Back from Khmer New Year

Once I was heckled by parrots at the top of
a jungle pyramid
I slept that night in a black garbage bag
( I shit you not)
to keep the cold out

While I slept, I’d had a dream:
A priest wearing a leopard skin
Was standing over me
Performing some kind of ceremony.

A couple years later,
Walking through the forest of lights
In San Francisco
After being told by the Pacific Pioneer
Fund that “the board thought
your proposal for BOOKWARS
Is great, but we felt you’d have to be a genius to
Pull it off—we’ll have to deny you funding”
I wandered over to Carl’s Jr
And bought myself a cheap hamburger

Boy that burger was dry
from sitting under the Red heater lamp all day,
but it was still delicious

Then I went back to my residential Hotel
Where the crazy lady stalks the
Hallway with her fingers in her ears

Is she still there, I wonder?

In Kampuchea tonight, cyclo drivers sprawl inside their beloved contraptions
They stay like that til they wake,
flocked together under the smoky moon
Like skinny sheep
Or weird bony octopi, brown from too much sun,
Snoring in unison,
an orchestra of rattled chests
Their groans fit to pull stones
From the templed quarry
to the Holy mound of Angkor’s king.