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)