ASIAN MORNING WESTERN MUSIC poems by THEPHONG

THE PHONG

                       Asian Morning

                        Western Music

                                            &

                                    Other Poems

 translated by Đàm Xuận Cận

                         

Preface by

LLOYD FERNANDO

Professor of English, University of Malaya

DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS

Saigon, South Vietnam, 1971

FIRST PUBLISHED BY DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS

                                                               Printed in South Vietnam, 1971.

                                          This Edition: Jan.2012 - Hồ Chí Minh City.

                    

                                         All rights in whole or partial reproduction and adaption

                                                                        reserved for all countries.

                           Cover Design : H.E. SULAIMAN ESA ( Malaysia )

 

Preface

The agony of Vietnam has lived in the thoughts of all South East Asians these twenty years or so. We have had only the edited accounts of Allied reporters presented in the local press through which to gauge, however inadequately, the nature of the unremitting horror that has gone on for so long.  Only unshakeable integrity could have exposed the darkness of My Lai as a pointer to the mindless savagery of his prolonged conflict. How does the common Vietnamese man or woman see it? One steady, brave, lone voice – that of The Phong – comes through to give us an inkling.  There surely must be others. Now that the nations of South East Asia are coming unsentimentally, close together, these others must also soon be heard. Meanwhile there is The Phong, I am competent to make an overall assessment of The Phong’s qualities as a writer, chiefly because I know his work only through English translation.  But even in translation the voice does come through. Here is no poseur, no literary dilettante. In The Phong’s words, he writes simply because he cannot escape doing so. He is against those who would “use literature in the same way as bar hostesses do”. In “Truoc Mat Nhin Thi Si” (Under the Poet’s Eyes), he declares:

The million lines of poetry which can become

directives for this nation in the future

Should be preceded by the million lines of poetry

cataloguing the hardship of to-day…

His poetry, like his prose, is deeply committed, passionate, and supremely just. Even as he rails at the barbarouness of the American presence, he never forgets their true centre in Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald. Kennedy. He records with baleful eyes the havoc wreaked in the name of protection by outsiders who must genuinely have thought, at one time, they were there only to help. The Phong’s poetry is committed poetry of the best kind. As the vignettes succeed one another we realize we are witnessing a convincing demonstration of how the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

There must be something deeply wrong with the kind of help and protection which calls for 550.000 G.I.’s in Vietnam. It is a strange kind of help that leads to slaughter, to the debasement of human relations, to the scotching of love and honor in everyday life. With superhuman restraint these poems of The Phong’s contemplate the moral trap into which the Americans have – let us been generous – unwittingly fallen. Why has it taken them so long to learn that protection in the post- colonial era is simply colonialism an a new guise? (Assistance between equals, of course, is another matter).  No mistakes the Vietnamese could have made in the name of protection. 

Everybody, who thinks himself advanced and knowledgeable has one last most difficult lesson yet to learn: no matter how helpful he may think he can be, he must not step in and try to show others how to run their affairs ; he too must learn superhuman patience.

The Phong’s poems are dramatizations of the Vietnamese consciousness from the well of such thoughts. The poems are monologues, thoughtful efforts to discover both sense and kindness in the surrounding madness. The result is perhaps prolix sometimes, but that is a fault of Generosity. His detail, through counterpointing, is compassionate to both victim and helper. One can be restrained simply by refusing to look. The Phong looks fearlessly and still can be restrained. Even in the midst of their inferno the Vietnamese can  find voices like The Phong’s - that is the wonder. His fearless restraint, so much in evidence in their poems, is a most moving lesson for non-Vietnamese readers everywhere. []

LLOYD FERNANDO (1)

Professor of English, Dept. of English

University of Malaya.

Malaysia.

Proud to be a Vietnamese

Saigon, September 1968.

You are a Vietnamese soldier.  Be proud

The unbreakable flow of bullets and rockets bruises you, staggers you,

                                                                                 singing the praises

You are a beast of burden.  Can you not love your country then?

Do not envy anyone 

Even if you have to live at subsistence level

Americans are a special lot. They are stinking with money, their arsenal

                                                                                             is fantastic …

Do you believe

            that the pay of all of us, including yours

                                                            comes from their treasure?

Just as one single dollar is worth more than two hundred Vietnamese

                                                                                                   piasters

So a single word from the adviser-cum-master carries more weight than

                                                                                    a hell lot our ideas

In the battlefields we shed blood

                        so that our just cause will prevail some day

      

I say this

although I am pretty sick of hollow words like  peace, independence,

                                                                                             and freedom

I also know the two Vietnams are hirelings of world powers

We cannot control our own fate or that of  that of our country.

This is because

we are poor and hungry

we are weak and powerless

Even if we are chained race

we ought to be proud

Be apologetic to the Allied advisers

even when they are to blame

Forget the frustrations and sufferings of over twenty years of war

Forget your own youth of scars

I know this

and I ask you never to utter a cry

never, never …

Don’t be shaken by the reporter who wrote in sorrow

" In Cam Ranh the Allied MP’s stripped Vietnamese girls

 to search for smuggled goods

We accept their right of search, but can you explain to me

Why they tore down bras and slips, and why they outraged our national flag"

Close your eyes

forget it

pretend not to see anything

You know damn well you are not in a position to do anything about it

Of course you may blush for the weakness of your countrymen

these days we are worse then beasts, would you believe it?

(A beast does not stand idle while its mate or partner is bullied)

We all knew this in kindergarten textbooks of good conduct.

Right! Right! We are no longer ourselves in our country

I still ask you to be proud to be a Vietnamese

our country will know its day

Our people are tired of endless suffering. Come and rule over us, O peace!

Of our friends

count the dead

and count the living

Do not forget those who died unburied, do not let them die for nothing

Do not believe an American militiaman

fights because of his goddam salary

none of us can ever bring ourselves to be mercenaries…

Be assured! This land of ours

impoverished today

will be plentiful in mineral ores

The stratofortresses are doing just that for us, apart from other thing

                                                                     which I hate to tell you about.

When they come

the mighty earth shakes violently, ceaselessly

As if under the spell of the macabre music you hear in churches on Sundays.

I ask you, our sworn enemies, to be proud

that after twenty years of terrible war

You still stand on your feet

while the stratofortresses rain millions of tons of bombs and rockets

You deserve to be called true heroes of endurance.

I never question thiS
 I only ask you to open your eyes wide enough

To see your country

being reduced to a happy hunting ground

Should we resign ourselves to this

                                                until doomsday ?

It is not strange

that today, today

there are more G.I.’s in Vietnam than in America?

It is not fair

to ask

whether the end of the ordeal is near

No matter how you feel

do not go all funny

do not show resentment to Allied soldiers

This bunch of whites, browns, blacks and reds

come here to our rescue!

They brought with them

                                    flour

                                    corned beef

                                    and plastic wrapped goods

They are right  if you remember our ancestral enemies

the goddam Chinese

Are ready at all times to march in to force domination upon us

It won’t not take long because they are right at our doorstep

Do not be galled by the sight of boards reading:

                  " No Admittance to Locals"

My friend

bury your face in your hands

then cast a long glance at the sea

And the mountains and forests and meadows and streams.  This country is ours.

O when will you country cease to be' a baby in the arms of the American nurse'

When will regain its place as the second rice exporter in the world…

I have been in every corner of my country

wherever I was I could not help the pang in my heart

it is painful to know

we are no longer able to feed ourselves

                                          Every bullet

                                          Every toilet roll

                                          Every piece of corrugated iron

                                          Every piaster of your salary

Does not come from our land

Do not go all funny, man

mountainous sorrow will make you a philosopher

Before long

we will have  no taste left for romantic literature

Instead we will write treatises on human despair

I know you

do not want to hear any more talk about it…

I only want to tell you

Do not let the foreigner’s whores your wives

Do not approve of mixed marriag

however justified the motive

Educate your children

on the hardships and misfortunes of today

( To live in suffering is to deserve to live )

When you go out in the streets

when you are  on operations in the countryside

Try hard to protect our women and girls.

Do not act like cursed strangers

( Nobody can afford to be a foreigner in his own country)

Cool down man

when you are taken as undesirable background in photographs

When you see Yanks coming out of the PX all smiles  

cool down man

When you have not enough to live on

it goes without  saying

You should refrain from buying gifts for your girl friend of your

                                                                                              own race.

Saigon, Sept, 1968.

What a Sight, 550,000 G.I.’s in Vietnam!

Saigon, October, 22^nd, 1968.

Well! Well!

Our friends

                        the Americans have arrived in our country.

They have manpower,

They have money,

They have munitions

 ( the  ingredients of the magic formula ) 

 And there are 550,000 of them.

Wild places

            turn into real estate

Petrified,

stupefied,

we Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming

Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base,  Cam Ranh City

Quy Nhơn, Chu Lai, Tân Sơn Nhât, Biên Hoa…

Anywhere they set foot

                        they are followed by our women and girls

                          the fun makers par excellence

As for you

you must produce passes

when you come down to any these places

Don’t you see signboards

                         reading  'Locals keep out  '

I know how you feel

but don’t let patriotism wall you in

( And I need not tell you true love defies petty jealousy)

In order not to be mad

keep telling yourself

We must choose between the lesser of the two evils

                           namely the Chinese and the Americans

We all cherish                  

                       the freedom of profession

                        the freedom of life

                        and the freedom to die of starvation

I urge you to banish all somber thoughts

which only cloud your knowledge of the real situation of our country.

Do you know what Vietnam is?

Vietnam is the battlefield

Of irrelevant Western-style democracy and phony socialist forces

We

 have been paying

                           for this

                           all our lives

                           but not to avail …

Without respite

                           day and night

                           our country exposes itself

                           to rockets and bombs

Hundreds of raids are being carried out daily

                            how many have died?

We don’t know

                          the dead never asked to be counted

                           or even to be remembered

We can only be sure of one thing:

                                    we will not never suffer from overpopulation.

For the survivors

each grain of rice we eat

is imported from vast fields in California

Germany and Korea are divided countries too          

                            but they era doing all right

while we are to suffer in the most cruel and obscene

                            what an irony!

I‘ve been walking all roads of the beloved land

including foothpaths

One afternoon when I stopped, terribly hungry

                            what  have I tell you?

                             where I can ask

                            for a clean breathing space?

In thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku, Kontum,

to dusty Nha Trang, Đa Nang, …

Our girls brazenly ply their trade with sex-starved G.I.’s

Coloreds!

Whites!

Reds!

Blacks!

Democracy protectors!

Freedom fighters!

I have seen them all  !
Right! Right!  They are always right with women!

Lovers of a quick buck

                        our girls are not to bad

                                    after all!

A Negro G.I. always showers dollar notes on the girl he sleeps with

he pays double everywhere

                        starting from the brothel

(He does so out of frustration with his white colleagues )

Man to man

I do not object to them

What troubles me

is the fact there are indecent women .

Do you see

my friend

'special' advertisements inserted  in English language dailies?

With one hundred dollars

                              one third of the monthly salary of a G.I.

                              you can buy two girls from good Vietnamese families

The color of your skin

does not really matter.

Oh my God!

I know of a family with two girls.

For reasons that I dare not elaborate

The elder sister set out to make love with one G.I.after another
She soon become unfit

and bed-ridden

Her younger sister cried loud

sinking into the deepening darkness.

On the following morning

                        a G.I. turned up

                          saying he wanted his money back

He was simply not satisfied

                        he had not got the right value for his money

How the hell could I believe it?

The frail younger sister hurried to follow him

To a dingy hotel room

in stormy weather

Her parents lost news of her in a month.

until one  sad evening

The same  G.I. appeared to ask  them

to come to the 3^rd Field Hospital 
 to claim her corpse

She was lying there

covered by a sheet

her face pallid.

She was the wife of a Vietnamese soldier

They were with each other only two days

Out of two years of married life
 (You must find this hard to understand )

his battalion fought

                        at Khe Sanh

                        Lang Vei

                        and  A Shau

He was the only survivor of a whole platoon

                                    he was allowed to come home this time

nobody dared to tell him the cause of her death

he would not believe it anyway

but for him

she was as dead as an any other dead person

he did not need to know anymore

We have got

Cam Ranh City, Cam Ranh Air Base

Even in Tân Sơn Nhât

the main strip has got a foreign name.

We are living in our own land

and we feel estranged

as if we are yellow Negroes.

Today

the 22^nd October 1968

The radio announced

the change of color of the MPC’s (2)  took effect since yesterday

I agree completely

I have unreserved praise

for this just  measure

But what did I see 

                          since seven this morning

                         a stream of sad-faced women and girls

Cramming the road to Tân Son Nhât Airport

to present a petition

Their property

their savings

their payments for services

had come to nothing…

In an office there was a Vietnamese woman

whose officer husband was away

She had a very cute son

he could mumble a few words.

He wept and screamed

                    being very  scared of his mother’s American visitors

Unlike her

he was not a bit impressed by dollars;

Shaking his head

                        shouting louder,

                        broken in tears,

                         he called his father’s name.

Alas

his father had long been denied leave

now he was leading his troops against the enemy in the highlands.

The woman worked for Americans

                         to get money,

                        and that would be that  -  she thought-

The kinky American officer who employed her thought a bit differently,

he said;

            " I will help you,

               you husband is an army officer

               he is my  best  friend "
Not long after that

                  he fell madly in love with her.

One rainy evening

he proposed  to drive her home

it rained,

it rained,

The car  ran smoothly on the road

when suddenly he  pressed the brake pedal.

the car didn’t overturn

                        but she was trapped squarely on his lap .

Holding her tight

                  in his two hairy arms

                   he kissed her savagely

                   raped her in the back seat.

He gave her all the MPC’s

                                    he  got

                                     a hell lot of  money I tell you

That night

her child go to bed early

unaware the officer had taken the place of his father

                                         in the bed of his parents

the son went top bed early

unaware the officer had taken the place of his father

in the bed of his parents

The next morning

he got up

amazed to see so many MPC’s

he did not like them

                        he tore them to pieces

                         calling  his mother.

Startled

she rushed to him

                               handed him a  parcel of candies

                               Telling him it was from his father in the war zone.

                                 Jubilant

                                 he held  it tight  

                                 mumbling his father’s name

Dead tired

after a hellish night of love

she did not bother to go to work

Stretching her shoulders

half smiling

she looked at her bed filled with MPC’s

All this from the work of a single night,

                                    now she had become a millionairess

She summoned the household

handing out to them all Vietnamese notes left

the 500 piaster note with hero Trần Hưng Đạo On

the 200 piaster note with the hero Quang Trung On

the 100 piaster note with Lê Văn Duyệt On

she said:

 "I give you all these cheap things,

                          I do not want them anymore,

                         they are very, very cheap"

Today, the 22^nd October 1968

she came to work

         read about it all in the newspaper

Two days previously,

the American authorities announced the change of color of the MPC’s

She wanted to cry

her dream of wealth

remained a dream
Also the Yankee officer departed to the States at five in the morning
Suddenly
               she remembered her husbans
Suddelnly
               she remembered her child

she was taken to the hospital

after swallowing an overdose of sleeping pills

and she refused to be brought home

for fear of seeing the worthless pile of dollars

she broke down again

                        those around her thought her delirious

                          when they heard her speaking English to herself:

                          "Go home!

                               Go home!

                                the Yankee

                               I disliked"

Today I went out,

                        the roads now are as good as the highways in the States.

I felt gratified to the RMK

and the U.S Army, financed road reconstruction program.

Today I went out,

                        and I had a strange feeling-

                          it was not election time;

but I saw,

            NIXON- AGNEW posters everywhere

             I was confused beyond words.

 I want to ask them what they think?

           the soldier whose wife died in the hospital;

           exhausted from making live with the G.I.’s,

          the officer whose wife became delirious
                            after losing 'hard earned ' money

I have a further question
               to ask good man like Bernard Fall
 who wrote The Two Vietnams  discussing problems in  both the North

                                                                                                      and the South

and died

            on Vietnamese soil,

                                 On the field trip,

                                    with the U.S. Marines in Quảng Trị Province
I want to ask good Americans

                                     like the U.S. Missionary

Who tried to learn about us

                                       and to do good thing in the name of Christ.

You are people of wisdom,

                                 people of strength;

                                    but you are honest enough

to admit the stupid mistakes your fellow countrymen committed

                                                                in the name of friendship?

I for one cannot entertain 

                  the prospect of our girls becoming prostitutes and boys pimps

This land of ours counts on you,

                        Men who are not Communists,

                        Men who have convictions,

                        Men who are not servants,

                        Men who have dignity,

                       Men who do not allow wives to work for Americans ,

                        Men who bring salvation

I know you will feel humiliated.

I tell you  

            you must learn American

 (If you want to know

            what the hell going on …)

Saigon October 22, 1968.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

In a whole sad evening

I wander

            casting a glance at the sea

                              and the horizon

counting every quarter of an hour 

              while the sun appears and disappears

                             on  the waves.

                                                                                   

my secret sadness

             refuses to go

I wonder whether there is any meaning for life

in the wood Our Lady with innumerable pebbles 

in this place I find no solace at all

the sea today is sad like me

furious waves do not cease rolling 

and breaking on lonely rocks.

and rocks seem to be shattered to pieces of russet color

thousands of years ago

            at the beginning of the universe.

probably this hill was part of the sea,

            with billows roaring.

after so long a  time,

             now a lone man, 

                    I walk slowly, sadly

up and down this place

visit friends and inanimate things
             and then depart once more ...

Sitting in the evening shop waiting to be served 

looking at nude pictures on the wall

and hearing Western music.

suddenly I realize

            Christmas is coming soon,

                        in this war-ravaged land
the hostess

             after collecting money 

                        leaves the counter

goes into the kitchen

             to prepare roast fish

 yesterday the duty cook

            went to the training camp
women replace men in all matters

             except for being husbands

I begin to weep

            over my lonely state
o my love

            are you happy away from me

 today

            for dinner

                       I will eat more

thinking of your beautiful hands and body

I’ll smile in tears

Do you know

             in this time of civil  we all have burning pains

let us  turn away

             not to see the obscene scene .

a naked G.I.

            shows his contempt for prostitutes ;

by going out of the bathroom

              without a dress on .

a wife turns away,  looks at her husband and waits for him to react  

head bowed

            he goes on sipping his soft drink

aware that the blue-eyed soldier

thinks all Vietnamese  women are keen on seeing naked bodies
in fact his beastly attitude should only shame

                        compatriots of hero Abraham Lincoln
whose statue was carved on a great mountain.

as for me I remember the photo of John F. Kennedy
            hero of the world with floating hair

               assassinated not long ago.

since then Vietnamese youths

            night after night,

                        look at  his picture hung over the bed

                                    feel respect and love  for him

                                                champion of 'New Frontier Policy '

o the obscene jingle full of pretty things

only  makes prostitutes laugh

                           professionally

I will never forget the morning

             I came to the cage-like shop;

                       surrounded by wires for fear of terrorist activities

there were four at the table

                       three Americans and a Viet woman 

they seemed to be gallant like Europeans

I sincerely thought so

until the little waiter brought a small plate full of cheese

he stuttered  in front of an American
"she orders this

            gentleman

              why you shake your head"
not knowing what had happened!

the Viet prostitute went on laughing and talking             

even after she  admitted she had ordered this extra thing
her lover still shook his head
I felt sorry although I had breakfast twice

now I know another characteristic  of a  leading nation in the world

the American woman has her own purse even after she is married
this Vietnamese woman, the prostitute turned temporary

                                                                                and profitable wife

has no money  and has begged  for a breakfast in vain

The memory of the G.I. opening the door

                                  of the bathroom to let woman appraise his body aches me

for him Americanism simply means this miserable husband
                                          

              with gold-rimmed spectacles who

walks in the direction of the G.I.

and speaks softly as if saying prayers

I at first take him to be a pimp

 but after the quarrel breaks out.

I understand the weeping woman is his legitimate wife

one afternoon

            she had left  Saigon for the fresh sea air

but only to feel all the humiliation of her people

After the G.I. gets out to consult his friends

            on how to right his grievous wrong 

he walks in

             the red cap on his head

losing his arrogance he says  softly
".I am sorry

           I’m really sorry

                     please accept my apologies.'
then a firm handshake with the husband

           as an acknowledgement  of friendship

  like the handshake insignia printed on aid bags
   “ I’ m sorry

             for thinking all Viet women are prostitutes

   and dollars could buy everything …”

Still another story

            every time the interpreter goes on leave

he sees on the highway

a love-starved G.I. simply brandishing his dollar coin

to find woman he could go ahead with

In my war-torn land

        every night

flares shine bright in every corner of the country

deafening sounds of artillery disturb further
           uneasy sleeps of war-weary people

never have  I found the image of any man more shinning than

                                                                                J.K. Kennedy’s!

now his image

            fades out as bubbles,

                        on the immensity of water;

                                    the wind in his hair

                                                he seems to weep

At the J.F. Kennedy Square in Saigon

            the man  whose wife was mistaken as a prostitute                               

                                    of J.F. Kennedy’s nationality

cannot find back his bitter tears

Christmas night

           stars are shining brightly

                        on the Saigon Basilica

everything is shrouded in the fog of shame

            war !

                  and 

                        war …

Cap Saint Jacques, South Vietnam

21^st December, 1965

Asian Morning, Western Music

                                                                                                to Vu Thi Ty

This morning like any other morning

I open my eyes, stretch to greet the flame red sunrays

         which have burned the rancor in me for thirty years

love now is sweet sour and bitter

        my lips but still hold a pimento fruit,

I cannot remain thoughtless before the big cup of black coffee

part of our diet in the barrack

 

looking at my lean silhouette

        on  the hot sands!

I sadly think only my only amusement is eating rice 

 dearer to  me than my sweetheart’s caresses

 let me live more days of despair and sweat

 hour by hour my people are increasingly

         suffering the war

 in the sound  and fury of mortar fire, tanks and jet-fighters

rosy lips of beautiful women glisten amidst war

a young soldier ruins his future

with the hostess in the café on the beach too keen on betrayals

watching her guests with experienced eyes she orders drinks on

           their behalf

 what will be left to us after years of war 

          countless rosy lipped youths have died to

                      preserve these bright eyes of yours

I am but a perfect stranger

            last night I lived to my utmost

this morning

            I feel ten years older 

beautiful love is love in the morning

love

            late in the night

                        is nasty

the European female singer with passionate voice
makes me feel like crying

tapping the thin female dog lying at the road side

a G.I. pushes the door in

while I am sitting at this table to write verse

             to bury sad days

the mountain not far from me has witnessed

             the twenty-year long desultory war

1943

Japanese troops dug trenches for ammunition.

1965

American troops rushed to Vietnam         

with the ball point pen ,

             I write line after line

 on the sea at Vũng Tàu

          are ships and carriers

last night there was a hilarious party

 for Vietnam, U.S. , New Zealand , Australia ,

           Free China and South Korea

this is why I am often mistaken for another

even by a South Korean girl

 '  I am  a Vietnamese, I am not a Korean'

my skin is yellow and I  want to defend my country 

            as any of my friends of other races

I look in her eyes

as if to tell her we should put old conflicts out of our mind 

and carry on a  new life for all of us

the European singer‘s voice has shattered me

in Vũng Tàu five years ago

O sweet memory always dear to me

it has been flooding back into my consciousness

to me  any Vietnamese girl is lovable

this is precisely why I worry

because weeping cadets

torment me prior  to their time of departure

o young soldiers!

you will go and I will stay in this training camp

              for how long I cannot tell

after your departure 

              head down I cry my eyes out 

on account of communion the iron bed sweats

nothing is more precious than highly exalted love

between youths of twenty and thirty

who swear to live and die together

               who  meet amidst the fury of fire

as none will bathe twice

               in the same river 

we will never meet again

               like this  -  the graduation  on the sands 

dunes and hills crumble away

               and the moon shines not for our enjoyment

after your departure

                I look around

in the studying, eating , and sleeping rooms

there is nothing left on the floor but desks, and chairs

                and rubbish

there are women to entertain  us for a  moment

but I count on you

                so that later on when I become and old man

leaning on  a stick

                I will sing of memories as a young man

O youths dying with heads broken

where is peace that we will long for

later

        of course

                     I can’t meet  all of you

 an army is complete

          only before the battle

who will be missing

o my dear brothers, my loves  one.

Bird’s warbling in the morning in the dreamlike coffee

           arabica flower garden

dry brown terminalia leaves grace the pebble- covered lanes in the park

an old man with white hair and beard

         walking past ,  leaning on the stick

                      is myself after years

sad sound  of music begin wounding my heart

I pray, I pray

          so that everything will be in right

and the rosy lips of the bar hostess will not hasten to fade

the lamps in the room will remain lighted

these things, however trivial

        all contribute to our happiness

o my love

       I am in the sulks on account

                 of you not so sincere words

 thought it is my understanding

       women speak these in spite of themselves 

 o young lovers of tomorrow

 do understand that insincerity is part of the love play

 the Siamese cat with yellow fur lies in the sun

        makes me think of a loving hand’s caresses

 you are walking in my  heart 

I’ll surely love our first child

        whether son or daughter

 without you

        how miserable I  am

you still remember don’t you 

the golden afternoon you sat by my side

the setting sun

                   partly hidden by my helmet ;

my sunny  smile is for you

                   in lieu of suffering people

love ,  though noble, is very selfish

but what  I can do

             when I am but a man 

at thirty I love you !

               my love as ripe as bananas with tart-shaped dots

when autumn comes Hanoians have tears in their eyes

I met and loved you at Saigon and Vũng Tàu

the sadly wind  of the sea has been the witness of our love;

we ‘ll pass another winter

but don’t you see spring is coming round again 

and very soon

                nature will be renewed

  like our love today !

                we’ll be happy !

                we’ll be sad !

my love, do not  feel more rancour

the heritage of us two

                in years of despair.

o my love my love

        in order to break our solitude

               let us cry more 

and strengthen our love

o my love, my love

              without me

                       will you cry

o my love, my love

              without you

                        what is left to me

and how I can go on writing

               to contribute to our literary heritage

lines of poetry

                of bitter mornings and afternoons

surely our country

               will lost a poet

'  with the name The Phong '

the sun  has risen high

               and is shining straight

                into my eyes

music is also fading away

                  in the morning café .

Cap Saint Jacques, 23^rd November, 1965.

[]

THE PHONG

Uplifting Poems

Translated from the Vietnamese by

ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN

                                                    

                                     

DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS

SAIGON, SOUTH VIETNAM, 1974.

This Edition, Jan. 2012- HỒ Chí Minh City.

FIRST PUBLISHED BY  DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS

Printed in  South Vietnam, Saigon, 1974 .

This Edition, Jan. 2012- Hồ Chí Minh City.

All rights in whole or partial reproduction and adaption reserved

for all countries .

                                                                                 

                                                                                     

Translated from the Vietnamese by

ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN

Original tittle :

THƠ LÀM LỚN DẬY CON NGƯỜI

Đại Nam Văn Hiến, Saigon, Viêtnam 1964.

Death Consciousness

  

When the big dragonfly was in flight over the May paddock

Its two eyes engaged in hunting a certain smaller dragonfly for food

The little kid quit school to stroll along the edge of the paddock

then stopped

            and used a striker with sticky breadfruit resin

                       to catch the dragonfly turned hunter

But this insect was wiser

                        than the kid allowed it to be:

                                                it quickly moved elsewhere

The kid did not give in

                        he took the small dragonfly as bait

which enjoyed a measure of freedom

                        at the end of the string in the hand of the kid

The dragonfly turned hunter was not good enough

                        to avoid the string

It alighted on the victim

                        then lifted it up to its mouth

The kid spun back the string

                        took the dragonfly by its tail

he burst out laughing 

(Here you are, say goodbye to your freedom)

I spent the whole morning

                        to search for the truthful meaning of life

Looking at the germinating seeds washed

                        in by the rain last night

This morning

I met the kid who quit school for a stroll

The sun was high

            near the red flower thicket

                                    he dug the earth to bury the insect

Its is no longer in life

            its body cuts to bits 

Ah!  

returning to dust

             it no longer cared

if there was still light in the world

The little kid used to feel sad

            when evening came

He was sick with learning

            he scorned to hear the teacher’s words anymore  

He now asked me

'What is the use of all this miserable business '

and tell me

" you are old enough

         why do you waste time with a kid’s play

          why did you borrow my sling 

                and you hid behind the gourd plant

                  throwing little stones at the bees hovering

                   from flower to flower

 and tell me

     you kept the light on all night

          did you study inside the mosquito net

              you had a funny face when another bee stung you

                      you little insect

                              but surely you must be curious

                                     why it stung you go savagely"

 I know the meaning of life already

my boy

 It died

            and its death taught me courage

Death or life really makes very little difference

the dragonfly hunter had no choice

            but to live on a smaller one   

It died because of you

            and no other fellow insect took

                        to revenge its death   

It was not the same of bees

            it was not the same with ants either

 I live by myself

            I have no worry whatsoever

 because I do not expects anything from anyone

            We are bees

           We are ants   

           We are dragonflies

We are full of hatred

            and consciousness of death  

But let’s face it

            you are not old enough 

to grasp why I’ m still nursing  my deep wound .

Saigon, July, 16, 1963.   

Life As Ranging Rope 

1

Eighteen  years of age

            ample breasts

nice make up

          wearing jeans

looking at the rain outside 

Night was torn apart by the sad

         voice singing

Midnight.    Opening the door

            looking at the rain now falling thicker 

Sure as hell

            she could kill men with her charming smile

But the seldom smiled to those around her

Her step-father was not Daddy

            and was rather badly treated at that 

Her mother brought sorrow to her first children

            by marrying a second husband

Her own son

            a kid as strong as an athlete

and as manly as an American movie actor

He screamed

'You pay for your crime, I tell you'

Night after night you sleep with my mother

When I am a man I will strike you for sure

I’ll put a stop to your dishonoring my family’s name

No, no, no.  You should not put on airs, telling us
                                                            to do this or that
  My sister no longer a teenager

            she can sing if she likes to

and she can sleep with anyone she damn pleases

See me, face me, silly old man

You are fifty and you still practice gym

You like good food, good drink, good clothes

You like fun.

Do you still love life that much

You’re no moralist,

            o silly old man

You hate me

            brand me as a hoodlum

                        because I’m no son of yours .

 (Midnight…

            I awoke and heard the fitful cries of anguish)

2

The morning was misty

            the lamp was still burning

A  girl’s sigh saddened the heart of any sensible boy

Have a  look at her in the mirror

            she was ravishing

            there is no doubt about that

Her lips rouged

            but not to see her brother off for soldiering

Mind you

             it was not bullets that he would fire

            but its was anger

Mother could not help her tears

Sister looked at him as if he was a lover

           

(I woke up in the middle of the night, hearing sobs)

3

The daughter told everybody the made clothes

she was off very early every morning

            and was not back until late night

what the hell did she really do,

            nobody had any clue

but who really cared!

who really cared!

Thanks to her

            her little sisters had candies to eat

thanks to her

            they had nice clothes to wear

and they had nice words to say about her,

              they were very fond of her

we the neighbors believed what we were told

we were not fussy people

(At night we heard merry singing and sobbing as well )

4

One morning

        she was escorted home by two cow cops

            with the handcuffs on her wrists

How pitiful she looked!

She could only weep to plead for mercy

There was conclusive  evidence

'she was caught sleeping naked with a foreigner in a hotel'

Ah

 what a shabby singer she was

by no stretch of the imagination could she be taken as a tailor …

As for me,

          I believed her self-defense supremely convincing

I judged her and found her innocent

I passed the verdict as a poet

I got no money at all

            so it was not a professional occupation

I was concerned to see deeply into human motivation

the fake singer’s mother cried loudest of all.

(That nigh  it was surprisingly quiet,

             no singing, no sobbing,  nothing)

5

I could hear the funeral march beating

As coffins passed through the road in front of my house

Day after day without relatives following the coffin

Who had died?

        how did he live

Could a life be so short and sad

Well,

I knew you were those who had paid the price of patriotism

seeing the flag-wrapped coffins!

alas

      it broke my heart that those wives forgot you

                    not long after that

I knew they wanted to get married again

         leaving your children uncared for

I knew why these unfaithful women hated dogs like hell

Night and day were indistinguishable

            the singer’s voice and weeping already died down

Then one sad evening I raised my voice to sing for myself

Evoking the sad image of two love beings

            her and myself, on the hill of pines

the little girl from the house next door

            started eating candies bought with cash

Seeing her wearing a morning band I asked her about it

Sadly she told me his brother had been killed in a battle

When I asked about her sister

          she shook her head

'No, no, I have no sister

                        my sister was not a whore'
(  I apologizd as she broke in tears)

Night and day are alike

           life is but a hanging rope

They are still living

        still living…

                there is not much sound and fury…

Saigon, July 16, 1963.

Raise Your Heads

1

When they have much money

         Sure you can ask them to buy this or that

 Sure

         they are the cream of society

Sure

         their services can never be free

Sure

         their hands are clean thanks to good, expensive soap

Sure

        their teeth are clean and shining

 for the same reason

Sure

         their voices are resounding because full of pride

They come to you

         do nothing for you

Anyway

        they expect too much from you

(I tell you

           nobody needs to worry about them )

2

Whatever you do which involves no real labor

          no genuine care

                     no love on your partner

I couldn’t care less  about it

                     because it has no value

 They should have suffered

             but now it is  too late for that

They should have earned their life honestly

             but they should have the will

They should have known humility

           so that they are not full of arrogance

really they have never know real love

            so they should not talk of love

(I tell you, they are downright contemptible).

3

Today

            I walk Saigon streets in sunny weather

The air is invigorating

                        I am enjoying myself

I feel myself a new man

                    cheer up

                           dear follow.

Saigon July, 17, 1963.

He

  to poet-judge  DAO MINH LUONG

1

He wrote poems to sing of freedom and to denounce slavery

His wish to be a willow tree on the windy coast

He wrote in poems

            this world is full of great expectations

He and a deep love for less lucky countrymen

His hate

            the trucks of screaming prisoners

 on the way to court

 To make money

             was the last thing he would think of

 He lived a good life

              he was nice to those around him

 he even shared the poverty of his fellow mates

 he spent many years to pore over books

            in the university

 His talking straight

            and thinking straight endeared him

                        in the eyes of many

  He solemnly swore

            I will never do bad things to others

He wept over the death of Frederic Garcia Lorca

            the Spanish poet

He pointed to the picture of Francisco Franco

            loudly condemning him as a cruel man

He paid homage to Vietnamese hero Nguyễn Thái Học

  ( I shared his convictions and held him in admiration.)

2

Time passed …

            time was a great master …

             time taught us to do good is never easy

Many a night I could not sleep

            because of him

Now that he was a judge

            he betrayed his own beliefs

Holding the conscription notice,

            he shrugged his head

 "tell me, what is this all about

tell me

I only want to live

I am afraid to die

I love myself

I have only one life and I don’t want to lose it "
He burst out crying as a little kid.

(On the way home\

                  I could not say a word )

Saigon, July 23, 1963.

What I saw

  on the gloomy sky of today?

What did I see

          apart from blood stained rolls of barbed wire

What did I see

          a city besieged

What did I see

           cops outnumbered people in the streets

What did I see

           soldiers were  even more numerous than cops

At the crossroads today

            and old woman is screaming over the loss of her son

He quit school

            smashed everything on his road to the future

Her frail body in clothes whiter than whiteness fell on the bitumen road

Have you died

         my sister aged only eighteen

                        who has not known love

You have left us

         cowards of thirty years of age

Who will write two words Viet Nam

         on the gloomy sky of today

I look forward to seeing,

         a horizon bathed in blood

'Down with tyranny

                  down with repression '

What did I see

          alas my shortsighted eyes could not see far

What did I see

           they killed people in the roundup last night

 What did I see

     my barefooted people with mourning bands

            on their loose and dreary hair

                    bursting into tears

What did I see may newborn children

            refusing to live in this monstrous world

What did I see

           sisters and mothers awaiting their jailed brothers and sons

The sight of schoolgirls tearing their coats

           to make banderoles haunted me

I shouted to exhort others to rebellion .

Saigon, Sept, 15, 1963.

Love Lifted Me

Trying to hurry my lingering sadness

          in the softness of a woman’s body

My heart is bloodless

         so I take a hot bath

Casting a glance at the misty vale

          I dream of European looking women

In my heart of hearts

         what I need is only a soft body

Soldiers in combat garb are moving outside

The people try to find out

         about this wretched country

                  through the B.B.C.

Lying on the white sheet my eyes stare at the stone walls

I hear nothing

          nothing at all around me

A nurse in white is walking to and fro

Puzzled

           I take her as a wandering ghost

There is simply no end to my misery

          the radio music is torturing me

 I scream for help until it is turned off

Now

         I know a woman is what I long for

 as sweet human voice

          a happy moment in life .

Dalat, October, 1963.

Our Fatherland Must Go!

Our country is no longer one and the same

(A fish cut in two must be still trembling for a while)
On sunny days there are sidewalk

        vendors trying to sell flags at give away prices

 I turn away

         to avoid the sight of foreigners taking pictures of streets scenes

Men limping

         women welling wares

                        children begging

 How about my friends

           the bourgeois dressed smartly in European clothes

Nothing is lacking for those who are so gracious and beautiful

But they want to sell out our fatherland mocking at our sorrows

They want to sell out

           our fatherland along with the flags and you name what

Everything is for sale

           everything must go

And they fly abroad

leaving us behind

And what we can do

            when they are already in the air

Oh !

 They are never to be trusted,

            the'good friends'  of the foreigners

not one of them have ever cared for us …

Let the flag vendors do something worthwhile

Let they bring water

    when we walk barefoot the sun is hot

Sure they are reliable

   they will not sell our fatherland

Sure they will not flee

   our country now in its hour of need and in the future

Grief has badly shaken all of us, don’t you see

 ( I start writing about the fate of our land.)

Saigon, Oct. 1963.

Upon the death of writer Nhất Linh  (3)

When I was under twenty

       it was not long ago

Picking a red

        red rose

               I was praising you as a great writer of us all

Standing by myself amidst the soft

        cool air of a Hanoi autumn

 I let my soul fellow the footsteps of our heroes

 O how I wished then

         to be like  DUNG in ' Two Friends'

When I was twenty

       I lived in the fashion of your heroes

Time passed… and yes

        quickly than any of us could imagine

Your image no longer brightened our souls

Your image is a dim as a still life painting

Then came one afternoon

            dressed in smart clothes

 I took a seat and ordered

           a morning cup of coffee

                   

Angry with myself turned a bourgeois

           who knew how to spend money

I looked for a daily

           stared dismally into space and indulged in day- dreams

Hearing the sweet sounds of music by those

  who crossed the Pacific Ocean years ago

What do Asians think of

           surrounded by waste land

Suddenly something struck at my head cool as a needle

'Writer Nhất Linh committed suicide

           swallowing poison on the 7^th day of the 7^th month this year'.

Reading his biography on newspapers and periodicals

I had to frown at distortions,

          yes

          cruel distortions

Aimed at him and Asian literature as well

(Sure  criminal  minded  persons

could not understand a damn thing about us )

I must put down the cup of coffee

           on table of  The Pagode ‘s Café

           thinking of you

           who had left this world

           forever and forever

I decide

          this volume of poetry,

          should contain only UPLIPTING POEMS

          and  sacred numbers – let us remember well:

        '  the 7^th day of the 7^th month in 1963

                      the 49^th day after his death'.

          He who lies in the grave

                has the power on the destiny of the living.

Saigon, Aug. 15, 1963.

To Be a Girl

Where there are  flies there’s God

Where’s God lonely men have a friend

I’ve walked all trails in my country

When I stopped the city of Dalat

       was shrouded in mist in the dead of night

Fortunately I had a companion to keep off the ghosts

Your face is haunting me

              in day and  night

Lying in bed

              I keep thinking of you

                      I simply cannot help it

Your lips are so delicate

             your eyes just don’t go away

on the threshold of adulthood

             I’m still looking for a sister soul

I have climbed to the top of Lang Biang Hill

When all I wanted was to bury my head in your floating hair

Is there any love story

               which is not beautiful

Is there a blemish pervasive enough

               to blot out deep humiliation inside ?

I think continuously

              of you and me  and all

To be a girl

             to be a bar hostess

Is to be stripped of the liberty to live straight

And forced to put on airs

           for the sake of money

Remembering the sweet moment

           worth the money I saved in one year

You held me in your arms

Your warmth was better to me

          than the heat from the fireplace

I was yours

          all yours

                    even it for a brief moment only

We were together twelve long hours

(Tomorrow I will live a world of memories.)

Saigon, Oct. 23, 1963

Epitomizing Day To Day Life

Today the sun shone brightly as on other days

Rain or shine did not matter much

         but the cost of living

                  had risen sky high

(The price of the bicycle imported from Europe

        had been increased by 50 per cent 

 If the bicycle was sick the owner would pale too )

In my family there were neither women nor small kids

There were just for four of us of various ages

The head of the family of forty six

          had been a widower for four years

Of his two sons the older son just turned twenty

We had enough food but we were not very happy

The sixteen year old boy started coloring nudes

He was fond of cutting out pictures from movie magazines

         and watched female loveliness closely

As for me

         I saw life  pass calmly

This did not mean I was free from worry

O my twenty year old girl

          I love your simple charms

You do not wear ornaments

( the price of gold had nearly doubled  )

But your sweet smile

           could make many a heart beat quicker

At the back of our house there was a thatched house

They needed a dependable sewing machine

          but they could not afford it

The foreman had lost many a finger

Looking at him

          I suffered as much as he did

Every morning he got up early

           and hastened to start work

He was a real beast of burden

Beside our dwelling was a house crammed

           with so many beds

that there as apparently

no way out

The soldier’s wives renting the house could do nothing

           but sleep

Their husbands at war had not come back

We read in newspapers

         that thousands of youths had been killed

                their bodies left unburied

A silent sea of faces blurred in tears

Every month one thousand soldiers lost their lives

          while the enemy casualties

                      were four times as numerous

Let’s hang these papers as talismans on our beds…

On the farther side of the road

A curious news is being spread

A reliable on

Alas

Concerning a seventy  thousand-piaster

            worth American motorcycle

 A two-cylinder Harley

           which can ride fast on the mute road

And the Vietnamese motorcycle whose price is unknown

A talkative woman-motorcycle

           who only moves in bed

The two crazy owners exchanged the aforesaid things

            as in a fairy tale

A lover of good living

 the airman preferred the flashing motorcycle to his wife

So he was in treaty with the American sergeant for… her

In working hours 

     the American

           and the woman-motorcycle are free to rock in their bed

( Meanwhile the Vietnamese husband can ride the Harley on the road )

We rightly guess he would evade any questioning on its price

Such is the story of the woman with two husbands

The story which makes an eighteen-year-old girl

                                  burst out laughing hysterically

Sewer water,  rain,  tear,  tea an semen

(Those kinds of water need being purified to become just clean water )

Epitomizing life I could not help frowning and sighing

The forty six year old woman is still a widow

The twenty six year old chap

       is still reading death announcements of known persons

the sixty year  old boy does not want to be a man yet

the foreman

            after the incident,

            is still collecting trophies

the old man of seventy has died

           buried without a proper funeral

I, over thirty now

          is still without a woman.

The bicycle

          after being repaired

          is laying still in a corner

And the eighteen year old girl is criticizing my poetry

"I don’t known what you mean

             I don’t like poetry

                 I don’t like you at all

                   I hate all men who are bachelors

                           I hate your so called ' uplifting poems.'

Saigon, July 7, 1963

Trouble of Mind

I’m troubled when  you are by my side

It’s a good thing – then I don’t feel any sadness

I feel as young as an eighteen year old boy

When I look at myself in your bright eyes

You’re off today

         I am alone in this highland

Everything is mute

            not sound is heard

            my soul is following you

I only hope there will be moments you think of me

I known

           I know

           you’re just a plain girl

But I cannot put you out of my mind

Late noon

           the car moves up the slope

I’m standing here

           feeling the future hold for us

When you’re with me I forget all

          all

          all

I forget the wretched land which is ours

I forget all

         all

         all...

It’s raining

         it’s raining hard and strong

                    I’ m sleeping soundly

O my girl now

        that you’re over nineteen .

 Dalat, 1963

In A Time of Disturbance in Saigon

1

It was noon

          A big crowd in Saigon looked up

the sun was turning purple

         green

         yellow

Buddha was shedding tears

 I looked up too

        what was is happening

(People sure talking of the age old prophetic of Trạng Trình )

It was a misty morning in Dalat

The pilgrims

         from anywhere

         were climbing Lang Biang Heights

 Astory was spreading

        any disease could be cured

       by fire and incense

Standing at the top

I looked at the swarming crowd

True

 our life today was too tiring

People would go anywhere for some help

all of us were as the edge of an unfathomable abyss…

O my girl student I met by chance

What do you have

        if it’s not love my dear

We need many things

       a hell of a lot of things

things will be worse

       before they are better

Love is as pressing as freedom

from hunger and thirst

Without it my life is a nullity, a void…

I hope

       you’ll share my faith in our land

Our faith in the future of each of us

You’ll be back

       you’ll be with me

Love

       real  love

 is what we need

It’s all we ever need

This shabby land

      should be destroyed by fire or by water or both

We’ll build the sun anew

Once the river had flown

       it will never roll back same again.

Oct. 30, 1963

Yes,

a predestined encounter

I was hunted by you

       week after week

Now in hot, sweaty Saigon

         my heart is still in  cool Dalat

I am thankful for all that

        even if I am stripped of possessions

I would give all

        for that precious encounter

(When we shared our companion for our wretched  land

              it really uplifted me)

How I hope

            to  see you again

2

It was right

      Saigon was as sad as a graveyard

Alas

  poor people were making love

         even when they had empty bellies

 I had been without a woman

                   for a long

                             long time

So at night

           I kept thinking of strange words…

an eighteen year old girl

        talked of sex

                   as expertly as a doctor

even when she was only a hairdresser 

  " My being at home

        at night

                  was not necessary

my stepfather

                would try to seduce me

                  he was a horrible man …

I want to follow my love

         who has never pressed about marriage

As far as Dalat to pass the night together

 we  will be warm

          we will be cold

                 and forget

                     all, all, all…

 I want to follow any man

         I am thinking of dead young men

                 who will never come back

My  presence

          in the family

               at night

                      is not necessary at all."

3

My mates

         have gone

                 I am left alone

                         in this dark, mean place

Where has the red sun gone

         I have not seen

                  the student again

Now I am worrying

          where will my next meal come from

life is so difficult

        a small  cup of coffee

                   has become a luxury

apart from this

         I cannot believe what I read

                  what I am told 

I’m so  miserable

         I have no tears left

(The people in the West  are so mature)

We are so childish

          in spite of our long history

We are so weak

          we depend on outside aid too much

We are so immature

                     we dare not have a cool look

                            at ourselves

( Anyway my simple remedy is as follows)

Let us take care of ourselves

         we are sick of advice

                 no counsel  no nothing

let us refuse any aid as long as we are not equals

(Two lovers who share the same bed

          but have different dreams

                     would do better to part )

Just let us

         live on our own

SSSSSo that we can be ourselves

It is noon.

The people of Saigon are looking at the  sun

They wait

           all of us wait .

Saigon, Oct. 30, 1963

Revolution Is a Good Thing!

To blame is surely bad

      to be possessed by greed or lust or anger …

But I merely want to put down

       this as a matter of record

Till yesterday they slept a lot

      drank a lot

      ate a lot

      did an awful a lot of bad things…

One day later…

      they are begging for mercy.

Saigon, Nov.  1^st , 1963.

Where Have All My Mates Gone?

What is left, my dear

The city is old an familiar

         but my eyes are new

                  and I am amazed

I’m still a stranger to other people in our city

The sky looks gloomy

       the rain is sadly murmuring

              in a void free from human voices

I’m walking behind you in silence

These days are as sad as the somber sky

What is left,  my dear

I’m walking away

           saying goodbye to all that

This part of the world

         does not accept a freedom loving soul like mine

I’ve not seen my mates anywhere since yesterday

They’ve left the sidewalks to fade away  in darkness

Who are they

Yes, a friend

A girl sweetheart

A hand’s touch

A kiss into the unfathomable past

The color of love-green-turns into the color of despair-brown

Who cares about fine weather when there is no friend to talk to

I’m standing

      mute as the straight standing trees

Which spear could pierce the sky

       Which sheds blood over the pine trees

Those who are still around are not real humans

They’re wearing raincoats with revolvers inside

I’m so sad I cannot utter a word…

This Sunday afternoon

        I come into the familiar café

It is almost empty

      the mini-skirted girl is always behind the cash register

It is still like the old days

              we two great each other with the eyes

And the waiter an rightly guess what a regular guest will order

Chamber music sounds are wounding my heart

Looking around

       I sadly realize my mates have all gone

Autumn rain is falling over mist filled valleys

I’ve been so long as an object

All of a sudden

I laugh to wake up myself

There are just  few words

         I want to say

                  I miss you

Nothing is left

        nothing remains

                       my dear .

 Saigon, Oct, 28, 1963

Critique of Life,

       A Poet in Society

1

In this century,

          the life of a man in a week

                  small country

Still leaves much to be desired

(The world broke in two or three long time ago

There is little we can do about it)

For an ordinary man it would take him a long time

Before he can have a cool look at himself and his society

He must have a wife and kids

             just to be called a responsible citizen

I live as bravely as a big tree in the forest

Braving rain and thunder and all…

Today

         as yesterday

                  still without a family

I feel pity for all,

             for everybody

                  in this wretched land

This society is full of injustice

It must be destroyed by fire and water

Only twice

            did I weep

In 1945

 when the Revolution broke out

  and the day

                  I lost my Mother

Dear friends I’ live enough

           I’ve suffered enough

in this stagnant society am I needed

what I can do besides writing poems

I give this critique of life out of concern for it

I want to be true to myself

          and to others …

Why are there more prisons than schools

           more cops than people out in streets .

(These poems have just been unearthed

To be pit under the glittering sun)

Well

       in this society

             monks and spies look the same

Poets only produce what had been ordered

The sky today is cloudless

            I feel like crying now

But isn’t it much better

            to suffer silently

2

I grew up with the mist in the highland

In my home place the straight

           standing trees outnumbered spikes

My first love left me

          when the Revolution  broke out

O mountains and forests

          I’m still alone

Is my mind being taken away from me

I have been over the abyss before

My days

          have been full of sweat and tears

The thousand love poems

         I’ve written

                are not love poems

I’ve learned sorrow

         since I first went to the graveyard

Just to pluck a flower

         on an unknown tomb

My parents left me

         a long time ago

Far from me

         with no one to weep for them

In my childhood house

          on that highland

                I’ve only the sun as friend

(Apart from  passing girl  as silent as shadows )

I’ve grown up

           with love since that time

Now that I’m a man

           I’m not too concerned with it

Love pure

           noble love

                   does not mean a thing for me

Past memories

           make me truly sad

but I’ve become so mature

            and so much wiser

I’ve realized my lot

            of being in this land

Let me be without memory.

This century

            rugged land far exceeds fertile part

I grew up in difficult times

            I refuse to hear soothing words

Life is stripped of liberty

          every line of poetry should be a bullet

To bring down walls of calumny and hypocrisy

Look !

          Even the grass we grow in public gardens

                        is imported from Europe

I feel estranged in my country

           and turn a foreign visitor

Let me be evade a heroic mockingbird flitting in the setting sun

Let me evade the world I never made

When I cast a glance at the desolate expanse …

The best way to travel is to walk by oneself …

I choose Autumn

        pine forest and sad sunshine

I give up writing poetry

         and will not torture myself anymore

Do me a favor

           my solemn-faced and wise wife

say to me

' Burn a fire! Hang the mosquito-net"
I am the voluntary slave

            who is fully contented

Let us have a long sleep

            o wife, sons and daughters !

Tomorrow morning

             we’ll wake up early

                   set out to grow vegetables

Outside the hedge near the farm gate

We’ll put  up a board

       "Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted "

In all languages of the world .

Saigon, Nov. 8-12, 1963.

Postcript

These UPLIPTING POEMS (4 ) with the exception of two – were written during the stormy days before the oppressive regime of President Ngô Đình Diệm was brought down in late 1963.

A full decade has passed.   I sadly realize how I have changed but Vietnam itself is little changing since that that and it is still the Waste Land.

Now we must go through darkness again before a New Day is born.

We publish this collection of poems with the hope that our country will soon change for the better. All of us should be better.

And I will write happier poems!

Saigon, Vietnam

September 7, 1974.

THEPHONG.

translated from the Vietnamese

by Đàm Xuân Cận

                                   

From a Writer’s Diary

Saigon 1963,

I started writing in 1952 in Hanoi – in the first days of Vietminh-launched autumn winter offensive when the rumble of artillery reached even the capital. My mother was the last of the ĐỖ clan to be reported as lost after the fall of my native town Nghĩa Lộ. I felt compelled to write in my lonely state.  Writing the brought me some solace.

At the beginning of 1953 when I ceased to receive any money from my mother, I was obliged to embark on journalism of the humblest sort.  I was charged with the collecting news tips around the four districts of Hanoi and the courts as well.  I also assumed the duties of a proof-reader in the afternoon and evening.  Whereas my colleagues received one thousand five hundred piaster’s monthly, my boss Vũ Ngọc Các paid me one thousand only.  I had to earn my daily bread by the sweat of my brow.

I came to South Vietnam before Điện Biên Phủ and the subsequent Geneva Agreements.  Of the first ten years of my profession as a writer, I was an official on a con–tactual basis for eighteen months only.  I was known under the penname The Phong coined by Lê Trọng Duật and myself at the foot of an electric pole in front of my aunt’s villa in Chợ Đuổi Street. This magical name keeps ringing in my ears.

In those days, there were very few Northerners and life was pretty hard for me.  The highest price I enjoyed for a review was one hundred and fifty piaster’s.  At the time, I had in store some memorial novels dealing with life of the montagnards in my homeland in the northernmost part of Vietnam. They were Tình Sơn Nữ (A Highland Lass’ Lover) written in Hanoi, Đợi Ngày Chiến Thắng (Waiting for Day of Victory), and Cô Gái Nghĩa Lộ (A girl from Nghia Lo), written in Saigon. The royalties for each of this trio were thousand piasters for the first edition of two thousand copies. It was really great for an apprentice writer like me. The public received my novels with much enthusiasm.

The charge that I held many a critic in slight contempt was partly justified .   The so-called critics could not fail to acclaim any book by any influential man.  Take this case.  When a book by Phan Văn Tạo was released, lots of provincial cadres offered to sell it and some tens of newspapers were quick to comment on it favorably. Even a minister in Bảo Đại’s  era wrote a partisan review in his extremely polished style in le Journal d’ Extrême Orient the prominent French language daily in Saigon. I knew and I still believe he did not write it out of sincere admiration. When Phan Văn Tạo presented his book to Nguyễn Đức Quỳnh writer, then adviser to the Minister, the latter said, “You’re only a writer with half of your being because you’re only acquainted with the pink side of things”.

 To quote Jan Kott,

Uniformity of opinion among intellectuals is always a bad thing. The more complete it is, the worse the omen is.  Uniformity of poorly informed opinions are all the more. We deplore conformity. It’s like witnessing a farce to hear a Minister of Cultural Affairs making a plea to writers to work harder while he did not believe in literature.

Although the situation then was not so bad as in Poland where writers were commissioned by the government, we are heading towards such a course of things. After the war many writers who could not put up with privation, hunger, and misery have dropped their sense of mission.  Here is another quotation by Jan Kot:

    What worries me is not the fact that many Polish stories are badly written, but the fact that many Polish writers are standing around and telling lies.   As a critic I feel it is my duty to scrutinize the artist’s motivation, that is, real behavior or his attitude towards life.  I cannot praise a book it if does not reflect some concern about life.  I felt nauseous when literary awards were decided by government officials who had very little knowledge, if any, of literature.

Can government officials become great writers? Perhaps, but only something like one out of a million.  The majority of them only uphold the order of the Town Hall clock.

      I   was never keen on behaving myself and writing as if I had my head in the clouds. Only those to whom luxury and misery make no difference and who do not compromise with their conscience can understand me.  For this I wrote these words by Esenin in capitals:

DRINK WITH ME, O SUFFERING FEMALE DOG! DO COME AND DRINK WITH ME!

 In alien Paris, after losing his money Mayakovski asked for help from friends and had to swear, shrugging his shoulders,  “ How could these lousy bastards dare to think of generosity?”

Those who insist on having a tasty breakfast with a gulp of delicious coffee, those who enjoy the wishful thinking of having contributed to national culture after attending functions held in luxurious hotels had better not read my books if they wish to avoid disappointment.  My sort of rugged literature is definitely not to your taste.  Don’t torture me any more.  Stop giving me the fly-caused itchy sensation to a pussy wound. You can go and pick up pretty girls, suits expertly tailored in cities as far as Paris, a set of weird buttons, a new pipe, a special imported tie or a top bottle of perfume. Sophisticates, you are surely much smarter than I can afford to be. Most of us writers are lucky if we have enough for ourselves to eat, let alone feeding wives and kids. We write simply because we cannot escape it, being victims of what we may call complexe d’obession.

                                                 *           *            *

In the last ten years how did I live? Time and again I faced hunger, humiliations of all sorts and committed such unsavory acts as theft and extortion of money from friends. All sorts of queer things.  All my enemies can use these to discredit me if they want to ; there is no need for them to forge any other accusations.  Or, they can just quote from my published autobiography Nửa Đường Đi Xuống (Midway in my Life’s Journey), wherein the author is never evasive about any issue, however touchy it is.  I have never practiced blackmail and I am living victim of blackmail; I have never been a vandal and I am branded a literary vandalist unhonourably.  I am just an agnostic – never an atheist.  I am condemned of being a Judas, the traitor who sold out Jesus Christ. An innocent, I was reported to be chief of the destructive committee.  All this happened to the simple writer that I was when the tempo of our literary activities was at an all time low.

In France the great playwright Jean Anouilh swore he would never write for dailies. I cannot but thoroughly agree with him, knowing what rubbish Vietnamese dailies are. As a former journalist, I cannot believe my eyes when I read all the rubbish in the newspapers. Fortunately I am no longer a journalist. I was once a contractual official for eighteen months because of hunger and because of my lack of courage. Afterwards, I served again as an official for six months.  According to the contract I was received five thousand piaster’s a month.  After two months, I was given four thousand only, due to the budget squeeze.  I was forced to resign when I learnt there would be a further cut in my salary. And it took me unbelievable patience to realize a claim for the salary I was entitled to.  At last I was convinced that I could not hang on to the government payroll as long as I wanted to write. Independence of thought is the sine qua non of any conscientious writer.

In my ten years of writing, there are at least three memorable events concerning three of my readers and myself. I am going to relate them one by one. I did not know the first reader, a Quang Trung Training Center Canteen salesgirl.  Nguyễn Quốc Toàn, who had fed me for some time came to the Center as a national serviceman. He took some of my books there to read and lent her my autobiography Nửa Đường Đi Xuống     (Midway in Ly Life’s Journey). Upon returning it to him she said, “I think I should lodge a complaint against you.  I was so absorbed in reading the Thephong you lent me I forgot to watch the customers.   As a result, I lost a couple of fountain pens “. Nguyễn Quốc Toàn also said he was allowed to buy on credit. I felt immensely proud of having such as a keen reader. The second reader was a Faculty of Letters student from Central Vietnam who met me in the street. He stopped to say “Hello there” and then continued, “I know you because I’ve read your book Nửa Đường Đi Xuống which my brother bought.  I can recognize you from your photo on the jacket”.

Hesitantly, he asked me whether I had lunch. It was around three in the afternoon then. I was deeply moved, knowing my account of hunger in the autobiography was very convincing.  I have not seen him since and do not even recall his name.  But I would still recognize him if I saw him again and I remember the address he gave me, 66 Phó Đức Chính St.  I did not go there.  The third event occurred during a visit I paid in 1963 to Dalat, the settlement area reserved for the Thais of Lai Châu, Sơn La  and Nghĩa Lộ.  I had brought a camera with the intention of taking snapshots of the sweet Thai girls – the beautiful flowers of my hometown Nghĩa Lộ.  I was a bit disappointed because I did not see any girl in the traditional dress.  When my friend and I stopped in front of a house next to a well I struck up a conversation with a Thai woman.  When her daughter of about seventeen or eighteen overheard me speaking in Thai she came out to join us although she was ill at the time.  I asked her in Vietnamese whether she was Thai. She nodded and very graciously she invited us in.  We sat around a table made of rough unplanned wood.  She asked us where we came from and what we were doing.  Before I could reply my friend hastily declared I was a writer.  She put out her tongue and frankly confessed she was very much afraid of journalists.  Then she asked me about my job.  She let me know that she read a “forest” story about highland and had enjoyed it very much. I enquired about the title of the book and the name of the author. I also asked her if she had kept it.  She went in and brought it out.  The cover of the book was torn and covered with signatures of all sizes and descriptions and in all sorts of ink.  The student accompanying me was very young and did not know much about me except that I was a writer.  Looking at the jacket, he said in surprise, “Here he is, the author of this book”. 

I was deeply touched that my book was appreciated by a girl in this isolated place – a girl from my hometown.  I told her I wrote it a long time ago She praised and criticized me at the same time. According to her, the description of life in highland was accurate; but I had made a mistake in using the word koóng khảu  for  kóm khảu . I learned that her name is Lò Lệ Thu or La Lệ Thu if it is Vietnamese.  But I prefer the first. Later I wrote a dedication to her at the beginning of my book of poetry Trước Mắt Nhìn Thi Sĩ  (Under the Poet’s Eyes) written in Dalat in this period. Those who cared for me most were poor people.

 Let’s stop wandering about the innumerable manifestations of hypocrisy in a society like Vietnam.  Let’s not forget Vietnam has been under a process of disintegration for eighty years under French domination and twenty years of grinding war.

When I come to these lines it is eleven in the morning.  People are battling which other right next to my boarding house.  The cause of it all?  The rubbish from foreign-operated trucks stationed near the rubber plantation. They hope and so do I .  But my hope is only that I would be able to write a story about their hard life, their relentless struggle for life in this hard-core prostitute-infested area.  After probing deeper into their motives.  I no longer feel nauseous.  They are just human beings.  Let us struggle for life, no matter how much sweat we will have to shed.  I wrote them in Khu Rác Ngoại Thành (The Rubbish Tip Outside the City)( 5)

How to sum up my experience in ten years of writing? What  makes me so bitter was just the sheer lack of courage on the part of the so-called intellectuals, writers, artists, engineers of the masses’  soul – in short the backbone of any viable society – those who were ready to do anything, no matter how degrading it was, to achieve a sort of petty satisfaction.  They knew this damn well.  What makes me still hate them like hell is simply their hypocritical preaching about humanity’s love and so on.  And I wrote,

             Be assured, intellectual worms who cling to the vegetable tops

             when you die, you’ll occupy three-meter-long tombs

             and these bitter lines o poetry:

             suddenly I was dumb-struck by the fact my country 

                    was in full plight

             I live in Saigon the year round without a warm coat

             witnessing my people searching for food

                     around the foreigner-operated rubbish dump

            I am standing pensively at the Bẩy Hiền crossroads

            watching kids growing on bread scattered on the earth

            and the older boy presenting his brother with a

                     piece of chocolate picked up from the roadside

            I cannot contain my anger …

            why on earth did they dare consider art as mere ornament

            the white-collared students by day turned artists by night

      the visiting-card supported poets are so numerous

            the printers cannot promptly carry out the  orders   

         all of them are using literature the same way as bar hostesses look! 

             the millionaire’s poet son is expressing his pity for beggars

             the ex-sub prefecture chief  is expounding a new way of life

              can we believe in the love for humanity expressed in his book

             with a fervid tone which can be matched by a judge’s voice

             while he keeps giving his dog a daily ration better than a Viet’s.

              when I visited Thai settlers in Dalat

               I was struck by this scene:

                         Thai kids have water in their mouths, craving for sticky rice

             and they cry because this Têt they won’t have firecrackers.

             when their parents share their sadness, who is in a position

                                    to tell them to be cheerful

             thinking of what the future holds for them, I give this conclusion:

           … And this society, this life, this sun is still as dark as night itself…

             I believe my same statements scattered here and there will shed

                          light on reality, and consequently will help politicians to do

                                 something about this shocking state of affairs.

             o the people who have lived through so many years of ordeal due

                            to the communists and colonialists and the Fanoti rulers:

              the million square meters of cultivated land

                                   belong to my countrymen

             the million lines of poetry which can become

                                  directives for this nation in the future

             should be preceded by the million lines of poetry

                                  cataloguing the hardships of today…

                                                                              (Trước Mắt Nhìn Thi Sĩ                     

                                                                               Under the Poet’s Eyes)

After a full breakfast consisting of steak and casse-croute a friend of mine, aged 50 gave me this “advice” reassuringly:  “… Go one like this for sometime, man. After you get married it won’t be long before you understand us better and then it’s entirely up to you to hate or pity us.”

 I was really upset, although for a very brief moment only.

A lot of indecent intellectuals who used to be very keen on doing good to the public in pre-war times tried by any means to achieve wealth in the post-war period.  And their famous excuse was that they did such and such a thing because of wives and kids.  What a shame for them.  And what a pity for the women who are their wives and the boys who are their children!  Unsuccessful writers have the potential to become efficient censors or alert informers.

I think I will get married.  This year I am thirty-two.   According to Shin Nai Am who wrote that masterpiece of Chinese fiction, All Men Are Brothers. I should not get married at this late age.  But if I do, I will strive to feed my wife and children by the sweat of my brow.   I am no different from you, nor do I want to be because I still cannot afford another thing than red rice, dried fish, chilly and pepper.  But I’m a bit different from you because I have the guts to say that I have been a bloody liar or I have robbed a needy friend. I am not a coward and I know what I am doing for my country’s literature.  And this is the reason; I could not help writing this short account of my life as a writer.  I am not simply a man beset by narcissisms.

In 1959 writer Thiên Giang writer wrote an open letter to Nguiễn –Ngu- Í discussing my case.   Mr. Í has shown me the letter.  He also expressed his desire to see me in his residence at Xóm Chuồng Ngựa, Gia Định Province to have the opportunity to praise my efforts in promoting the national literary output.  That is enough for me.  I want to say thanks to the journalist who jokingly, “Never think that there are such words as The Phong in Vietnamese language.  Never mention them”.

 ( p. 52 to 57).

(TENGGARA, Oct. 1968,

Volume 2. No 2.

University of Malaya,

Malaysia. )

                                                         

The Phong

Real name  :                       ĐỖ MẠNH TƯỜNG

Pen name :                        THẾPHONG

Date and place of birth:    Yên Bái Province, North Vietnam

Religion :                          - Christian

Family status:                  - Married, five children.

Education ;                       Graduated from High School Hanoi in 1954.

Present position:            - Airman, Vietnamese Air Force, since August 1967;

                                             Founder of  Đai Nam Văn Hiến Books ( paperback ) in both languages

                                             Vietnamese and English.

                                             Novelist , poet, critic, translator.
Former positions:            -  School teacher,  Contributor Văn Hóa Á Châu  ( Asian Culture

                                           Review ),  Sinh Lực ( Creative Effort ),  Đời ( Life)  etc…

Political activities:             None.

Publications:       

                                Poems:

                                        - If You Were My Life (Nếu anh có em là vợ)

                                        - Mai A Crown (Vương miện Mai- A)

                                        - Of Women and Fatherland (Đàn và &Tổ Quốc)

                                        - Myself for Hire (Cho thuê bản thân )

                                        - Under the poet’s eyes (Trước mắt nhìn thi sĩ )

                                        - Vietnam under Fire and Flames  * (Việtnam vùng trời lửa đạn )

                                        - South Vietnam,the baby in the arms of the American nurse* (Nam Việt nam, đứa trẻ thơ của vú em Huê Kỳ)                                                                

                                        - Dissimilarity (Sai biệt )

                                        - Uplifting Poems* (Thơ làm lớn dậy con người)

                                Novels and Short stories :

                                        - Nửa Đường Đi Xuống (Midway in My Life Journey)

                                        - Người thương binh Liên khu…(The Wounded Soldier)

                                        - Người lính Casablanca (The Soldier from Casablanca)

                                        - Thủy và T6 (Thủy and T6)

                                        - Truyện người của tình phụ (The Adulteress)

                                        - Tuyển truyện Thế Phong (Thephong; A Selection from his Writing).

                                        - Tình sơ n nữ  (A  Highland Lass’s Lover)

                                        - Đợi ngày chiến thắng ( Waiting for Day of Victory )

                                        - Người đàn bà không tóc  ( The Bald Woman )

                                        - Tôi đi dân vệ Mỹ (The Ordeal of the American Militiaman*)

                                        - Khu rác ngoại thành ( The Rubbish Tip Outside the City * )

                                        - Thế Phong ,Nhà văn, Tác Phẩm, Cuộc Đời (Thephong by Thephong The Writer, The Work & The Life* ) 

                                        - Cô gái  Nghĩa Lộ   ( The Girl from Nghĩa Lộ ) vv…  etc

                                   Criticism :

                                        - Hàn Mặc Tử & Quách  Thoại, nhà thơ siêu thoát

                                                                                            (Two Great Poets of Vietnam)                                             -                                         - Friedrich Nietzsche & Chủ nghĩa đi lên con người

                                                                                            (Friedrich Nietzsche)

                                        - Nhận diện vóc dáng nhà văn Nguyễn Đức Quỳnh

                                                                            (Reappraisal of writer Nguyễn Đức Quỳnh)

                                        - Thức giấc trong văn chương hiện đại Ba Lan

                                                                (Awakening in Present Day of Polish Literarure)

                                        - Giới thiệu  nhà văn Constant Virgil Gheorghiu

                                                                (Introduction on writer Constant Virgil Gheorghiu)

                                        - Jacques Perry & Thế nào là Phi lý ?

                                                                (Introduction on writer Jacques Perry)

                                        - Lược sử văn nghệ Việtnam 1900-1956 gồm 4 tập:

                                                                1) Nhà văn tiền chiến 1930-1945,

                2)-  a) Nhà văn kháng chiến chủ lực 1945-1950, -

                        b) Nhà văn miền Nam 1945-1950,

                                                                3) Nhà văn hậu chiến  1950-1956,

                                                                4) Tổng luận 60 năm văn nghệ Việt  nam 1900-

                                                                1956 .
                                          -A Short History of Modern Vietnamese Literature, including 4 tomes: 

                                                1) Prewar Writers (from 1930 -1945),

                                                2) a) Writers  in the Resistance Area (from 1945-1950)

                                                b) Writer of the South (from 1945-1950),

                                                3) Postwar Writers (from 1950- 1956),

                                                4) A Brief Glimpse at the Vietnamese Literary Scene, (1900-1956 *) vv.., etc. 

                                    Translations:

                                        - Mayakovski, Thi sĩ Nga (Mayakovski, Poète Russe by Elsa Triolet, translated from French into Vietnamese).

                                        - Hồi ký  ngoài văn chương  (Autobiography précoce  by Yevgeny Yevtushenko translated from French into Vietnamese).

                                        - Khúc bi ca nàng tiên nhỏ  (La petite fée et le jeune pâtre by Maxim Gorky, translated from French into Vietnamese). 

                                        - Việtnam bi thảm Đông Dương (Vietnam, la tragédie Indochinoise  by Louis Roubaud, translated from  French into Vietnmaese)

                                        - Tuyển thơ Kháng chiến Pháp: 1939-1945 (La patrie se fait tous les jours by Jean Paulhan & Dominique Aury, translated from French into Vietnamese)

                                        - Chiếc Roi Ngựa  (La Cravache by Constant Virgil Gheorghiu, translated from French into Vietnamese).

Many words were reprinted in TENGGARA, a review of the Dept. of  English, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris). And  We promise  one another * , an anthology edited by Don Luce and others.  (Washington D.C., U.S.A. 1974).

Special Remaks :    

1.- The Phong has been widely known in English speaking countries. He has

been invited to The International Writing Program by The Iowa School of Letters, but has been unable to attend of obscure reason.  Repeated efforts of Professor Paul Engle, himself an eminent poet and writer, the Chairman of the Program, has been all in vain.

 * Books are available in English

It is a shame a writer who has a lot to contribute to international forum has been so discouraged. Anyway, his writing is becoming more and more popular among serious readers of Vietnamese literature. Sure he is not the most prolific writer, but he has written nothing which could be rated as a little significance.

2.-“   The Phong was born in 1932 at Yên Bái Province (North Vietnam) , and spent his childhood in the northernmost part of Vietnam. The poems reprinted here are taken from a mimeographed collection of the Vietnamese poet,

The Phong: entitled Vietnam the sky under fire and flames,  published in Saigon, May 1967.  The collection was obtained for TENGGARA by the young writer, Bur Rasuanto, who was on a visit there recently …

Đàm Xuân Cận, in presenting his English translation of Thephong’s poems in  Vietnam, the sky under fire and flames   wrote :  ” The Phong’s poems are particularly difficult to translate and I have no illusion whatever about my command of English.  I trust that one day a poet of talent will revise this version and do more justice to the origin”. Readers are bound to feel that Đàm Xuân Cận does not himself justices “

(TENGGARA, Volume II, No 1, 1968).

(from WHO’S WHO IN VIETNAM -  Vietnam Press, Saigon South Vietnam 1974).

[]

50 TÁC PHẨM THẾ PHONG

đã đăng ký tại Cục Bản quyền Tác giả.

-------------------------------------------

Tác  phẩm  Thế Phong   (còn ký  Đường Bá Bổn và Đinh Bạch Dân) xuất bản từ 1954 đến nay; nhiều nhà xuất bản tái bản không xin phép.

Đã đăng ký bản quyền  tác giả  tại Cục bản quyền Tác giả VH-NT / Bộ Văn hóa Thông tin  Nước Cộng  Hòa Xã Hội Chủ Nghĩa Việt Nam.

Giấy  chứng nhận số : 341 / VH-BQ-ĐD cấp tại  HàNội ngày 15. 8. 1996.

Cấm dịch, in lại, sao chụp, phóng tác, trích đăng từng phần, khi chưa được phép qua  tác giả , đại diện cho phép bằng văn bản.

Liên hệ  giao dịch : bà Nguyễn Thị Khê , 25/39A Trần Khắc Chân - P. Tân Định, Quận I -  Tp. Hồ Chí Minh.

Điện thoại:  (84.8) 38 438 034.

Email: thephongthephong@gmail.com

                Copyright  1996 by

        Đỗ Mạnh Tường + Nguyễn Thị Khê.

All rights reserved in whole or partial reproduction and adaption, transmitted in any form, or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

---------------------------------------------------------------

---

(1) Lloyd Fernando ( 1926 - 2008)

(2) Military Payment Certificates (MPC’s)  are issued  to service-men as currency for military-operated facilities and services provided in Vietnam. They are used in lieu of  “the green dollar”.

(3) Nhất Linh ( real name  NGUYỄN TƯỜNG  TAM: 1906-1963 Saigon) was a great writer.   Apart from his lasting literary fame, the real sign of greatness lies in his suicide in protest against dictator Ngô Đình Diệm ‘s dictator . (1963).

(4) Original tittle : THƠ LÀM LỚN DẬY CON NGƯỜI, Đại Nam văn hiến  xuất bản cục, Saigon 1963(5) The Phong, Khu Rác Ngoại  Thành / The Rubbish Tip Outside City  ( bilingual), Dai Nam Van Hien Books, Saigon, South Vietnam. (1963, 2006)