REBEL POETRY

The Blue Max Review 2012 contained the best poems submitted for the Fermoy International Poetry Festival and was published by Rebel Poetry and edited by Gene Barry.

 

                             An Irish boy in Phnom Penh

 

                            Don’t do mornings, he says

                            as he wakes up to the decalcomanias

                            of a tumeric sky ripped by sunset, fractals

                            repeated in the sludge of puddles

                            oily cadavers of the jasmin rain

                            that fell last night when his blue lotus girl

                            swirled in opiate volutes between

                            bar stools and fat bellied men.

                            He breakfasts again on yaba

                            swims fasts on the chromatic

                            waves of Ketamin. Dreams hard.

                            Sees it all.

                            Except for that small black point that

                            pearls on the perfect smile of his languid

                            Aspara or the lichen of small sores

                            that slowly colonize his face.

                            Ridges of spine serpent under his T-shirt.

                            when he bends to light up. Tonight

                            eventually, he will remember a colder rain.

 

                            ©Michèle Vassal-Ring