indian Ocean looks, from the deck of a ship, very much like the other oceans we have been on, which is to say, a vast expanse of deep blue water churned to turquoise with the passage of the ship…  as we got close to the equator, we saw large numbers of flying fish, skimming away from the ship’s bow wave…  the first port was Lombok, Indonesia, an island near Bali…  we hired a taxi to take us around the island, but we did not get a good driver…  he spent the whole tour trying to get us to spend money with his friends at vastly inflated rates for guided tours we did not want…  and by the end of the tour, he was literally begging for more money…  the actual price we had agreed to was a fair price for his services and the same as others paid…  finally, the driver took us to see some monkeys at a monkey forest, but again we were surrounded by his friends begging for money…  in this case, teens in school uniforms who said they wanted the money to buy cigarettes…  well, the whole day was kind of a bummer, but we were glad to be shed of that guy and get back on the ship…  tours that one arranges on the dock are usually great but every once in a while you hit a sour experience…  it is part of travel…

the next stop was a wonderful day in port…  the ship was docked at Kalang and we took the ship’s bus into the city of Kuala Lumpur, called KL by the locals…  wow, what an amazing city…  for some reason, I was not expecting much in KL, but it turned out to be a huge modern city with enormous, new skyscrapers downtown, full seemingly of prosperous busy citizens…  the anchors of the downtown area are the massive Petronas Towers which rise out of an enormous shopping mall to about the height of the Empire State Building…  with towering glass and steel buildings all around…  there is a park with large ficus trees, lawns, fountains and a nice modern playground right at the base of these towers…  we walked around the park and saw all kinds of people, moms and dads with babies in strollers, business men and women striding along with their brief cases, dark suits, conservative dresses and neckties, a few older people, some teens and young couples…  it was a busy place… I thought that must have been what Manhattan looked like to tourists in the fifties, an Oz of skyscrapers and busy commerce…  but last time I was in New York, or LA, or San Francisco, or Houston, the downtowns were full of armies of homeless people with shopping carts full of junk…  sleeping rough, or junkies passed out in the doorways…  dirt and trash everywhere…  aging infrastructure…  old beat up buses and subways…  while in KL, everything seemed perfectly maintained…  there was no trash anywhere and in the areas of the city I saw, none of the poverty and homelessness that plague American downtowns…  this was true in Australia too and of course, even more so in Singapore…  I saw a tee shirt that said, “the sun sets in the west”…  and in those glittering far eastern cities, they believe that they are the future…  there was no animosity toward us, in fact, when people found out we were from the US, they were excited to tell us they had studied there or hoped to go there in the future for a visit… but, I could not help but compare the glittering, rich and modern city of KL with the dirty and crumbling cities in America…  I don’t really have much knowledge on these topics, so maybe they just hide their problems better than we do, but the difference in how KL and Singapore and the cities in Australia look and feel compared to US cities seemed striking to me…

our next port was Penang where we took a bus tour around the city of Georgetown, visited one of those lovely, golden Buddhist temples with a huge reclining statue of Buddha and statues of the Buddhas for the various years of the Chinese calendar…  although Malaysia is a Moslem country there is a minority Buddhist population, mostly of Chinese extraction…  we also saw a lovely mosque near the port with a blue roof…  this was a resort city, I think, so had souvenir shops etc. for the tourists…  we stopped at a chocolate factory to get some of the serious dark chocolate they sell… it was a smaller city than KL but seemed busy and prosperous…

the next stop was the resort area of Langkawi, Malaysia…  there, we joined up with two Australian couples we met on shore and rented a skiff for a three hour tour…  this skiff had a huge outboard motor so we took off across the water at a very high rate of speed…  it was a warm day with a bit of rain, but the boat had a roof and it was so warm that the rain felt good…  just out from the port, the sea is dotted with small islands…  some have high cliffs and some are more flat but all are covered with tropical vegetation and so speeding across the water between these island was a spectacular adventure…  one stop was on an island where there were a lot of monkeys…    we bought some bananas at the stand by the beach so we could feed the monkeys like the other people were doing…  most of the other visitors were school groups or Malaysian tourists from other parts of Malaysia…  well, the monkeys loved the bananas and would try to grab them out of the bag or out of your hand…  then we went to an island of towering cliffs…  the boat pilot threw some fish parts he had brought along in the water and huge fish eagles came swooping down from the cliff tops to grab the fish parts out of the water…  after the tour, we went to the town and walked around looking at the resorts and the tourist shops…

our next port was Phuket, Thailand, which is one of the best beaches on this planet…  we went to a local hotel and for a small sum spent at their restaurant for cold drinks and snacks, they let us use beach chairs, so we sat in the shade of a huge tree looking out over the beach…  we were surprised to see that as the tide went out, we could see that the underwater part of the beach was covered with rocks, but we had no interest in swimming anyway…  and so sat and watched the boats go by, looking out at the islands which were covered with tropical jungle…  it was very hot but, there was a lovely breeze off the ocean and so we spent a beautiful afternoon sitting in the shade…

after Phuket, the ship had another sea day and then we wound up in Singapore…   Singapore is a large, ultra modern city, a world center of banking and commerce…  it is said that one in three containers that goes anywhere on the sea goes through Singapore…  the subways are fast, efficient, clean and look new…  the people are friendly and courteous, often offering us or other elderly people a seat, for example, if the train was crowded…  everybody on the train is on their phone and the whole city is very high tech…  there are a lot of young adults on the train dressed to the height of fashion with the cool, windswept hairdos favored by the young Asians…  there seemed to be a huge mall at every train station with endless shops for high fashion clothes and make up… the malls are a respite from the blistering heat and humidity of this city which is exactly on the equator… 

we spent a whole day at the Singapore zoo which is very spectacular with orangutans swinging in the trees above the paths were people are walking…  and a night tour in which you can see all the nocturnal animals busy about their nighttime animal routines…  the zoo seems to be making great efforts to preserve species that are going extinct in the wild and all of the exhibits talk about the need for humans to make an effort to preserve our biodiversity…  another day was spent at the bird park…  I had developed a cold that day, so found the day somewhat difficult, as the temperature was near 90 degrees and the humidity was near 100 percent…  we also spent days exploring Sentosa Island, a beach resort area near our hotel and Marina Bay park, a large botanical garden near the iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, a huge structure of three curved skyscrapers topped with a sort of a surf board looking structure with a park at the top nearly 700 feet above the street…

Singapore is a gourmand’s delight because, there is literally food everywhere… from terrific expensive restaurants to what they call hawker stands which are street side set ups, usually involving a cluster of small restaurants and tables under some kind of roof selling usually various Indian, Chinese or Malaysian food…  we ate twice at the Lau Pa Sat Hawker Center, which some say has the best satay in Singapore…  in the middle of the business district, surrounded by wall street type towers, this center has a roof with ancient wrought iron pillars and supports…  around the outside are satay stands where the satays are cooked over smoky wood fires… these glazed bits of meat on a stick are ordered from one of the waiters who will find you a table and take care of your order…  we like to get naan bread with curry sauce from one of the Indian stalls to make a kind of sandwich of the satay while most people just eat them off the stick…  anyway, this was the best eating we had on the whole trip…    even though the food on the ship was terrific…  on last Monday, when it came time to leave Singapore, I had made a plan to fly China Eastern Airlines to Shanghai where we could catch our favorite airline back to the USA…  Americans need a visa to enter China, which I knew, unless they are making a connecting flight in which case, they can stay for one day…  I did not realize that to take advantage of this one needed a confirmed space ticket rather than a listing on the kind of employee passes we travel under, so when we got to the airport, we found that without a visa, we could not go through Shanghai…  fortunately, I had a backup plan so with some quick work on my phone, I was able to get us listed on a Korean Air flight that left in two hours to Seoul (where Americans do not need visas) to make a very tight connection to our favorite airline and a direct flight from Seoul to MSP…  well, after we got to Seoul a half hour early, we made a run through the airport and got on the flight to MSP and so, 11 hours later, after a great circle flight over Japan, the Kamchatka peninsula, central Alaska, the Yukon territory and down across Canada, we got to MSP several hours before we left Seoul (due to the date line and the time changes)…  tired and jet lagged, but glad to be back in Maplewood…  from 88 degrees to 35 degrees in about 20 hours all told… 

my take away from this trip is that as Americans, we need to step up our game a bit…