Bagan

Come once for…
Rich culture
Lovely Traditions
Asian architecture
Amazing hospitality
Fantastic food
Breathtaking nature
More than 40,000 Pagodas and Stupas
And you will never forget.

There is a saying;
You close your eyes in the land of Bagan
And turn yourself around
Point wherever and walk straight in your
Finger-pointed direction
Then you will end up at Pagodas

-Addy Chen

Tinman, Batman, Robin and Tigerman - Universal Boys of Mystery

-Jenni Flotmann

Picture perfect

rising up 

from crystal blue waters

sophistication, vitality, 

life slicing into azure skies.

-Felicia Wong

“Go on farang, don’t be scared,
They’re crunchy and tasty
I got fresh lemons, chili sauce and my own secret sauce,
Take a bowl, I’ll find you some smaller bugs – they are easier to crunch
You get mighty boom boom power from these, guaranteed.”

-The Pot Head Pixy

Massacred, mutilated
and stripped forever of all its historic grandeur,
charm and dear possessions,
it's now been left to stand like a derelict carcass.

-Corette Buri

Bold and confident,
impassive 
and without judgment,
omniscient yet powerless,
forever to behold the world.

-John Rock

Colourful conversations...

-Jenni Flotmann

Carpets of green that cover the earth,
A sight that feeds the eyes and warms our hearts.
We wait for the sun to color them gold,
To feed the people and warms our stomachs.

-Andrew Tan

Young and innocent, this boy sits with curious eyes…

glaring up to find answers to his questions he waits and sighs…
playing with what he holds brings him amusement for a while…
but not enough to entertain him to forget he patiently waits on those very tiles…

-Eileen Abuzo-Neri

“Shall I charge for the photo or just go the long way round?”

-Elden Chamberlain

When my "problems" become too large
I go to the mountains.
I am,
along with my insignificant struggles,
just a speck of dust in the history of these.

-Amber Phalen

Lives unknown
Time for laughing, playing and brotherhood
Time for working, helping and struggle
Future potential, happiness and success
Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst

-Felicia Wong

I feel the brown mud wiggling between my toes.
I feel the blue of the blue sky seeping into every pore of my head.
I ran through the fields… swamp… swamp… swamp.
Here I am a kid once again… run to the swamp…swamp… swamp.

-Adisara

 I stood all alone…

with no one to look at…

no busy bodies running around…

no noisy people…

no one making a single sound...

all alone…

with no one to bump into

but walls…

no one to call my name

no one playing games

and I will walk all alone…

-Ryan Rivero

My Irrawaddy

Lovechild of May-kha and Mali-kha
Bride of the histories
She is…
My Irrawaddy

North to South
From the beginning till the end
We own as whole
In Myanmar
She is…
My Irrawaddy

From the silvery snowy Himalayas
Through the ravines and across the mountains
To the plains she comes
Queen of the rivers
She is…
My Irrawaddy

Gently now she streams around Legendary Bagan
(For) Kings may come and Dynasties may go
But she...
With unswerving intentions
Is always true to her people
She is…
My Irrawaddy

“Crack” – There goes the rice pot of the Delta
Broken in pieces.
Men they come and they go
Trash may ride along her waves
Becoming the Delta we grow nowadays but…
She is…  (Still)
My Irrawaddy

Gold panning
Mercury rising
Fish dying
Human suffering-
What’s left?

Whatever it takes
She will go on forever;
Flow on forever
Where will the sun set one day?
Somewhere by the river bend...
She is…
My Irrawaddy

Somewhere anywhere
Let us meet by the next river bend
Just you and me...
My Irrawaddy

-Addy Chen

Standing here in the Shadows,

a smooth relic,
adorned in poop and Peace,
is worth the World when the
sun comes out.

- Lesley Wright

 

This house on stilts is a metaphor of the hopes of its inhabitants.

Like its skinny posts that quiver with every gust of a strong wind - their hopes are tremulous, trembling...

like its sparse thatched roof and thin bamboo walls - their hopes are flimsy, fragile...

like the wet sand it stands upon – their hopes are shaky, unfounded...

like its rudimentary structure – their hopes remain perpetually inchoate...

like its makeshift existence, simply in abeyance of the next storm to tear it apart and wash the splinters ashore  
– their hopes remain forever suspended, 
painfully anticipating the next desolate event to shred it into pieces and dash them to the ground...

-Jennifer Melendez-Penaflor      

Underneath the beauty of the park, the shady side of the city is hiding. 
The street kids  take refuge under the flowering bushes, 
the homeless wash in the pond. 
And the next morning we see the beauty of the park again, 
the shades all gone, 
but the lives of the unfortunate are unchanged.

- Leif Softing