Cambodian Cote D'Azur
“Cambodia is
Cambodia but not really
Cambodia.”
That’s what some say
As the years roll on
Forty years or so since Pol Pot and his pals posted
‘Year 0”,
Sent the whole thing to the wash,
And it came out
Red.
So now I recline on
Sun built beaches
Night into Day
Sandwiched between gaggles of
I-pod armed youth
Just escaped from a
Lifelong sentence,
At least for a summer,
Dazzling at spectacle like
Fire girls twirling Prometheus though
Black holes in moonlit nights
Starless
Sipping
50 cent beer
While the unmistakable drift of
Marijuana
And Xanadu
Sifts my senses into
Now.
While on the hill
There lies a Frenchman,
Freshly stabbed,
Epee-like
By a speed crazed barmaid
On a pockmarked lane where
Money meets desire
In the still born heat
Of an Asian night
Falling.
.
Which makes me reconnoiter
Deadwood and Dodge
Earp and James
When law went desperate
Beneath a hangman’s noose
And the certain pall
Of afternoon death lay
Reeling
In the century or so since
The requiem.
But can this be their
Cote d’Azur as
Newly dubbed Khmer warriors like
Sable Palms
Surge skywards beside the
Sensual rhythm of
Casuarina trees
Purging the past to conjure
Bygone glory a
Millennium or so ago
At a place just up the road named
Angkor Wat
Soon to be renamed
Disneyland Cambodia?
Jeff Troyer (2009)
Copyright © Jeff Troyer | Year Posted 2010
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