Tag: Bunkong Tuon

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.