barefoot

Greetings,

early dawn streaks orange skies. two barefoot mendicants are walking down the cambodian broken dirt road. one looks well fed. he wears simple tattered white cotton clothing. a red and white checkered kroma scarf is knotted around his head. 

he carries their possessions in three white rice bags on a simple bamboo pole balanced on his shoulder. he is followed on the dirt trail by his friend, a tall gaunt man. they are talking.

man #1. these bags are heavy. i am tired of carrying them. you carry them. 

he drops the bags and stick on the ground. they crash on the dirt. startled birds leave leaves. a river changes direction. he walks over to a large cistern filled with water. he splashes his face. he drinks deep. 

his friend stoops over, adjusts bamboo through twine and hoists the stick and bags onto his shoulder.

man #2. where are we going?

man #1 (muttering to his feet in red dust) down this road.

Metta.

 

working blues

greetings,

sunday song 

cambodia is a funny place. ha, ha, ha.

what do you see? i see a man carrying one red brick. he’s looking for a place to put it down. he is confused. he had no idea his day would involve carrying a brick AND making a decision. 

he needs a woman to tell him what do. this is rare because men, in his culture, are the boss and tell women what to do. usually men tell them to lie down and get ready for the big thing. 

he is confused about loss. his wife wears the pants. she is the now.

i see an exuberant extraordinary solid particle cow patty land-mine in the middle of sunday’s broken pot holed road. it’s a steaming green mountain. it smells like an art project. 

it will be discovered by a speeding SUV leaving a trace of aroma past sweeping weeping women. it will spread itself over the entire olfactory landscape.

it will create new tomorrows. 

* welcome to a new reality game show. it’s called “Watch Women Work.” 

WWW.work-to-eat-now OR evolution of the species and social organization (+-) 

log on, log in, log the forest. yeah, yeah. i am mr. monosyllable, your creme filled hostess cupcake for this week’s exciting program. yeah, yeah.

contestant #1. a housewife in a rural village. her task is sweeping dust into piles of dust outside her bamboo shack. she has all day to complete this arduous task. repeat.

dust to dust. dawn to dusk. (poetic ramifications in the theatre of the absurd)

contestant #2. a housewife. she has a house. she is a wife. she has 10 children. having children is her DUTY. sex for her is nothing but a DUTY. she is a duty free outlet. her price tag has expired. everything must go.

many children gives her mother and extended family someone to love and play with and yell at. yelling at kids here is abNORMAL and healthy. it nurtures their self-esteem and neurotic adolescence with punctuation marks.

her husband is sleeping. he loves sleeping, eating and making babies, because he doesn’t have to carry them around for nine months and experience hormonal feelings. he sleeps forever dreaming of a hammock in a bamboo forest.

her, his, their children are naked. they play with trash. they set fire to the forest.

fire is their great fun and games besides Yelling and Whining. they play, I whine, you whine, we whine.

contestant #3. a housewife. she is milling around. she has no focus, plan or direction. she is a teacher. she teaches by example. she hopes the lazy boys and men understand. she’s knows many won’t and don’t. 

she pounds things like metal. all day. she is a tool. she is a worker. she is a tool of production on life’s assembly factory. she is a simple person. she spits out many children. this is her duty.

contestant #4. a housewife. she works. her lazy adult son watches her. he is bored watching her. he wants to stare at the long and winding dirt road. he wants to feast his small beady rat eyes on dirt. his eyes are dirt. pure clean red dirt. she sweeps him into the river. swim, little fish. bye-bye baby, bye-bye. he floats away.

contestant #5. a housewife. she has a diamond in her mind. she is calm and focused. she exhales beauty, truth and love. she sings all day long.

pick one to emulate. find one with incentive and initiative and win BIG prizes.

what’s the prize? a broom, a brick, an SUV smashing a green cow patty and a monster home shaped like a wedding cake surrounded by a moat, high walls, silver barb wire and iridescent colored candles. 

anything else?

a year’s subscription to your favorite illustrated color glossy advertising magazine:

“Dreams, Lies, Wishes, Hopes, and Great Expectations While Driving a Blue Dismal Diesel Dump Truck Needing an Overhaul Loaded with Charcoal.”

cool prizes. let’s play. what’s the first question? said, Socrates.

meanwhile: destiny’s child disguised as a black and vermillion butterfly nurtured red and orange exploding flowers above a cool brown flowing river. see you next week on WWW.

Metta.

Fire talks

Greetings,

What's louder than a group of Khmer people? Another group of Khmer people. Get used to it. Volume. Noise. They love distractions. They live, eat and breath distractions and noise. They love talking over each other. Listening is hard work. Silence is known for killing people. Fear of death is a one long conversation.

They've been traumatized by their long past into the immediate present grasping the future. It's a time machine, a time warp, a consciousness warp.

It is curious to see with complete clarity the FIRE inside the cement stove in the simple local java and tea shop at 0615. Orange and bright dancing red flames consume kindling. It heats water for tea and java. Reminds me of a winter stove in Lhasa warming a room with joy.

Words crackle, spit, dance with laughter's sensation of heat.

Piles of kindling are stacked between cement slabs like orphans waiting to exonerated.  

It's a male thing. The men are over 40. They are survivors of The Dark Years.

All the men wear fresh pressed shirts and long pants. They have jobs. They talk about life: business, jobs, paper, kids, wives, weather, facts, opinions, big plans and ghosts. They eat fried bread, drink brown tea and java. Their spoons create music with glass. 

1.7 million ghosts dance through their silent conversations. No one talks about it. They prefer to talk about the now. The future. Ghosts live in the past. Leave it there, said one man. Half our population is under 30, said another man. They have no memory of the past. Education is the key, said another man. Yes, said another man, We missed our chance.

The only chance I had, said another man, Was to run and hide in the jungle. Look at my hands. Now I spend my days rewriting history.

A human is a kind of conversation. Many humans live lives of quiet desperation. Fire knows this fact.

Metta.

Hammock Heaven

Greetings,

Once upon a time there was a human. They were resourceful and strong. They realized an opportunity. They took a chance. They considered the risk assessment and consequences of acting on their chance. It was one chance. It would never come again. They looked at the world. 

It was sleeping in a hammock.

Give me a hammock and I'll change the world, said the human.

How to live? said Socrates.

Metta.

Firefly

Greetings,

Culture is what you are. Nature is what you can be. 

I faced a challenging ethical decision at the Chinese steamed bun and iced java joint. I pulled up on my little simple blue bike. There were three HUGE extraterrestrial vehicles parked on the sidewalk. A group of men were having a morning snack and discussion at round tables. They were the economic Knights of the Round Table. 

All the men wore buttoned down long sleeve shirts except for the leader. How did you know he was the leader? When he spoke all the men at his table listened. He wore a striped short sleeve shirt. He wore a gold watch and a big radiant red ruby stone set in a gold ring. He looked well fed and rested. 

His driver held the keys to a big black Caddy. It looked like a tank. I showed him my bike. Want to trade your bike for the Esplanade? he asked me. No thanks, my simple bike meets my needs. It's really efficient. Ok, he said, just asking.

The leader shifted in his plastic chair. He got up. Everyone got up. He walked out. Everyone followed him. The driver opened the back door. He got in. Let's go for a drive through luminous green country, he said. The driver gunned the engine making powerful noise. His friends followed him down the broken rutted dirt road.

There are no stop signs or traffic lights here. Everyone operating a moving vehicle trusts everyone else. This is fair. 

Cambodian children, like children everywhere love to play. They have a game called Kick The Sandal. They use their sandals. They take turns kicking a sandal on uneven cement pavement to see who can reach the goal. It''s exciting and fun. The cement comes from Siam.

A firefly named July zoomed around my dark room one night. The yellow flickering light was illuminating, mesmerizing and hypnotic. A multi-facted dancing yellow white gemstone. It was looking for a way out. I opened the door so it could live in nature.

Metta.

My girlfriend is smart. She wears a helmet. We are happy. We are going nowhere fast. Passengers wearing a helmet here is almost as rare as clean drinking water.