Best Cambodia Poems
sari of morn floats
draping temples with orchids,
as Angkor Wat blows its mist
to flame coned incense;
and in the still of homage
pilgrims wander with their gods.
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
-----------------
May 2018 Standard Contest of Brian Strand
( This poem is about the ' Killing Fields' of Cambodia, 1975-79, where as many as 2 million people were murdered by the communist Khmer Rouge. I taught in Phnom-Penh from '73-74, and never met a people I liked more.)
They haunt me still,
the brown children laughing, always laughing,
the women voluptuous, languid,
their movement almost an invitation....
Even the traffic policeman:
crisp, clean, proud in uniform,
moving with ballerina grace
as hordes of cyclos and mopeds
and the occasional automobile
pirouette endlessly about him,
impatient bees made quiescent
by surreal beauty of white-gloved arms
cutting through thick tropical air....
Everywhere was grace, gentleness:
temples incandescent at dawn,
with ant trails of orange-robed monks
cradling their pot-belly begging bowls,
the patient women standing by the road
to lump rice into the begging bowls,
the monks always staring blankly ahead
as the women bowed low in reverence,
grateful their gift of life was taken....
And oh, how wondrous it was:
an accident in the street, yet no anger,
no bile--forgiveness, felt before thought,
thought before uttered....
How could such a people murder?
No, not murder-- slaughter!
Their mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles,
teachers, priests, friends and children too.
Change temples of peace into charnel-houses?
Schools of knowledge into abattoirs?
They photographed every butchered lamb,
like the devil's children on holiday,
and decorated the classroom walls,
a show-and-tell of horror and despair.
Why? Why?--
Why such pain on
such a gentle people?
Why did God hide His face
while the world turned its back?
Fifty,
fifty,
fifty
years
and still...
still they haunt me.
This evening I listen to a Rock 'n' Roll band
Their track is Civil War, as our world now expands
To us it's the same size but to others they despise
For the want of greed exists in their killer hungry eyes
Where do I start, to say of their evil spread
A different starvation leaving the world in evil dread
It's not our today's but our yesterdays years
That our history tells us, of our everlasting torn tears
Cambodia, the Lebannon, and Sri Lanka's Indian sun
Rebels who demand better at the end of a gun
Guaetamala and Peru with their Shining Path
Villagers in terror decrying it's ever last
Democracy is our power in it's controllable exist
Like the Shining above, how long will our future paths persist
Recent news in the Arabic World, has taken tyrants by surprise
For decades they have stolen with their torturing infidel lies
I could go deeper and deeper to describe these evils acts
In wanton blood spillage, to increase civil war torn facts
For this is the world we live in, it appears we determine to live
Maybe in our lifetime it will be on our doorstep, we open, our lives will sieve
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/war-8.php
Dinner with old friends:
salmon with red cabbage, asparagus, Caesar's salad, penne with
broccoli, two white wines.
Jane Jacobs could analyze how it all got to our table
or even how their daughter came to us from Cambodia.
The economy or market bringing a thing of beauty, the farms, the trucks,
such comfort. The ancients knew this too
yet we are anxious about famine, genocide and nuclear war.
How can we organize (govern) ourselves to end self-imposed suffering?
That Quebec and Puerto Rico may secede peacefully at any time a
majority chooses is a source of pride. Why not Kurds, Chechyns,
Tibetans and Armenians?
Difficult to write a poem about it. At table, candlelight, we debate
or whine about the other side winning and making a mess
of our lives. The election could be stolen, tampering with voting
machines,
what policy question does that possibility raise? War in Iraq,
school testing, prison population. Religion, the abyss surrounding the
little promontory life.
It'll all work out in the end. Go to your daily practice, be a good citizen.
Another failed effort to write what I mean. Such confusion, yet
two white wines.
The fault line streamed from the Nazi state,
The Jewish Shoah, Holocaustic fate.
Mongolia, Croatia, and Belarus,
Humanity had no excuse.
Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan,
The full scope of terror's sad sway,
In Cambodia they pointed their fingers
To where the horrid 'Killing Fields' lay.
The dire purges in Mother Russia, by the brutal Stalinist guild,
Ancient Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, so many Armenians killed,
And legions of Greeks to their deaths there went,
Assyrians too, until nearly spent.
The fault line leaves remains that burn,
We see them ever, and then,
The hard way is how we have to learn,
Over and over again.
The fault line runs on steel rails across the "American" land,
A tomb, a gloom, an iron doom, for my wife's native band.
…Cambodia, Rwanda, Syria…
Wars never cease
on the earth. Peace is pulverized.
Each battle drags children into a
vortex of anguish
in the front line or at home. They
lose their butterflies among bombs
and bullets.
Pure rapture curls like mango peel
in tension. Tender lives tarnish.
Lullabies are
lost in the death rattle. Scattered
young blood stains history. The
voice from beneath
the headstone is not an auditory
hallucination, but a doleful echo
from a little soul.
The orphans get food in the refugee
camp, but where will they seek their
lost mom and dad?
Childhood charms are mutilated.
They’re prisoners of trauma. A
platoon of terror marches
through their mental corridors.
First published in "The Humans in the Wild" anthology by Swallow Publishing, US.
MEMORIAL DAY
June 1, 2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To all of you that have ever worn
"THE UNIFORM"
The Uniform of safety and security,
The Uniform of pride and liberty
THE UNIFORM OF FREEDOM
THE UNIFORM OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THANK YOU
Thank you to all, in every branch, in every time From:
1776 - 2015
The American Revolution
The Civil War (North or South)
World War I
World War II
Korea
Vietnam
Cambodia
Laos
Panama
Nicaragua
The Falkland Islands
Somalia
Yugoslavia
Bosnia
Kuwait
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
The Persian Gulf
~~
War Zones and Battlefields, such as:
Lexington/Concord, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Normandy, D-Day, Berlin, Tripoli, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, The 38th Parallel, The Bay of Tonkin, Me Lei, Hanoi, The Hanoi Hilton, Saigon, The Ho Chi Minh Trail, Baghdad, Kabul, Ground Zero Manhattan, Pentagon 9/11, a field near Shanksville PA.
and many many more,
(not all locations are listed with no dis-respect)
You are all Heroes and Role Models,
not for a Nation, for A Peaceful Planet
not for Americans, for all Humanity,
not only today this Memorial Day,
for all days and all days to come.
You are appreciated! because freedom has high costs
and you pay the price for all of us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Godspeed, safety and peace where ever you are.
Sincerely,
Warner C. Baxter Jr.
American Patriot
Scottsdale, AZ. U.S.A.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Semper Vigilo
List one: climb up to Machu Picchu,
ride the Orient Express,
see the Terracotta Warriors,
find a monster in Loch Ness,
brave the winds of Patagonia,
hike along an Everest ridge,
visit Paul Gaugin’s Tahiti,
stand on Sydney Harbour Bridge,
stroll round Angkor Wat, Cambodia,
cross the Alps in a balloon,
gaze in awe at Easter Island,
catch a rocket to the moon.
List two: sit in the garden scribbling,
eat a wedge of Stilton cheese,
drink a glass of Chilean Merlot,
watch the sunset through the trees,
play the bass just one more time
in the pub with my rock band,
look both ways then cross the street
holding my granddaughter’s hand,
see my grandson run towards me
smiling, waving, full of life,
meet my son and talk and listen,
phone my daughter, kiss my wife.
Yes. Two lists. There is a reason.
Once I heard a wise man say
Dream as if you’ll live forever;
live as if you’ll die today.
The morning sun hovers coyly
behind broad shoulders of the John Crow Mountain
before unwrapping petals of fever plant and Venice.
Mama’s countenance was far contrast to one so radiant,
so when the old Leyland bus went shuddering along gravel road
the first beams break through pinewood forest.
The old New Hampshire Red was up last night,
bamboozled by the plump moon,
but all was still in the petite hours ‘fore daybreak.
His first boast was far too late;
Banties have already blown their tops,
and warm rays long ago penetrated rabbit fence.
Leghorns proudly announced fresh eggs.
Beds were unoccupied and unmade.
Voices came, children in euphoria;
oppressors were off to nine to five.
Nightingale sang an encore
before morning forage,
and gaiety commences.
Brown skinned pickneys,
like the color of the Balaclava clay,
with reflections of innards on innocuous visages.
The hoopla lived until the Leyland snaked along treacherous drop
and the sun hastened to avoid mama’s air.
Chores rushed,
and mama voice ruined our names.
Tomorrow, at first light, we will be children again.
Most of us have heard of lands where dogs licked their humans’ faces
and are driven about in carriages in nappies,
while we loathe our predicament
some counterparts wrestle in grown-ups’ arenas;
innocence lost to palm wine and brown-brown,
and blood moves consciences far less than September’s rain.
Will tomorrow’s shoots be allowed to be children,
delightful progenies?
Let the bright sun shine on Columbia, Cambodia, Guatemala, and Sierra Leone.
I
am a photographer
I take stories of people
their lives
their hardships
their joy
with a single click
A solitary second in their life
now
forever immortalized
Captured to share with others
to show them the lives of people
who are just like us
who love
who laugh
who cry
but most of all
who long for a chance at a better life
a chance
for their children
As a photographer
if I am given the chance to help change the world
one click at a time
If I have to get down
in the mud
in the filth
to experience the lives of these people
in order to bring back the emotion
in a single frozen second
A second that will wake people up
make them care
make them angry
make them cry
at what they see
at the atrocities
at the suffering that is going on in the world
If I can get them riled up enough to want to help
to want to become involved
If I am given the chance to capture photos of this world
to bring them to the people
who are sitting in their overstuffed easy chairs
so that these people
might feel
might act
Then the chance is worth it
and this is an opportunity that will not be wasted
I have traveled this world
walked it's roads
seen the best and worst of men
I have looked into eyes hungry and cold
eyes with pain
eyes of hate
and those eyes looked right back into mine
From little girl prostitutes in Hyderabad India
to landmine littered fields in Cambodia
where people live with missing limbs
to the tent cities of Haiti
across the waters
to the children of the Inca in Peru
I have seen suffering
and pain
and grief
that doesn’t need to exist
I have listened
as they tell their stories
as they look with hope
when I shoot photos of what’s left of their lives
and all the while
I am wondering
who am I
that they should have hope
in me
Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge movement, the leader Pol Pot,
Killed twenty-five percent of the population, a fact most people forgot.
To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss,
That was the ideology of the evil boss.
Buddhist monks were killed and religion was banned,
No one was safe with this beast in command.
Children placed in labour camps, civil rights were abolished,
Schools and hospitals shut down, homes were demolished.
People getting shot for wearing glasses, laughing and even crying,
And if you spoke a foreign language you were definitely dying.
Slave labourers dying from overwork, malnutrition and executions,
While the U.K. gave the Khmer Rouge plenty of contributions.
Minority groups were targeted, Thai, Muslims, Christians and Vietnamese,
But they explicitly targeted the ethnic Chinese.
Millions of pounds from the U.K., millions of dollars from the states,
All working together in terror, they were the best of mates.
What Nixon and Kissinger began, Pol Pot completed,
And none of them ever showed remorse for all the people they mistreated.
“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)
Young people go marching, the boys and the girls,
thinking like we once did, they they’ll change the world.
They claim government can be the cure for our ills,
they seem to be forgetting that socialism kills.
Lenin and Stalin put twenty million souls down,
left them to rot in dark pits in the ground.
The gulags and purges were the work of their will,
the Holodomor just clinched it, socialism kills.
China under Mao was the state with the plan,
a great leap forwards needs ever woman and man.
But it was a leap to nowhere, sixty million graves filled,
the greatest mass-murder in history, socialism kills.
Socialism kills, yes socialism kills.
It never brings fairness, it never will.
One hundred million paid the steep bill,
they’d tell you if they could: socialism kills.
Cambodia promised its people a golden age,
beginning at year zero, to build better days.
But Pol Pot’s killing fields, the whole world chilled.
One-third of the people lay dead, socialism killed.
Cuba and North Korea both slaughter and starve
the citizens they hold back through force of arms.
Not nations, but prisons, innocent blood they spill,
all you need to understand that socialism kills.
Some say it might work with better people in charge,
though it fails every time, in countries small or large.
Venezuela is the latest to swallow the bitter pill,
it descends into chaos because socialism kills.
Socialism kills, yes socialism kills.
It never bring fairness, it never will.
One hundred million paid the steep bill.
It can’t deal with human nature, so socialism kills.
Down and Out in Saigon
Southeast Asia, and Mexico
has always attracted
A certain type of westerner
The down and out
On a down word spiral
Why?
Relatively cheap to live
Lots of part-time gigs
Teaching English
Or other things
Cheap Booze, drugs, sex
Readily available
Places to stay
Dirt cheap
And no one needs
To sleep outdoors
Easy to disappear
Into the foreigner's backpackers ghettos
And escape
From whatever you are running from
The locals are somewhat tolerant
The police usually look the other way
And there are lots of people
In your shoes
I was surprised to find
That Saigon has become
The latest place
For the down and outer crowd
In Bangkok, one sees them a lot
In Cambodia as well
In the Philippines
In Nepal
And south of the border
In Mexico as well
and Eastern Europe
and Latin America
In India not so much
In Japan and Korea
Just too damn expensive
And too cold to be outdoors
Back in the day
I used to work
The citizen services gig
And saw lots of the down and outer set
The old blues song
comes to mind
No one remembers you
When you are down and out
And in the States
Being down and out
Means living
on the mean streets
As it is very difficult
To live with almost no money
And the various side hustles
Don’t give you much money
Unless you are dealing drugs
And teaching ESL
Is not an option
other hustles are difficult
and begging gets one arrested
Food is expensive
Transportation is expensive
Booze and drugs expensive
Rent is prohibitive
Commercial sex is expensive
And no one loves you
If you are down and out
No one knows your name
You are just another
homeless bum
Invisible to all
As you try to make do
Much better to be down and out
In Southeast Asia
Than on the mean streets
Of the USA
Was not every one a child?
Joy to their mother and father
And growing up as a kid
With wonder and laughter
Then they go to school
Playing games having fun
And become a voice for others
When they don’t have one
Then some give hope to the people
Giving speeches from their tower
Then commits inhumane atrocities
When they get the taste of power
Today the worlds are full of hate
An evil that has no end
While many starves to death
For war money are spend
Men like Adolph Hitler, Robert Mugabe
George bush Jr, tony Blair, ayatollah Khomeini
Kim jong ll, idi amin, Benjamin Netanyahu
Just to name a few criminals of humanity
Pol pot murders millions in Cambodia
And the world close their eyes
The unspeakable crimes in Rwanda
Where over 500.000 people dies
I guess if the country had oil
They would have been alive today
But if you are poor nation
The United Nations looks the other way
Some kill in the name of religion
Some kills to steal your land
Some are kill by drones for just
Attending a wedding function
Hundreds of innocent are killed
By drones that they can’t see
But they are just collateral damage
But not those at Benghazi
North Korea says we have
weapons of destruction's right here
But they went to search in Iraq
Kill millions but find it nowhere
The evils of war will continue
Many more bad days still to past
More war criminals to be born
And be children playing on the grass
Many choose to cover their eyes
If it doesn't affect them, they don’t care
So while sit here writing this poem
I can’t help it but shed a tear