Ta Phrom

Smile - gate to the old park
of Khmer palaces - ancient morphine
in a room -

The many Sphinx-heads with ears on the towers
Looking around the country seventeen, cheek on eye,
Bewildered in a hurry in the rain to make
this City conquered by Chams (upriver
burning the wooden city) of
Stone to last in the forest

Even that permanence warped cleaned
in the Alice and Wonderland giant garden
of Ta-Phrom.

~Alan Ginsberg, Angkor Wat