A poem in Vietnamese by Đinh Trường Chinh
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Art: Đinh Trường Chinh

When you were gone mid-night.
The thought of suicide of every verse took shape.
The room is empty. The chair hues of aged timber
The homogenous shadow of night. Lingers the fragrance of longing.
The cup of night tips suddenly on the space you left.
Sad footprints long on granite.
All the verses whole on cracked palms
…
I’m adrift on a string of memory you threw across the night
(like an acrobat that lost his faith
fumbling for pages of the bible).
The high moonlit hot burnt boozed-up eyes.
The sun falls at dawn.
The night gave birth to the moon.
The hard birth of some verses. Cramp in the thoughts of the imagination.
Unborn err choked in oblivion.
…
You’re thrown to that far planet
Letters sent would take this lifetime
A day owe to rain
A night full of sunshine
I’m small still in your shadows of old
You
The crucifix hammered into my life
With the reverie of curses
soaked through after a season of moonlight.
Please return to confess for me.
Amid the space left
shone your ageless shadow on the pond of forever
shone the scars once bled
Here the mark you have nailed
The ever shade you nurtured of love
…
Please bury live the verses,
all thoughts of delusions
to another planet
when you are gone, maketh the cross
me jesus err reborn.
.
April 2018
Đinh Trường Chinh, the poet, and artist was born in 1970 in South Vietnam. The poet currently works in IT in Virginia, U. S. A.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.