Girl

The girl and her blind father. Music on the street. We met in 2017 and 2020.

Now he plays laments on a broken street hoping foreign eaters will put money in her orange plastic pail.

She positioned him touching the rear of a parked motorcycle for security and trust where he'd be safe.

We made eye contact, she smiled, radiant, older now, taller in a simple blouse, shorts, flip flops, smiling, Thank you.

She moved from table to table. He played a haunting refrain on his simple long neck three-string instrument.

She returned and took the strap from his waist as he played. She led him past hair salons, a closed bookstore, a high end seafood and pepper restaurant, a bar filled with drunk European males.

Music faded in the night.

Canvassing the old market.

Otres

Life is a beach then you fly.

You sit on a bamboo chair next to bald water sport mannequins wearing snorkeling masks, Lycra shorts, inflatable vests and dusty flippers. They are chained to the wall to prevent mermaids, nymphs and water sprite thieves.

Birds twitter in hydra grandma trees. Slow gentle blue-green waves brush a long empty shore day after day.

Across a red dirt road are bamboo and wooden shacks disguised as guesthouses and restaurants.

Signs litter little red road: Island Tours, Laundry Service, Boat Trips, Late Night Pizza, Sand Removal Renovation, Transport & More, Green House Effect with excellent bookstore…

Mushroom Villa, Dance Until You Die, My Kind of Place, Sandy Crotch Heaven, Barefoot Only the Lonely, European Spoken Here, Massage To Go…

We Serve Sad Depressed Super Serious Fat White Rich Humans Like Russian Mafia and Rude Pushy Inconsiderate Chinese.

We Are All Refugees When Everything Is Said and Done 24/7.

Digs run $15-100 a night. Gypsies, Backpackers, Europeans, Japanese and Chinese.

Selfie nirvana.

Here I am on the shore with arms raised. Here I am drinking beer with friends. Here I am all wet. Here I am doing absolutely nothing in particular and everything in general. Here I am in a sitting meditation with universal mindfulness. I am a rainbow.

Ice java runs $1-1.50 

Pay For View

Grow Your Soul - Prose & Poems from Laos and Cambodia

Life is a Beach

Overnight sleeper bus to Sin Oak Ville
The new coastal Chinatown casino royal
All bets are off

 Moto to Otres Beach
Sand sunrise defending quiet
Footprints gentle water waves beat shore
Islands

Spit in the ocean
Zen sitting meditation visions H2O
Bliss day sun water

European sun walkers white tan ageless retirees
Sound sand surf...play in water
Edges of the day from gentle morning through

Heat into restless sunset - meditation focus
Ebb and flow
Strangers in paradise...
Blue skies night 1/4 star clear

Fernando Pessoa

*
Waves of love
Hang by a thread
Breath
Meditate on the truth of emptiness
Fragments
Embrace beauty and tranquility

*

Grow Your Soul - Prose and Poems from Laos & Cambodia

Smile & Go

Educational shock therapy
Language is not only communication - it is a reservoir of memory, tradition and heritage.
Braid goatee...girl wears a Fuck t-shirt
NO she said laughing
Painting eyebrows

I attract a crowd

Business noodles chase market light
Long now
I am a rainbow
Trash collectors at plastic school
Mountains
Garbage in garbage out
Moon cloud
Keep staring I might do a trick
Experience is your education
Everything else is just information
Banlung, Cambodia
Respect from students HA

One month eating dust at The End of The World
Wailing kids in Muslim neighbor family
Sounds like torture neglect
Too much suffering
Blind loud little people
Look without understanding

School kids active loud no self control
They need a Command & Control Babysitter Teacher (G2 G4)

They “learn” in a rigid structured environment
Laconic teachers...by the book...systematic educational procedures

Teaching through fear

Vomit material on exams

Versus creativity, song, dance, fun positive experiences
All things considered
Lack of focus

Storyteller introduced drawing, coloring, music, writing...
some influence
Smile and GO

Grow Your Soul

Noodle Shop

Small car pulls up. Driver gets out, opens back door.

Sun heat.

His father hands him two crutches, stablizes left foot on ground, rises, awkward, balances with crutches under arms.

He wears cotton hospital pajamas. Short black hair. Crosses street. Right pant leg flaps in breeze.

He has no right foot.

Son leaves. Father buries his face in bowl of noodles. Eats fast. Hospital food lousy.

Finished with noodles he tears pieces of brown bread, drops into soup. Eats fast.

Son returns, they talk with noodle staff about his story. Helps father walk to car. Drives away.