The Blue Max Review 2012
An anthology of poems from the Fermoy Interntional Poetry Festival
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