peauladd huy Poems

Like an old lover skimming over the column bones.
Like a ride on the good back of a steady beast.
Like warm thighs straddling through thin fine silk.
Like an upsurge & afterwards.
...

When sacred wandered into the serpent’s nest
a race emerged & a nation forged—a lifetime’s bound by nectar
& poison in increments—amongst the half-blood
offspring: the half upright & half slither
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1
Here, where the moon touches the water
& the current
rapids like malleable
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If you are from here, you know. Each year
From June to October, the Mekong rises & the Tonle Sap
Buckles like a goddess teased. Warm. Accepting.
Willing. Dispense. Rush. Meniscus
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So much is promised by water
& the pasture is a heaven
sky and below
an easy hill burns till the last structure’s
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Far – far there.
Beneath the grime caking and staining
marred deep those toddling figures, there’s a diamond
dream being cut & polished & sized to prong
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… because we are all born and must die one day.
~Sirik Matak
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Day in day out. Twice a day sometimes three:
after each drill-run, you come back beaten-
flat on your back and tossed in the holding compartment
with the others covered in human filth.
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(high school turned Khmer Rouge prison turned museum)


You may have seen me and not remembered.
...

If you made yourself disappear
deep in the green rice field, it’s not hard to imagine
you can hear the grain churning
milky sap into each solid seed,
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