"cambodian" poems
from an idea by Sheila Sharpe
In the foul heat and damp and rot and stench
After dusting off 1 the bodies of dead pals
The living and the dead, the living dead
Old Boats 2 lit off a cigarette and growled
“They say this stuff’ll **** ya.”
1 Dustoff – noun. Dust off – verb with an adverb. A dustoff is a medical evacuation via helicopter, as in “Doc, your dustoff will be here in three.” To dust off a patient, then, is to transport a patient, not to tidy him. I have recently read detailed arguments about the terms dustoff, dust off, and medevac, but no one quibbled about such minutiae along the Cambodian border.
2 Boats – a boatswain’s mate, the brains and muscle of the Navy. Boatswain’s mates do it all and are seldom acknowledged in history or art, not even in the recent film about Dunkirk. A boatswain’s mate is often addressed as Boats, and always with deference, even by the C.O.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 3:49 PM UTC
Its about to get ugly up in here.
I'm talking
Worlds ugliest
Thalidomide baby
contest winner
Ugly.
I'm talking
Michael Jacksons
rotten *** corpse
falling apart
in the coffin
Ugly.
I'm talking
pasty ***
fat and sweaty
old white dude
in a Cambodian brothel
****** little girls
until he runs out of money
Ugly.
Its going to get ugly...
Standby.
Jun 20, 2012
Jun 20, 2012 at 5:04 PM UTC
If I was a king of Asia I would give you all the gold there is
But I'm not even prince of Persia, all I have is love and dreams
Let me show you land of legends, land of honeymoon and rising sun
I am not as rich as Ali Baba, but I promise we'll be having fun
I'll take you to Bali the gem of Java Sea
Then we'll go on to safari a little south of Abu Dhabi
I'll take you to Maldives to swim in coral reefs
We'll enjoy the sweet papaya on the islands of Pattaya
I'll show you lake Baikal, Tibet and Taj Mahal
We'll see Macao, Yokohama, Hanoi, Jeddah, Jaipur, Jakarta
I'll take you to Dubai, Dushanbe and Mumbai
We'll spend some starry nights in yurts near the city of Yakutsk
I’ll take you to Tashkent where melons got their scent
We will taste all sorts of apples in the city of Almaty
I’ll take you to Beirut we'll go nuts on dried fruits
And the coffee with vanilla we can try it in Manilla
I'll take you to Kashgar to shop at old bazaar
Then we'll fly a magic carpet to the markets of Qatar
We'll see ruins of Karakorum the old capital of Moguls
Then we'll go to Kathmandu and then Karachi and Kabul
We'll discover caves with treasures, make three wishes all at once
All at once will turn to a fairy tale, like in one and thousand nights
Let me show you feast of colors, take you cross the dunes in caravans
Even if I don't look like Alladin, I sure know a thing about romance
I'll take you to Taipei to see its lovely bay
We will sip on Coca Cola on the silky sands of Goa
I'll take you to Shanghai where towers touch the sky
And the best of architecture we will see in precious Petra
We'll go to Ashgabat, Bishkek, Busan, Baghdad
We will see Great Wall of China and Cambodian Angkor Wat
We'll see the Everest, mount Fuji, Gobi Desert
And it's certainly my pleasure to take you all around Asia!
Apr 3, 2022
Apr 3, 2022 at 10:07 PM UTC
Careful crocks climbing Cambodian Castles
Create camping Caskets corsets
Crying, crippled crayons can cup cakes
Cats cost cranberries
Cameras call captains
Capable cocoons create cringing crooks
Can't conclude C. Completed
Apr 16, 2010
Apr 16, 2010 at 3:50 PM UTC
She's my little Philly girl,
Cambodian shirts and hindu
sings. Purple nail polish and summer
hats. I can hear her voice when
rain falls on new shingles.
The way she squeezed my hand
the morning after; my heart and
brain switched spots while
standing in some parking lot.
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 9:09 PM UTC
Drench in the pouring rain
Young Cambodian girl
Still crying in pain
Wiping her drenched
Yellow face
Holding her rice bowl
Up towards the kind stars
Wondering which way
The wind shall turn
Dreaming inside her mind
The forbidden rice field
are truly unkind
Feb 15, 2011
Feb 15, 2011 at 1:56 AM UTC
Let's jump the sound
skip a couple
staircases and stare at
the eternity void.
It's easy in that
sort of way.
When we watch the
stars from the cold
rooftop, Cambodian skirts,
Indian symboled blankets,
the void is filled for
a brief second of eternity.
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 3:56 PM UTC
Cambodian rice fields
where
dragonflies make love
while
we
dance on
the
moon river
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 12:59 PM UTC
I. From a Vietnamese / Cambodian / Egyptian / Israeli / Lebanese /
Sudanese / Syrian / Afghan Child’s Garden of Verses
Flare light
Flare bright
First flare I see tonight
I wish I may
I wish I might
Not be blown to death tonight
II. From an American Man’s Twooter of Self-Pity
Subtle beep
Subtle beep
‘wakening me from my sleep -
Oh, no! I’m going to die!
Not meeeeeee! Don’t wanna fry!
It’s all about ME – boo-hoo!
Poor ME! Poor ME! I’m gonna SUE!
Jan 15, 2018
Jan 15, 2018 at 4:29 PM UTC
I am listening for
the sky to open up and some divine message
to be whispered in my ear
And I am listening for
the TV to tell me I’m living my 17-year-old life wrong
And I’m listening for
the Truth to finally be spit into the sludge of the city.
I am listening for
the mother holding her son by the shoulders
telling him, “They shoot first, ask questions later”
And I’m listening for
the gunshots to finally get inside my head
And I’m listening for
the sounds of sirens that will not come.
I am listening for
the hopeless screams, in fact they’re all I can hear
And I am listening for
the disenfranchised revolution
And I am listening for
America to stop planting flowers
over the graves of the oppressed.
I am listening for
America to say she’s sorry
And I am listening for
the eulogy of discovery
And I am listening for
Bukowski to meet his teary-eyed love.
I am listening for
Dean to find me in the alley
And I am listening for
the day I become the instrument
And I’m listening for
the Cambodian Cassette Archives to finally make it big.
I am listening for
the lost chord that will revive us all
And I am listening for
the blues to make me drunk
And I am listening for
you to shut up and let me write.
I am listening for
America to sob
And I am listening for
the path to blamelessness
And I am listening for
the Indian man at the gas station
to finally say “hello” back to me.
I am listening for
the easier way
And I am listening for
the day I remember being excited.
I am listening for
the man who is always the sacrifice
And I am listening for
the false adoration
And I am listening for
America to choke on her own ash.
I am listening for
America to get down on her knees
And I am listening for
my mom to tell me what to say
And I am constantly listening for
the day when I can stare at a person
And not be disappointed when I realize
there is no comfort or familiarity.
I am listening for
God to be pure
And I am listening for God to be real
And I am listening for
God to finally show us his blood-stained hands.
Nov 28, 2016
Nov 28, 2016 at 8:44 PM UTC
The man was a real hard man often described in lower class words
By those who feared or respected or envied him
He was from Scotland and fought the Chinese Communists in Cambodia
In a backwater of the world that became a Cold War hotspot
For next door was Vietnam and the commies there fought the other commies
In a war that enveloped the area destruction on destruction
War happened and soldiers were deployed by all sides
Some of those troops were rather special ones
To do a special job in a ***** war where the killing wasn't clean
The hard man from Scotland was sent to a place far form his Highland home
His bagpipes were silent and stealth was his tool
Stalking ****** fighters in the Cambodian jungle
And doing what needed to be done to stop them dead
So we don't speaking Chinese now
Just like the Dead Kennedy's song that hailed a generation
Camdodian events remembered which fewer care about
The Scottish soldier is dead now but his widow remembers
It was her who told me the story of her SpecFor husband
How he played his pipes and won awards not just in battle
Him a Seargent Major Drill Instructor Full Metal Jacket style
Driving his car with his arms crossed barking orders and being the boss
Living in America with his American wife and drinking in bars
But being taken advantage of by the rednecks
In the nasty bars that wern't British pubs
More dangerous than the communist controlled Cambodian jungle
The life of the special forces soldier was certainly special
If not hush hush we don't talk about this it never happened
Except in the heads of the SAS troopers who were in Cambodia...
May 10, 2018
May 10, 2018 at 1:48 PM UTC
At times.
It seems like I've got a bag literally filled with **** tied to my waist. Because I think or I have convinced myself I need it. That I am to suffer the weighing stench my own failings.
Well **** that **** I'm human. And I hold no doubts that there are far worse than I in character by comparison. Am I the best I can be? Probably not. However I like to think I'm doing a little better than the guy wearing a diaper while being led around the room by an under aged Cambodian girl. That ************ has issues.
Sep 4, 2016
Sep 4, 2016 at 4:16 PM UTC