Journeys
Images
Cloud
Timothy M. Leonard's books on Goodreads
A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
ratings: 4 (avg rating 4.50)

The Language Company The Language Company
ratings: 2 (avg rating 5.00)

Subject to Change Subject to Change
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Ice girl in Banlung Ice girl in Banlung
ratings: 2 (avg rating 4.50)

Finch's Cage Finch's Cage
ratings: 2 (avg rating 3.50)

Amazon Associate
Contact

Entries in Cambodia (275)

Monday
May102021

Full Moon

I was grateful to see three full moons in the Sierras. Undulating valleys dreamed of planting, water and harvest.

Mad as hell caged hunting dogs below mountains howled high anxiety.

Grazalema men in sturdy boots carried lifetime labor tools through fields. When Luna was full they didn’t visit fields, river, forests or mountains. Men respected magic and ghosts. Men lived the day. Spirits lived the night.

Chained hounds howled dusk to sunset. Rising orange clouds met a yellow moon.

 

A heavy bolted brown wooden church door at the small church led to the vestibule of Republican resistance memories. A Virgin Mary crying blood decorated the altar. A widow in black performing her daily penance through action and devotion changed the white lace cloth. She soaked blood out at Roman public baths below the village where water flowed from stoned carved angelic mouths.

A forcestero with a notebook and camera passed her. She recognized his ghost, Yes a spirit visiting friends.

She blessed herself twice with bird wing fingers at the end of a warm winter day. Sun went home. Egyptian vultures pirouetted with the yellow moon evolving white.

She locked the black gate leading to the crypt. She remembered him doing his reconnaissance after yesterday’s funeral.

He worked in the crypt zone. Four long walls held the departed. Engraved stones with names, dates, in memoranda of children and adults back to 1896. He made images under the smoky green eyes of a wild Siamese cat on a red tiled roof.

Crypt construction tools, bricks, cleaning solution, trowels, broken black buckets and rags decorated empty crevices. Rectangles waited for ornate boxes from a casket factory miles and lives away. Caskets with simple bronze handles for six pairs of weathered hands. Brown and black lined caskets with satin pillows. Pillows softer than language welcomed living tears.

Survivor’s hearts beat long personal drum solos.

Every heartbeat contains a universe of possibilities.

Yesterday a casket in a black car garnished with wreaths of floral scents reached a black gate. Men carried it past a palm tree, through a church door, another black gate on rusty hinges and slid it into an empty domain name. Cold gray cement cavities had red brick ceilings. A desolate crypt space was long. It was empty. It was cold. It was a permanent change of address marked Eternity.

Men’s tools scraped hard winter soil. They were above ground.

Black was the night and cold was the ground.

“Any day above ground is a good day,” said an unemployed gravedigger. He looked at his hands. “I know two things.”

Resting outside the church seeing the concave valley and rising cubist pueblo I remembered a sitting meditation in Lhasa, Tibet.

ART - Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

 

Mekong Blue, Stung Treng, Cambodia

Tuesday
May042021

World as illusion

Kampot ceremony
70,000 years of pointillism
 
Walking makes the road
 
Khmer wedding music clanging symbols
Yellow silk accompanies jackhammers
In a brave new world

Mawlamyine, Burma

*
 
Pure mind Buddhism - world as illusion
 
How’s this for coincidence chance fate
You walk to market
Past a massage place greeted by seated smiling woman named Cosmos
Connection strong married two kids 14/5

used to run her own place until husband said no

now p/t for sister needing help
Delight intensity oral pleasure friendly and communicative
 
A few poetic words about Kampot morning
Energies
Frequencies
Transmissions
Cool fresh dawn breeze
Swift lets in kitchen prepare bird nest soup using saliva
 
Boys tear down wedding celebration immaterial
after food conversations song dance concert
celebrations in narrow park garden
red bunting where

loud happiness

spills into a brown river below green silent mountains
 
Funky second-hand shop discovers Burmese

cheroot aha flashback to Mandalay market purveyor of rolled leaves

Mawlamyine, Burma

*
 
Dancing possibilities in Kampot dawn
Delicious stream-of-consciousness
Be invisible little angel of light
Have mercy becoming Wushu meditation
Comedy
 
Chanting monks flame orange voices
Ageless Vietnamese woman pushes wheeled trash treasures
Her spine curves toward tomorrow’s promise
Mystery light
Sensation perception intuitive
 
Line
Shape
Shading
Discernment
Detachment
Calligraphy
Breath
Line pressure
Sign language

Riding the rails in Burma - 2015

Grow Your Soul - Poems and Prose from Laos & Cambodia

Thursday
Apr292021

Write

“Write naked. That means to write what you would never say.

“Write in blood. As if ink is so precious you can't waste it.

“Write in exile, as if you are never going to get home again and you have to call back every detail.”

-    Denis Johnson

22

Out past massage girls waiting with white sheets on brown tables under red umbrellas resting on golden sand as floppy hatted cuticle management women walking sand looking for needy nails,

lost fat White Russians slathered on UV 30+ staring inland at young backpackers their eyes down on phones fingers flying TEXT ME lonely baby of my heart soul mind rapture

one lone swimmer back strokes in calm blue green water as a small boat engine hums toward a green forested is-land floating away on the surface of reality inside a dream bubble laughing in the divine mystery

Imagination

Observation

Experience

Present moment

Ink me laughter

Waves light nature's song

Riding a beam of light through space

Tribal energies

1 M

Magic wave light

Wushu movement

Yangon Burma brass bell

Signifies

Present Moment

7

Otres to Kampot adventure

Memory of old yellow hospital

Slow easy corroding iron bridge connects land

Between an object and a concept

Between knowledge and wisdom

French architecture remembers history, families, whispers eyes

Stories inside stories

Where I polished The Language Company at Epic Arts (9-12 a.m.)

& Bliss guesthouse (3-6 p.m.) daily for five months once upon a time

The Language Company by [Timothy Leonard]

Zen butterfly in slow river town

How's it feel this gentle Tao?

Karen’s touch with conversation’s widow

Splits profits with mama san running the game near old market

Fancy pants decor, tourist souvenirs

Abandoned Art Deco movie theatre

Ha

Feels good exploring Kampot dust

Sensing the transitory beauty

Peace

Secret

Strength

Life

Love

Sorrow

Multiple Selves - We

Keep your own counsel

Poetry is what happens when nothing else can

It’s what you find in the corner

Circus people live on the edge

Sunset swift lets fill orange sky with magic

Mental hypothalamus

Unconscious

Grow Your Soul - Poems from Laos & Cambodia

 

How many more full moons will you see?

Saturday
Dec052020

Tattoo

Ink Me
Married to a needle
Zen of needle

Tattoo customers wander into studio:
Russian mafia, Indonesian businessmen,
two female Chinese students
Khmer boy has “Lin Forever” tattooed on his forearm
English man has a cover up job done on a red risqué dancing woman replaced by Dali's “Melting Time.”

Mont Blanc ink me
Penetrate my skin using coil and rotary machines...

Feel the pressure



Surgical precision
Process: set up worktable, cover table, pillows and bed with cling wrap,
arrange needle machines and ink. New needles from sealed packages.

Put on black surgical gloves, attach plug into amp meter for needle machine,
tape stencil on client for tracing. Client lies on back with cling wrapped pillow under head.

Artist places arm on pillow and long wrapped table for support. Small talk.

Artist consults sketch, applies pressure to arm with left hand,
puts needle machine on skin, client inhales,
artist turns machine on, zzzzz cutting skin.
Client exhales. Process continues 2 hours.

Focus of tattoo artist
Calm waves early light

Be the ink
Be the needle
Be the skin

Clear heart-mind healing skin
Ibuprofen 800 reduces wrist/hand swelling. Rest. Water.

Deserted beach, wave laughter, dawn light
Floating world islands remember current
Yoga posture
Healing energies

Orange sunset dives into blue green waves
Swim with
Courage laughter joy bliss and gratitude

Grow Your Soul - Prose and Poems from Laos & Cambodia

Luang Prabang, Laos

Friday
Nov202020

Simplicity

Tattoo decision - Maori tribal arm sleeve
Clear simple clean
Four sessions - 22 hours - 500 bones

Memorize orange sun caressing clouds with brilliant intensifying radiance
Solitary signal before full moon zoomed celestial heartbreak

Soma in the classroom
Daily dosage for students

Writing:


simplicity
brevity
clarity
accuracy
humanity

Floating boats
Flowing waves
Laughing children

Snaking roots
Disappearing shadows

Blue horizon
Radiant clear free pure
Luminous

Grow Your Soul

Prose & Poems from Laos & Cambodia