A Wait In Kuala Lumpur Poem by P. J. Radford

Sprawled on my bed in my KL cell
I search through my head to note
this heaviness in the dark.
Some sounds of life beyond the whirring of my
ceiling fan, this fan that like a mother does
comfort me, like a lover does caress my skin
with its soft touch, like an old friend serves
so nicely to take the cutting edge off the
silence, but not overmuch.
just a touch.
as such.
And if I walked outside the stars
would hold some familiarity for me.
And if I talked beside the stairs
with the Chinese boy I may see my humanity more plainly.
But no. I lay just so.
Tickle goes the breeze on my legs stark naked
and my mind registers life still existing in the
lower extremities.
Malays living quite at ease
in their replica Los Angeles,
but just aways across the seas
suffer the fleeing refugees
in open boats - once Vietnamese
and now no rights, if you please.
I move to meditate, a posture for no thought,
and joy floods in all unsought as I perceive this
pebble's pirhouettes, its poor and its plaintives,
their pleasures and pain, pollution, paranoia, their
leaders insane, all flowing together through Life's
one-way game.
I search through my head to note
this heaven that is lying stark.