Lazily half awake, half drowning from tiredness I took a bus from Cambodia into Thailand in June 2017. In between fits of worry that the Thai police would arrest me for something I hadn't done when I got to the border, I wrote this about the nature of the Cambodian people. I found it curious how they seemed to sit for ever, never moved nor worried by anything going on around them. It was such a frustrating way of life from my London-bred perspective.
Long cracked skies fluoresce over damp green plains
Silver horned cows graze on jaded sticks
rubbery wire lines cross the air like trains
and the border of the portrait, the people,
just sit and sit.
The road is a racetrack
of frogs through to leaves.
Bundling past and through,
the competitors coalesce,
dodging the voices of the aged
and artfully arranging a path
through the legs of dashing children.
Riding only the drip drip of the wind,
and the paintbrush of this picture, the people,
just sit and sit.
Sitting on the sun's ground, which every day she'll kiss,
are the lovers of her lips, the people,
who will still just sit and sit.
A stunning national treasure and Angkor Wat
