Long Cambodia Poems
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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
First Russia fell, a vast land,
Nine time zones, Stalin took command.
Millions of Russians died due to his rule
But Russians don't learn that fact in school.
FDR called him "Uncle Joe,"
Mistook a tyrant for a bro.
Churchill described what he could see—
The Iron Curtain shielding tyranny.
And North Korea - the U.S. let Russia install
a communist regime, let it be Russia's call
Now North Korea has nukes, and missiles too
Makes you wonder if our leaders have a clue.
Then Reds took China - over a billion souls,
Again for freedom the death bell tolls
Millions killed there, the rest indoctrinated
Is endless dictatorship where the world is fated?
Cuba fell to Castro, death squads worked overtime
JFK abandoned freedom fighters, negligence like a crime
Then fell Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos too
Pol Pot killed over a million, pundits surprised, who knew?
Once Communism takes root, it helps new plants grow
Cuba fought in Angola, had regime change to show
Its secret police help Venezuela reds crack down
I haven't seen protests in any western town.
Then there are the forces of Jihad
Mullahs stifled Iran in the name of God
China and Russia allied with them too
Makes you wonder at the motives of this crew.
Turkey’s strongman crushed dissent, just to begin
His armies took part of Cypress, an easy win
His allies took Syria, its former rulers were quite bad
But under Islamic State, Christians, Druze fates really sad.
In Nigeria, Christians die
Jihadists view them with a jaundiced eye.
And Somalia, hangs by a thread, I fear,
Seems poised to fall within the year.
If friends fall like leaves from a tree
How long can the remaining battered lands stay free?
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.
( 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.
Twelve Months Calendar
January
January Dawning
Polar vortex abounding
Winter continues
February
February ends
With war breaking out
Invasion of Ukraine
March
March madness continues
The war intensifies
COVID fears fading
April
April fears intensify
The taxman cometh for us
Deadly Yellow Dust
May
May ends with her birthday
Preparing to travel again
Ready to see the world
June
Time to go back home
See my homeland again
Berkeley beckoning me
July
This year I want to go
To Boston and check it out
Just because I have not been there
August
Hope to spend August
In Oregon and Northern California
Before the fire season burns it up
September
September memories
40 years ago I met her
When she walked out of my dreams
October
Always feel a bit pensive
During my birthday month
Want to spend it in Paris
November
November wants to return
To Korea for a while
Avoiding the US. election madness
December
Hope to spend the year-end
In Thailand, Vietnam
Cambodia, Laos for the winter
The calm, composed Coconut Beach of Cambodia
Or the Galápagos Islands of sublime sereneness
Boats of quietude sail through the seas of Utopia.
Stream, brook, sunrise, sunset—nature's flowery floridness
The breathing of butterflies and the blooming of blossoms
Confessions of Cherubic Caves and Covenants of Clouds
Desert islands and deserted monumental chasms
Fancies of farms, fields, forests, fishes, flocking feathered fowls
Monasteries and museums in meditation moods
Readings of reeds, restings of reptiles, river reflections
Slow snake-skates, snowfalls, stargazing space-spa solitudes
Turtles and tortoises, all underwater attractions.
Sacrosanct silent scenes share stories splendid and sublime.
Like millions of melodies, within soul cells they always chime.
Policy or personal
questions? In the poem Two White Wines
a child adopted from Cambodia
is a thing of beauty, and so she is
as she showed herself to be yesterday. Lovely. However
the poet implies market, i.e. economic, forces brought her to America
when, as her parents know, it was war,
the sad Vietnam War or the War with America
as I think the Vietnamese remember it.
Honor and bravery
equal courage. Reed Whittemore's poem about
a photo of Viet Cong prisoners, stoic, defiant
under an American officer's boot
expresses admiration for the enemy. Then and now
a dangerous sentiment. Your fellow citizens, denizens
of convenience stores, even your family,
may come to see you as the enemy. Once ostracized, the other,
not belonging to the loved ones, you're not long for
this world of dew.
**** and ****
Ken says, describes America's culture, not its poets
or jazz. What's worth fighting for?
Your land, your right to be stupid on your land.
Now there is one large land, one people
and many. The vote is a crude, monosyllabic grunt,
no way to express the subtle degrees of experience
our long lives represent. Thus,
it is good, when the family gathers, to talk,
each person speak
of what has been forgotten, forgiven and forgone.
Trading or taking
every family must be tithed or taxed.
Every man who finds his meaning in war
will be pained into wisdom and gentleness.
Who comes home
comes home to a future that bypassed the fighting, or did it?
The oil must be sold,
even Saddam or Osama cannot withhold it.
You can drink your quota of water
and still your heart can ache.
Empire or democracy
of nations? We can choose to be the reigning kings
between the last empire and the next
or we can implement a vision
of collective deliberation.
America the seeing-eye dog,
not America the junkyard dog.
Going question by question
toward predictable, transparent governance.
Example: How can a people become a nation
without resorting to violence or incurring violent reaction?
I was a young man at the age of nineteen
When I was sent to a country on the other side of the world that I had never seen.
I was trained as an infantry soldier
With an M-16 rifle on my back;
And given an M-79 grenade launcher
In case of enemy ambush or attack.
Along with my Brothers In Arms, I fought in Cambodia and in the Highlands of the Vietnam jungles;
As soldiers, we were always faced with threats and struggles.
One unfortunate day, I was ambushed and shot with an enemy soldier’s rifle
His bullet struck and went through my arm;
At first, I didn’t know I was hit; perhaps my body was in denial.
Eventually, intense pain set in, the blood began to pour;
My lieutenant made the call for a medavac helicopter
To take me to a hospital so that I could be treated and cared for.
For my wounds sustained as a result of enemy action
I was awarded the solemn distinction of The Purple Heart;
My life has been forever changed
Because of this war in which I had to take part.
Flashbacks still haunt me in my head
Wounded, yes, but I thank God that I’m not dead.
As soldiers, we fight for our country and sometimes we make a great sacrifice;
As Purple Heart recipients, it’s our bodies that have to pay that ultimate price.
Peace deals seem to give Trump a good-bye kiss--
To self-proclaimed messiah of world peace
Who thinks he’s King Canute
Who held waves, made them mute,
Peace, no real estate deal,
Nor Trump, one-for-all pill,
A shot in dark is more likely to miss.
_____________________________
Happenings | 13.12.2025 | kiss, humour, peace, political, USA, limerick
Note: Trump’s peace deals that come apart seem to suffer from a Humpty-Dumpty Syndrome. And he does not know how to put Humpty-Dumpty back together. Russia-Ukraine peace deal is nowhere. Thailand and Cambodia are fighting back again. So are Congo and Rwanda, whilst Gaza peace plan seems in limbo. And the only one that works is Indo-Pak that Trump has nothing to do with! Yet, the Nobel Peace Prize, ah what a lollypop!
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