Butt-um-bong
No wonder the Siem Reap locals gave me strange looks every time I told them that’s where we were headed next! I kept getting my bungs and bongs mixed up… It’s probably a good thing we never ended up going to Happy Herb pizza*.
The drive to Battambang was so memorable. Headphones on, monsoonal rains ebbing and flowing across the lush green paddy fields, palm trees bending their supple backs, compliant before the wind.
These images are the ones that linger; rising from the subconscious months after our return to the comforting predictability of home.
As you can probably tell, rather than a burden to be tolerated, I find these moments of transience a source of creativity. With nothing but my thoughts and a drowsy Clown for company I can’t help but think; and from thoughts spring words. As my fingers danced clumsily across the virtual keyboard, I quote verbatim…
Arrow straight road under transient skies.
Close the gap. Pass. Close the gap. Pass.
Insistent horns, burping their warning. Bicycles, buses, momentary obstacles, cars four abreast on a road built for two.
Plunging face first into sheets of wet grey. Hypnotic, driving, chorus recurring. Rinse, repeat. Beat by beat. Note on note. Layers unfolding. Soundtrack surreal, life’s tonal commentary. Synapses raw, etched permanently. A blanched imitation, pale and lacking, the future lies dormant, a time for reflecting.
Inadequate echoes of conflict’s perfection. These are…the gaps inbetween.
To the eye of the storm
Inundated
Driving blind
* For obvious reasons it’s not on the menu, but from what we’ve heard they do actually cook a truly ‘happy’ pizza, complete with natural hemp herbs!