Wearing
your cadre's cap
& resting your
rickety bicycle
le autre Arc de Triomphe, Laos
those unpainted, plaintive lips,
fluttering laughter
tell me about the American missiles, the forgotten war
& "free"
market reform
tell
us of
the
bullets of laughter, lodged in every crevasse
the
days and nights when the sky drizzled ordnance
the shell cases
as garden ornaments
and
I, the third New Zealander ever to visit
the
Kaysonne Phomvihanne Revolutionary Museum,
photographs
of the dead and limbless
in
the name of RobertMcNamara and "freedom"
&
even inside the temple, outside old Vientiane
still
Uncle Ho's presides a watchful eye
over timeless Buddha,
with his evanescent smile. 
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