yell louder

Possible signs of intelligent life exist here in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh or Siem Reap or Vientiane or Hanoi. Rumor control reports. Merely existing mind you. ‘Mind yourself, how you go dearie,’ whispered an Irish ghostwriter in Donegal. Well remembered.

Take my neighbors for example. Sam and Dave. Sam is the kid, Dave is the father. These are not Viet names. If they were they’d be named Binh and Thin and New Yen, like new yin instead of old yang. 

Dave had kids so he and his wife can yell at them. It was an arranged marriage. 

Easy to have kids in the 13th most populated country on planet Earth. 85 million hard and fast rules of parenthood. Get married early, the pressure is on. 

You do not want to be unmarried and sad, lonely and well forgotten. Loneliness dramatically increases the chances of heart attacks, strokes of genius, and arterial vestiges of debilitating forms of social upheaval and social instability in a well mannered society. 

Extreme pressure is on the girls to find a husband. Girls in Sapa, which is not part of this tale, only illustrates the way rural girls get married at the ripe old age of 16 and start producing genetic forms of themselves. Petri dish. Wash and tear. 

Takes hard courage to raise them with integrity, respect, authenticity and a low level of pain tolerance.

Dave releases stream of anger, bitterness and frustration allowing him to relax, expend, expand the sound. Dave is startled to hear the the sound of his own particular voice ricochet of cold gray cement block walls. His life is a cold cement wall. Echoes dance through his brain like little sugarplum fairies. 

calm joy

My lover-friend brought me pineapples, a yellow mango and passion fruit.

He was away for six weeks. I wash clothes in my silent world.

My hair is tinted golden hued now. I am ebullient. He touched my spine. Soft. I turned, smiling. 

My silent world and calm joy are disguised potentials. We share a silent clear understanding.

Our private time has no fear, no hurry. It is a gentle passion. This is my awareness of our connection on a heart-mind level of trust and authenticity. I am resigned to remembering. 

I paint my nails a shade of red-pink.

My old thin brown fingers are tired after a day washing clothes. My infinite silence no voice is all. He watches my intense angelic face focus on nails. One by one. My heart understands his sense of loss. Accept loss forever. 

cheap food

Food is cheap here in Asia.

Medicine and education are expensive. Favorite sports are: 

1) driving huge 4x4s. gas costs $2.40 a gallon. sitting in endless long traffic jams. paying parking fees to para-military type uniformed men blowing stainless steel whistles.

2) wandering around enormous prosperous numerous say it fast three times shopping centers. a huge playground for brats. where out-of-control rascals expend spoiled energy. where families enjoy A/C and stuff behind glass. museum quality of life. diversionary influences.

3) whining. students know and understand this behavior is boring and useless. some know without understanding.

4) producing more babies.

Bye-bye said the orphan.

sound

My speech voice is missing.

I make rolling guttural sounds expressing metaphors, similes, intonations, frequencies, meaning, sense, time, ideas, dreams, relationships, secrets, my traditional family values, fear, passion, heart and sadness. Joy.

By the time I learned the alphabet it was late in life toward primordial dusk.

Late in the moment from before now and then. Late in the whisper of silent air singing from the trash collector’s plastic bottle. He pulls his rolling cart. Filled with cardboard. A muscular rhythm stirs sonomulent dust on broken stones. I see, said the blind girl. You can’t step in the same river twice.  

Possibilities and probabilities, chance and coincidence flutter finger fragments. Unknown mysterious sensations fling from my signing hands. Fingers and hands are language extensions. Blossom being. My lover visualizes me in tropical brown skin toned worlds. He imagines I will join a hearing impaired community. He’s a dreamer. I jump ahead in my story. It won’t happen. I am a slave.

in tone a tion

ideogram letter symbol
inside a series of interlocking blades

is a Cambodian

land mine museum displaying geiger counters
radiation blast suits, screwdrivers, shovels, hi-tech sensors

fertile green rice paddies, farms, fields
1,000 Angkor temples built with laterite stones

pachyderms, topographical survey maps
statistical graphic charts
rainbow amputee refugees

relocation centers rehabilitation
co-pay deductible insurance policies
cremation ceremonies

bereaved starving relatives

curious strangers
spilling

desire fear and regret

rappelling through nouns
verbs and ideas with bamboo shacks

submerged mangrove forests
hammocks, charcoal cooking fires
naked children, amputees

short term Australian nurses
laconic teachers
269 orphanages
12,000 orphans

a butterfly farm
a silk worm weaving center
empowering singing women
threading thin and thick yellow

salvia protein based fibers
on spindles and looms
near Son Le Tap lake