QUEEN OF THE KHMER ROUGE
Voodoo Chile, baby,
giving the jungle a
complete makeover
remember the Kurtz death scene
with Martin Sheen
before that fan blades ghosting
into helo rotors?
problem of identity, no
issue getting pussy when you
an army of occupation
struggling with your night think
whilst here
to save the day
your
demonic double, dark doppelgänger
where to be found but somewhere
near the source of that
twisting, turning
brown serpent of a river
whose venom
be the truth
****
fall of man
forbidden fruit
but what about fruit companies
and travails in
Cuba, Nicaragua, and
Guatemala?
Oh you playing such a hand
against the Aztec Queen
Empress
High Priestess
Queen of Cups but to Swords
transitioning
pentacles on your eyes to
make it poetic: you came, you saw,
no way you conquered
and here we are
at the end of that tunnel
an Alice in Wonderland strategy
to trump napalm
they will
take you on a tour
great for the irony though
will cost you top dollar
wonder at the rebirth: the scars
almost faded, so determinedly
softening the Moon
landscape you did
bring
(waving from the Moon
in brotherhood for humanity)
downloading
downloading
facts and figures
statistics, memory
this is the land
place adjacent you
bombed into Stone Age
into hands of
stone cruel Stalin
and here
she is Kali girl herself
ascending to her throne
day of coronation
the tannoy freaking out with
messages of joy
it is death not to feel
and so much death here
in the name of resistance
name of liberation
skull
and crushed femur
her orb and scepter
still downloading
numbers pouring in
data
faces last time will
ever see
those faces again
and you
by caged bird, Jean-Jacques,
of this state of affairs
what can you, dare you
tell me?
what grotesqueries of philosophy
are shadow projected here?
****
Kurtz last words
have him quoting TS Eliot
when the day of light arrives
and the Sun shines bright
no Aztec blood
computation
let us keep it
to a simple pagoda
lest
we ever be asked
as the poem says
to trust the Universe
give,
be accepting
find enough heart, human heart
to foot the cost
of every terrible bill