(Prologue)
the country is a maternity ward
we’re all pregnant
physically pregnant
spiritually pregnant
but gosh why are we giving birth
to fleas
then again
From where else could they come?
Did they suddenly
appear out of nowhere?
Like rain?
Like tears?
the country is pregnant
each night, mother puts us to bed
the fleas would begin
their celebrations
after drinking like sucking blood
they speak of love
1
flickering holes in the night sky
windows
closing and opening
some stayed open
some unsustainable
some knows only to suck
chew and regurgitate
you step out of the house
through closed windows
like holes in the sky
like those hanging oriental lanterns
out in the street, in the garden
dwarves like gargoyle
sitting on the beach
watch you
night after night
you’re naked on the sand
like a gecko
(there suddenly there)
on the window sill
the hole in the window
in the window the one hole
twinkling
you know people are being born
down there
the belly button, where a window opens ups
to the Sun, and darkness
like the moon
you need
to exist
but you’re a window of no consequence
to exist
you must
be the sky
so you try
and you cry: good heavens
hairy, bushy beard dwarves
steeped you in saline like pickled radish
that’s why you’re weepy
night after night
2
the destruction of dawn
in past tense, the dawn destroyed
branches sprout from trees
leaves sprout from branches
green on leaves
petals on flowers
rhythm form in the composition of songs
in people
an inebriation
like the consumption of alcohol
guns found on a vessel, a vessel found at sea
out at sea is the enemy, don’t even think about sleeping
a hair found on the pillow
fear on lashes
dreams on fear
turning your wrist
you touch her
the warmth spreads across the blanket
warmth a breath
the sunlight in a dream
a poem
makes
its appearance
3
the cloud has a hole
a sea as poise as a river
it’s not a river; it’s a sea, a cloud
drifting through a forest, a cloud
drifting through a river
but within
the cloud is a hole
there within
leaves, flowers blooming and
a frolicking cloud sleeps with you, hence
this is nothing but the making of darkness
a blade of green grass, yellow chrysanthemum
like her, red jungle geranium
the cloud within everything
deceiving
hence, the colour of the poem
is forever mediocre
in truth from the clouds
the formation of waves, birdsongs
roses the blooming of seas
blue, bubbling poise
not from rivers
it pours from a crack
within you
ending with
rivers run into clouds
the residing clouds are
forever like that
even though it has a hole
so that the angels
like water may
descend
as the rain
4
you keep saying no, no… but what happens when you want it to be love?
perhaps you never
look down ever
find a shiny coin
on the ground
hoping they’re
someone else’s
wish
for you
you’re
a fallen antique
leaving a hole
in the pocket of a collector
the secret things
hidden under the mattress
in poor light
cobwebbed attics
the abandoned school gates
desk and chair
waiting despair
warnings
for any explorer
who dares
climb
on top of you
without protection
5
so this is what happened, rather simple really
you say: a world without body hair
it is but a limitless
line of fire
when you return
without body hair and lying
you’re not the reason for the birth of the Sun
in the nights you move the pillow to the end
of the bed
dead
asleep
because of the varied sleep
you wake up
a little different
perhaps
once you are awake
people will point out how there’s no hair on your face
and they might light a candle
so that the Sun
may light up like a campfire
on your face
the flickering light
on the walls to after
ask why all your images are bent out of shape
on the crumbling posters
on the sleepy bed
everything now
even the dark possess an intense joy
reading your poem
they fold the poems
in kisses
pretending
each verse is each breath
your breath
they perhaps could not leave in the middle of it
like you had pretended
they all share the same fear and pain…
6
the bitterness of deceit
cold, raw red, cracked lips
the undoing of a circle
no longer young
yearning to bear a baby
in its belly
it’s not a woman’s body
it wants
to be a girl
in the years to come
the vernacular in red
the words in green
banners
celebrations
peeling chapped lips
bleeding lipstick
who’s dishing out the poison
without a spoon of sugar
love and faith
faith and love
heavenly decades
citizens
cornered into searching
for their lips
to profess an oblivious stance
falling apart
without an owner
in the end
but the words are still in red
from lips bleeding colour
some might hear, and say:
– shut your bloody mouth, ladies!
7
I need a ghost
to sort out my clothes
perished
clothes
I need a ghost
to sort out my books
also departed
a ghost that can
understand
joy beyond the cover
of a book
a ghost as fragile
as the mist
able to fit into
anything
my shadow
or perhaps
the dark
the ghost
as it shifts the books
it hears a lady with a ribbon in her hair say to a little boy:
– hey
be careful
don’t fiddle
with the tent
inside
resides
a rather
content
poet
8
work work all day to after dream all night
the end of the year
flies by
the memories comes rushing
as you search
for your history
history
an envelope tainted with blood
your mother sent you
the stuff
in your suitcase
stuff about horrible people
not so simple like
the way
you write
or edit
a poem
9
the first time the mosquito died on your arm
you prayed to God
people thought you lost your mind
during the death of your sunrise and sunset
you pray to God
people accepted it as your faith
you’re silent
because death always wins
hence, you head
for the lawn in the backyard
with an empty glass of milk
so a fly may lick your finger
you let it lick the milk from your finger
before you
squash it to death
a dying fly is like a dying flame
like a person no longer alive
you’re aware of
the strength of the inevitable
the reason you’re not afraid of death
you see a man
with a broken neck
you know all it is to know
about blood flow on this planet
you’re aware of
the dead mosquito, the dead fly, not the dead person
now you meet a man
also broken
you talk to him about land prices
and how he is relieved of his home
or was it taken from him
you have the strength of death
because death comes as easy to you
as living
as for him, he can easily live
as though he’s dead
this is one way a man could take a hold on you
and turn this world into a poem
a mosquito only knows how to suck blood
like rollers unknowingly
flatten things
now has wings
dreams
are like the light inside him
as he overcomes his adversity
invites you in
for coffee
10
like broken glass on this flat old worn out planet, everything is just impossible to deal with
hence, during such a grim time
this land is like you
bleeds as the Sun heads for town
the air stifling, windless
stagnant, we move slowly
to reserve our energy
hope
leaves behind a shiver
hence we’re off balance
as though we’re grazed by a bullet
we’re one nation
for decades now
manufacturers aspired to educate us
before the surfacing suspicion
murderous conflict
fathers first then their sons
ready to risk it all
ready to spill blood
we cut along
the Annamite range
walking back and forth
a million people or more
much much more
we’re barefoot
across the shattered glass
temple guards
labourers at the mill
we’re all over the hill
for the last few decades
cursed, in the wind
on an empty stomach
the dreams of Eden
faith
loudspeakers
and everything else
all gone
our children will not recognise us
we would have lost our accents
we are now
an armada squatting
jumping
and swimming
out of a water closet
feverish with malaria
wiping the bum of blue despair
out in the middle of the ocean
like when
we search for oil
the various things
we drill may hurt
our mother
11
lie on your back when you read poetry
like the scattered fallen trees
after a flood
here the wind is off balanced
a village with tree shadows oozing brown
an overwhelming fragrance
not like overflowing
wastewater
the poem is so long that she couldn’t remember it
the city moving again
after the rain
the drain water colouring the sunset
of an artist cum poet
an electrical dam cum bearing
overflowing cum a shattered shoreline
her breath
may it be like
dusk
may it be like
the moon
thus hence it’s
a little short
thus when she’s hurt
the light falls
through
her head
it’s not like the Sun
or
like those who
cry, as they plant flowers
on a grave
it’s like
the “chim” in our pants
flying
further than you think
like the two nights
the breath
of the artist cum poet
the intellectual cum swearing
payment cum unwrapping a bun
12
one way to never smell again is to allow the circulation of the air of freedom
the entire cold, chilling night
the tick-tock sound of a clock overhead, the cat
constantly scratching on the door
the last time before it is so late
the smell of the bed
senses her waiting
lets out a breath
causing
everything
to
fade
away
13
the first time she lets down her guard
she was
a little embarrassed
by her thoughts
in your ears
she whispered:
“- you’ll never be able
to take away
what is mine?
you might
be able to turn me
inside out
once or twice
nice right…”
but you
never stayed
long enough for her
to open up
as usual
you would take away with you
the pain that isn’t yours
but the fingers of those women
embodying Kiều
who would
at the setting of the Sun
disappear
14
dawn isn’t something you want
so in the dark
you quickened your pace
jumped
right into my day
I didn’t hear the glass break in the night
by the morning light
there were
shattered bits
everywhere
cutting the pads of my feet?
so now
I’m cold
I’m crying
on the side of the road
15
I have lost a lifetime consuming scrap
I’m circling, flying short-sighted
over a sad and derelict
garden of Eden
you escaped
so you hung me
upside down
I have to look up at you
from down under
and since I’m
no longer in sync with you
at any given time I would stop and
demand food
as you weave the deception
for your retreat
into a place
no one could penetrate
you sigh
within a week, you would swell up
and burst open
in the realisation that
fresh blood
will ooze like flower petals
glossy parting lips
my feet will then take-off
flying
as you have flown
without an engine stabiliser
or the aid of a pilot
if I wanted to fly with you
all I need to do is vibrate
like the mobile in my pant pocket
with the promise:
I’ll message you when I’m done
16
it starts with alcohol
from hell
twinkling red light
the eerie scream
mood generally like
some smelly guy
stinking of beer and cigarettes
embracing cosseting
all over a black flower the likeness of a watch face
nightly fluorescent glow
incessant ticking
in your ear
your footsteps all over the place
down the stairs
grasping at pages and pages of a letter
in the colour of the night
you paint yourself in contemplation
flickering chameleon
maybe or maybe not?
to stay or not to stay?
when is it necessary?
when should you
climb
up the light pole of a madman
and ring
the alarm?
17
you’ve coveted long ago the dust on the old bookshelf
the adventures in the books
locked up
as though all of us are imprisoned
(waiting for the opportunity
to escape and love
once more)
since there will be more readers?
the generations to come
those who could lie around and read
listen and love
shall cry
wetting
even the lust
in the books
by Henry Miller
the applications
which maybe
attainable
or unattainable
with your tablet
18
why do we need the smell of poetry, does it help us sober up, help us give up drinking?
the poets are dead
more because their wives have left them
or because they’re alcoholics?
why do we need poetry
when the world is too busy making the atomic bomb
and drugs for erectile dysfunction?
what is the use of poetry
is it to help improve
teachers and students writing
comprehension
in the classroom?
their books will be nicer
cleaner
like the beauty queen’s answer
war is bad
and that
she
can’t
cook…
when is poetry applicable
where’s the instructions?
so we may read it and know what to do
you ask why
we need poetry
like the guy at the car wash
after a storm
wading through the sludge
if poetry is needed
why not import poets
like importing products Made in China
a container at a time
standing by
piled up high?
listen to poetry as though you would listen to the rain
listen to what it’s saying
listen for the evil intent
add the question mark
as though
you’re lying there quietly
with your legs wide open
dare not take
a single
breath
19
please, spare me
for accidently
biting you
please spare me
why?
please spare me
so I may let
people know
you bit me
gosh sorry
Why the apologies?
please, spare me
for my own good
when we have to apologise
when we must speak: please
please, spare me from
your email
dear lord, spare me
20
pollen and grass seed
drifting
flying
in the wind
the spring in earnest
yet you’re unwilling to open up
because you love to fly
your goosebumps visible
to everyone
on the surface of the water
the red frog waited on a rock
ready to escape
the spring in earnest
the lively green algae beneath
the lake around the rock oscillating
forming streaks in the water
a soft green carpet
surrounds your feet each night
idyllic
though we all know the coming spring will be sad
and hungry
hence the frog decides to
jump into the water
and the mosquitoes now
aware of you
the light on the water is as lucid as in a dream
as the earth, as knowing as long ago
people drank water from a glass
you broke
the shards of glass and grass seed
still in their mouths
still cuts
bleed
21
there are crevices in the mountain
I know this
because I love
exploring
the caves
there are crevices in my skull
hence when it rains
I could really feel
the crevices in my ears
I’m there
standing, breathing
running all of a sudden
from the crevices in my thoughts
more crevices formed in my nose
all that is a necessity in my life
including the emptiness
my friends
came from these crevices
as for her
she came from the emptiness of her life
life and death requires nothing but a hole
separated by a hole
a crevice, like any
black hole
in the universe
like the pubis
like the howling of the wind
like a cave
like the doom and gloom
like a nemesis
you could
never
escape
22
a question of philosophy, like how you would one afternoon fall
the changing colour of your face
yellow and red
making people think you’re blooming
hence they adorn your home with flowers
March tenth*
April thirtieth**
on your face were the idyllic smiles
a water can
in the shape of a man
and the women would feel abandoned
each time you use it to water
write
like the cuts on your wrist
touches someone else’s wrist
the pulsating falling rhymes is as captivating
as the pulsating beat flowing through your body
you’re fearful
of its dampness, hot and a little
exposed
it curls rolling in waves like a speed boat
slamming continuously into poetry
like new tree shoots during a flood
in the fall
you have plenty of time to rest and celebrate
you realise
you don’t have to do much more
don’t have to shove it in or pull it out
add more files
you beg UNESCO
to formally
name you as
a declining world
heritage site
23
you are as gorgeous as the moonlight in the mountain
the poem
wants to be a plane without a pilot
flying high
to finally meet you
your eyes
burn straight through the heart of poetry
like a hundred thousand suns
at the tip
of a cigarette
the poem
sustainable only inside an aching that even
the moonlight
seem to be a free flying plane without a pilot
and I’m flying without a pilot next to the poem
the engine would purr
like the sound of a cat
meowing
a little husky:
c’mon now
24
have you ever befriended a cloud as it flies by your house?
don’t ever befriend a cloud
it’ll give you nothing but
sun stroke
it will knock on
your window
constantly
drive you mad
it said: nothing is happening here
nothing
nothing
at all
there’s an Eden faraway
in the rain
people like clouds
flying
in moonlight
like a ball you hit with a racket
hot distended
firm
as the night before
the ringing temple bells
weightless like
drifting clouds
the smouldering
bells rang
like the one time you heard, witnessed
in the innocent eyes
of a little girl
in the clouds
it couldn’t control
the outcome
from the beginning
it was
a pain
an annoyance
the clouds drift by
to after
disappear
it’s a wind
blowing away your home
it’s
two white
eyes
quite
colour blind
25
the water flows in the river
the water flows in the river
it sounds great right?
in my sweet innocent dreams
did you feel that?
not only am I a dream, the poem
it’s by my side
enough pity you reckon
or do you want to turn it into a rabbit
or a bird with a broken wing that likes to fly
the fiddly eager
tenderness
and at the heart of the poem
you could peel off a layer at a time
like an onion
the poem burn your eyes
make you believe it’s crying
all alone
lightly in the wind
nice and dry
26
the angels treading on rather thin clouds
like at the airport
waiting for your flight
you would walk back and forth
dying for a cigarette
perhaps the flight
resembles
your cloud?
as you fall
gently
shimmering
on their
colourful
beard
they breathe
easy
as though they’re removing
the clothes of a fallen
angel
they laugh
while you: the entire night
have nothing, nothing that may
fly
often out of nowhere
we’re laughing
like apes
much like where you lie right now
on a towel
quietly
27
like December twelfth, you’re about to fly
the night
blue
black
purple
mauve
and no one saw you
you could easily believe you’re lost
the accents
and the poem
baffling
incomprehensible
but the bell on the cat’s collar
it was ringing on December twelfth
you’re bye bye-ing
flying
everything
on that day depending
the frightened souls
make you thirsty
for a bit of filtered water
not enough to give you
motion sickness
it’s nothing to do with how much you cry
deeming the poem useless
it’s meaningless because for too long
it’s been sinking, buried in a country
that the weather
the donkey
ox horse
doodling
rain or shine
long ago
obediently
pushing back and forth
the empty coconut shells
like the things
you push around painfully
in apprehension
28
you disembark from the flight on Friday the thirteenth
you found yourself
not at
Tân Sơn Nhất
but a bright shiny city
the resorts had a good rate
the TV screens flat and thin
enough that you may
insert
your memory card
an overwhelming scented cloud, and it’s raining
and she’s like a poem
moist, stepping
straight out from a book
from an era long gone
say if you can’t
buy a ticket
then Friday the thirteenth
you’re at home
mobbing the floor
eating
picking up the kids
washing the dishes
singing
sleeping
with your wife
29
writing is now by the day more and more convoluted…
first
she loosens each of your fingers
until you’re more relaxed
quiet
like a doona
with the brightness of duck down
the padding of your jacket
in the streets
the traffic horns
honking
like geese
now
people who sees the doona
will never grasp
the entire story
the incredible strength
ordinary people
has to deal with under the doona
while you remain silent
no one could hear your
long sigh
babe, I’m tired
the rain on dry land
the grass will then
upon her grow
like hair
30
when she said you must suck me out first, to get a better look of me
I write poetry
but could never conjure
such an image
I use my tongue
to lick
the words
like butterflies
it flies
and the poem
it’s denotation
left a hole
that the reader
knows not either
to suck it out or blow it back in
31
poetry is thoughtful, hardened and jaded
welcomes dawn
with a face emblazoned with letters
dried up
like tears…
32
I’m not like you
since you
may abandon me
when I have nothing left to give
What about me?
Me?
me
How could I abandon
myself?
How could I
abandon
a body my parents
has given me
33
I heard your name
in the tweets of a babbler
written in the clouds
rippling through the pebbles
under my feet
the whispers of your name
like buzzing bees
and traffic horns
mocked me every night
I could hear your name
in the rumbling thunder
everywhere
your name, your name, your name
a tirade of machine bullets
so here I have noted
something in the wind, the clouds
out there
a kind of reply
in cursives
across the sky
the one person’s tears
in the drizzling rain
for the one
34
your poem is twice as long you said
hence you love twice as much
and when I claimed
love is limitless
you laughed
you said you would remember
if I place a kiss
on your lips
but I’m
a little
clumsy
kissed you on the neck
instead
hence the poem ends up hotter
than the Sun
you can talk all you want, laugh
take in the air
because we
our children, grandchildren
you inhale and exhale
like the tides
inhale as the moon
drifts by
exhale till
we
explode
like firecrackers
35
your regards mean all you want to do is hear your whole life story all over again
but I could never
say the rosary beads backward
not once
my finishing blow
into the clouds
even the spring will be swollen
like your lips
swollen
clouds
means
it will rain…
36
He’s been a pilot for a long time, flying from a young age
he never had time to wander
he wanted to know about everything
to fly
in words
on wings
he moves
with a finger
half an inch at a time
he knows
life could be fun
How funny right?
He exclaimed: “you must lose your legs to be in a wheelchair
then you can be a superhero”
sometimes he’s a little reluctant
but dare not be negligent
because he is still
a superhero
37
when my father drinks
I can hear peeing
in the shower
behind the closed curtain
I’m under the bed
stifled by his sour breath
I don’t know who has thrown me into this room
by my hair
and said
they’ll never hurt me
when my mother was so drunk
the guy next door
came over the wall
and I watched him
through the keyhole
I’m never drunk
grew up got married
I’m black and blue
bruise, red
like the colours of all the bottles of liquor
properties of husbands
never leaves behind any evidence
we’re all playing a game
my youngest counts to ten
as I hide
my father
to this day
he could never
understand
he kept asking:
son, why are you crying?
38
I’m don’t know what to say or think, when I could no longer find you on Facebook
there are those
who wants to eat you alive
the photographs you’re tagged
the exploding
undercurrent, the rhythm
the poems, the trauma
the scars
someone said
you’re no longer a poet
you find people
in the shadows, many
shimmering like diamonds
you’re no longer a poet
your dream, once
now dripping, the shimmering
indignation of the questions
by those who thought
they were unfriend
in a country full
of deadly sins
a spectre
looked directly at you
asked you
to blow smoke
up people’s ass
as it triumphantly
laughed out loud
they stared
until they saw
people looked for you
through a mirror
in six
shattered pieces
the shape of a coffin
39
the clouds gave each of us
a red leaf
not fallen but rather left it’s branches
flying, flew away
higher and higher into the air
carried away by the wind
looked down at the mountains and the clouds
at the junk at the two dollar stores
owners who carried the world
on their shoulders
the clouds alone
wore grey clothes
dotted
with black
tired towards the end, the clouds would cry
as for the earth, only a quarter is floating
while the remaining three quarters sank
in tears
the day passes by oblivious
on a patch of wet grass
we think only of the of the rain’s journey
refuse the invitation of those
who remain at the gathering
rush
home
because Mother is waiting
the insomniacs
they walk around
asking:
– only until we can rescue them?
it’s not just about
thousands of eyes watching, bleeding
from every blood vessel
in their body
40
no, hold the applause, poetry’s still deciding whether to leave or stay
the day possessed
it’s soundless endearment
dusk was gathered on a thin leaf
a world filled with dust and falling debris
by all means, clap your hands and say for heaven sakes
thrilling is the throbbing of time
a rhythm endlessly derived from the heart
the differed light, thrown on a wall
oblivious of the eerie drama
poetry sees itself at the centre of an eye
not a monster or a mutant
glaring
at its hollowed body
a moment of separation
transfixed
leave or stay
was there anything left for you here
there was something there, once upon a time
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 