"Cambodia" by Alan Patrick Traynor - A wonderful poem in observation of The Anjali House Writing Project - Siem Reap, Cambodia

Recently I had the great honor of publishing 20 poems and short stories by children from Siem Reap Cambodia.  I was very moved by these works.  I shared the stories and poems with my good friend Alan Patrick Traynor, author of Seven Days of Ashes, an amazing collection of Holocaust poems.  As we chatted about the works of Anjali House Project works I asked Alan if he could honor the project with a specially commissioned poem.  Alan is one of Ireland's leading poets.  Here is an extract from my post on his book

  Traynor's collection is a hymn to the victims of the Holocaust that costs the lives of around six million Jews and one half a million Gypsies. He powerfully mourns lost lives.  These poems scream, they transcend trivial rationality. They are not hand ringing TV documentaries. They force us to see the killer and the victim in ourselves.  They are about huge cultural losses, poems never written, diseases never cured, paintings never realized.  Behind a smiling cleric   you can see a Mayan priest.  The holocaust is not over.  Just open your eyes, Traynor will help you do that.   

There are seven poems in this very intense collection.  All focus on the Holocaust.   I read each poem several times and in different places.  

"Seven Days of Ashes" is the title work in the collection.   It is told from inside the ovens, from the top of a Central American pyramid six hundred years ago, from a Cambodian work camp, from a luxury resort for leaders of the European Union pondering austerity measures and scanning pics of 1000 Euro an hour hookers on their mobiles, maybe the Irish WW Two era leaders who looked up Hitler as a friend should leave the room while this is read, maybe C. K. Chesterton will explain "I just liked the uniforms".   Day 1 is murder, it was just an order.  This makes me think why do murderous ideologues love order, not just orders.  I want you to read these lines:

"I am the skeleton mother, 

A voice that reads the grave,

The borrowed sharpened flint,

We are the beautiful, the horrific beauty 

And we are dead".

This poem is already so compressed it is near possible and it would be a travesty to paraphrase it.  There is no answers for the questions this poem brings forth.

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information -also contains a link to my review of her superb book

"CAMBODIA"

By Alan Patrick Traynor

 

Glory

When I caught you
I was afraid
So I quickly killed you

Like a wild animal
The iron arm
Struck

 

It came

An unusual word
Valgus
Vainglory day

Fierce is the sky
That ends a child
Fierce the harpoon's look dismayed

Glory 

When you died
The grass was black
But we are not the same

One leg holds me up



by Alan Patrick Traynor
        ©August 15th 
               2013

Biography:

Alan Patrick Traynor is a Poet from Dublin Ireland.  He is the author of SEVEN DAYS OF ASHES, a poetry book written on the spirit of the Holocaust.

It has been said that his poetry is the mystical galvanic paint that sets the fields of Provence on fire.  It shocks the eyes and the soul at once!

Alan has been featured in Literary Journals worldwide, and is greatly respected amongst his peers.  "Edit not my soul” and "Edit not blood" are two of his own phrases that describe him best.