Network: Cambodia
by and published in Edition Ten of Pomegranate
Sunrise springs up from behind dustbins
pours through alleys and pounds down streets
like a terrible gang. We’re in a town
fat from rumour and full of cavaliers
straying from their safe-zones; each sight set
on becoming our local luminary
or parenting a legacy to ship gingerly westwards
into the living rooms of old school mates
and ex-girlfriends. Surely even the silliest see
the Khmer cachet is strictly local currency
and any traveller to ex-patriot evolution
is no more precious than cigarette ash.
What a fatuous thing to crave envy
over talent or kisses – it’s like having a whole
heap of brooms without bristles.
I enjoy night here: the sheet feeds into the creases
in my skin – cold like wax set around cheese –
my belly bubbles full of fish and the bare
walls make for good thinking. How about the way
those kids played hop-scotch, tossing stones
overhead – a way I never learned.
Michael Pedersen
Michael Pederen is a 24 year old poet of Caledonian stock. His inaugural chapbook ‘Part-Truths’ is available via Koo Press – www.koopress.co.uk. The chapbook (launched during the Edinburgh Word Festival 2009) has received a kind cartel of reviews and was named in the Poetry Society Quarterly Listings.
Michael is currently self-exiled in Cambodia completing his first full collection and assembling a script for a motion picture.
For more details see www.michaelpedersen.co.uk
or visit ‘Part-Truths’ facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=73397830831&ref=ts