Tag: Bunkong Tuon

Two Poems by Bunkong Tuon

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Driving Home after Christmas with the In-laws

My daughter whimpered in the backseat,
“I’m not feeling well,” and vomited. Tears
and saliva spattered her My Little Pony pants.

The wailing of a world on fire woke up
her little brother, who turned to his right,
opened his mouth and wailed after big sister.

Our car, a moving metal of infant sirens
on the 87. My hands on the 10 and 2 o’clock,
I was calm like a killer before dawn.

My wife turned around in the passenger’s seat,
wiped our daughter’s vomit while singing
Greek lullabies to our son.

I took Rithy out of the car seat, pointed at
the big rigs speeding down the Northway,
made sure no stranger without a mask got close.

I put my hands on his red cheeks,
blew at his hair and face, and
watched his beautiful smile unfurl.

The world didn’t end that day.
Even if it did, I knew what must be done.
Do the work calmly and cleanly

Like those who came before me.
Without a care about anyone but my children,
this calm giving of myself.

*

Year of the Snake

Each day is a new low.
It’s like a noose. You can’t breathe.
You can’t see straight. Your heart’s giving out.
We can’t go on like this.
The darkness everywhere like a plague.
What we need is for things to slow down,
for silence to breathe,
for words to churn and do its magic,
the walls to crumble.
Everything and everywhere
is all here. It’s always been here.
When you look up, you know.
When you look around, you see.
When you turn inward, you feel.
The beginning of all things. This light.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian American writer, Pushcart Prize–winning poet, and professor who teaches at Union College in Schenectady. His work has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, World Literature Today, Copper Nickel, New York Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, Salamander, diode poetry, Verse Daily, among others. He is poetry editor of Cultural Daily.

After the News of Your Passing by Bunkong Tuon

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After the News of Your Passing

1.
I went out of my way to tell people about you:
                                                Do you remember him?
He hired me straight out of graduate school.
        What did this refugee kid from Cambodia know
about teaching at a private liberal arts college?
        He must have seen in me a fawn trapped
in a well, eyes pleading, crying
        in the cold dank dark. He had my office
next to his. Every morning, we talked about classes,
        students, he reminding me of the good things
I already had: a wife and, years later, kids.
        He was my wisdom coffee, waking me up
with a clarity of mind to the magic
        and the good work before us.
He continued to teach in retirement.
        That was his calling. Kind teacher.
I told people, man,
        that man could disarm a bomb with his humor.
And he could converse on any topic
        meandering over valleys and rivers
then turning back to the original points
        with a new-found clarity.

Afterward you felt seen, lifted & loved.

2.
I was almost gleeful,
        eerily excited
to talk about you after your passing.
        Was it my way of honoring you?
My way of keeping you alive—
        Which has always been the domain of stories,
of poetry, and of songs?
        Was the mind in denial?
Whatever it was, it certainly beat
        driving alone to a grocery store at night,
pulling over on the side of the road,
        weeping in the dark

saying your name over and over.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian American writer, Pushcart Prize–winning poet, and professor who teaches at Union College in Schenectady, in NY. His work has appeared in World Literature Today, Copper Nickel, New York Quarterly, Massachusetts Review, diode poetry, Verse Daily, among others. He is the author of several poetry collections. In 2024, he published What Is Left, a Greatest Hits chapbook from Jacar Press, and Koan Khmer, his debut novel from Northwestern UP/Curbstone Books. He lives with his wife and children in Upstate New York.

Two Poems by Bunkong Tuon

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My Daughter is Ecstatic for Halloween

She squeals in sweet delight, scrunching her face
         as she climbs the steps of a neighbor’s home,
rings their doorbell, decked in her monarch butterfly
         costume, ready to say “trick or treat” when the door
opens. For me, I was always tricked on Halloween night,
         eggs flying in my direction, one hit my shoulder
the other exploded near my feet, then came the chuckles
         from the dark corner. This was the way for me, dear
daughter, but I stood my ground, not once did I give in
         to the desire to belong that erases my brownness.
I stood firmly on the ground as those boys emerged from
         their darkness, bikes clanked on cement, fists swinging
at my face then at my skinny chest. When I fell they kicked
         my back and my behind. Spit landed before those boys
returned to their darkness. I didn’t say a word, not once
         thinking of crying or begging for mercy. I lay down on that
cold hard dirt and stared at their shadowy figures with
         an imploding silence that could detonate an atomic bomb.

*

Meditation on the State of the World Before My Fiftieth Birthday

Misinformation is the virus of the century.
Everybody has a platform and everyone is a star.

Wisdom finds herself embarrassed,
Drinks poison, and waits for the big sleep.

And Patience threw herself out
The twenty-third floor a decade ago.

The ego is a seven-headed dragon that hides
Behind an avatar. It feeds on itself until it implodes.

If we stop, we can hear earth’s warnings.
Truth drowns in the deluge of lies.

I can’t think without the thought
Of others thinking about my thoughts.

Everyone is fake news except us.
We collect likes, retweets, and views.

We now have a mask for every occasion.
We are a people without faces.

We are a people who forgot how to listen.
We are a people who forgot how to sing.

*

Bunkong Tuon is Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of several poetry collections. His writings have appeared or are forthcoming from World Literature Today, New York Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Massachusetts Review, The American Journal of Poetry, among others. He is poetry editor of Cultural Daily. His debut novel, Koan Khmer, is forthcoming from Curbstone Press. To read more about his life and writing, please visit: https://www.bunkongtuon.com/

Winter Solstice 2020 by Bunkong Tuon

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Winter Solstice 2020

My wife takes the kids to see her parents.
I have great plans for the weekend.

I scrub dishes, forks, knives, and place
them in the strainer. I clean the sink,

use stainless steel pad to remove
grease on the sides of the oven.

I windex the glass window.
Darkness lasts forever

Nowadays. The dirt is cold, hard.
Cold rain washes away January snow.

The soil is frozen, bare and dark.
The sky is dark, lonely.

Has it always been like this?
My wife’s yiayia passed away

the same week Toni Morrison did.
My Lok-Yeay passed away

in another state while I was going up
for tenure. My hands and feet are cold.

My uncle said that on her last night
Lok-Yeay opened her eyes and spoke

to people she hadn’t seen in forty years.
She was back in her village.

I sweep the floor, organize mail, scrub the toilet.
I sweep, scrub, scrub, and weep.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of Gruel, And So I Was Blessed (both published by NYQ Books), The Doctor Will Fix It (Shabda Press), and Dead Tongue (Yes Poetry). His prose and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Copper Nickel, Lowell Review, Massachusetts Review, The American Journal of Poetry, carte blanche, Diode Poetry Journal, Paterson Literary Review, The Mekong Review, Consequence, among others. He teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.

A Day in the Life by Bunkong Tuon

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A Day in the Life

Make sure Chanda leaves for school
with warm kisses on her head.

Pick up lettuce, carrot, and for
something a little different, maitake.

At the Party Store grab big bright
balloons, along with a poster of

Nella, the biracial princess knight
who rides her pink unicorn and battles

Badalf, the wicked wizard.
On your way home, get gas.

Call your wife to let her know
she is Queen of Niskayuna.

Turn on the stove, throw in
the diced onion and garlic.

Eat less meat and more vegetables.
Read Doc McStuffins to Chanda.

Grade papers.
Plan lessons for next day’s classes.

Look up at the night sky.
Breathe in the cool autumn air.

And pray for no more news
of another school shooting.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a chapbook. His publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Diode, Chiron Review, Paterson Literary Review, Misfit, carte-blanche, among others. He writes for Cultural Daily. Tuon teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.

Punk by Bunkong Tuon

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Punk

On YouTube, the kids go apeshit over the Sex Pistols
        gleefully giving Johnny Lydon, green-haired, rotten-teethed,
foul-mouthed, wily-eyed punk icon their hard-earned cash.
        During the first year of the pandemic Lydon is seen sporting
a red Make-America-Great-Again t-shirt, belly protruding like
        a pesky spoiled brat. So it goes with getting old,
the world you once knew is turned upside down, the punk you love
        is now the pop music you hate. But back in the 70s,
when the Pistols played in some unknown bar down in Texas
        Rotten screamed “I am the anti-Christ. I’m going to destroy the Pacifists”
& they hated him with everything they got. They spat, threw chairs, rioted.
        The hate was pure and, of course, mutual, as Rotten spat back
and screamed some more. Sid Vicious scowled, sliced his skinny chest
        with a used razor while Steve and Glenn held down the beat.
Everything was clear then, lines were drawn. And it wasn’t about money,
        fame, and other illusions. It was a war between the establishment
and the underground, between authority and reckless youth, fought
        in the beautiful chaos of noise, the only kind of war for me.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a chapbook. His publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Diode, Chiron Review, Paterson Literary Review, Misfit, carte-blanche, among others. He writes for Cultural Daily. Tuon teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.

One Poem by Bunkong Tuon

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Upon Hearing News of Another Asian
Beaten by a Black Person

I thought of Jake, this lanky kid
from the same housing project,
his glasses sat heavy on his nose,
his skin a shade darker than mine,
teeth pearly white, straight.
We went to the same elementary school,
where everyone was white, not rich.
None of us were. The Italians, the Irish,
and then there were us, a handful of
Asians and even fewer Blacks.
I went to Jake’s home after school,
read his comics, played Atari.
How we dreamed of something
we were not, for him it was Black
Panther and for me it was Batman,
an orphan who grew up to be
a superhero. We were an unlikely pair,
refugee kid from Cambodia and
black kid from Roxbury, playing
video games and dreaming of a
better world. Then a neighbor saw
us, told my uncles about my friend.
They didn’t forbid me to see him
but I sensed something was wrong,
that if I were to have a good future
I needed to stay away from those kids
who, like us, lived on the same side of
the tracks, had the same free lunches
as we did at school. Our classmates
saw in us what they wanted to see,
our teachers said without saying that
we were different and they didn’t know
what to do with us Blacks and Asians.
We sat in the classroom with the stench
of napalm and burnt skin wafting out
of American history books and in summer
we watched fireworks in the night sky
with their bombs and canons. We sat
in awe and fear of this brilliant violence.

*

Bunkong Tuon is a Cambodian-American writer and critic. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a chapbook. His publications include The American Journal of Poetry, Diode, Chiron Review, Paterson Literary Review, Misfit, carte-blanche, among others. He writes for Cultural Daily. Tuon teaches at Union College, in Schenectady, NY.