what a sight! 550,000 GI's in vietnam by the phong (saigon)
we promise one another - poems from an asian war-
selected, published by
don luce+ j.c schafer+ jacquelyn chagnon-
Washington D.C. 1971
what a sight!
550, 000 GI' s in Vietnam
by Thế Phong
[TRANSLATED BY DAM XUAN CAN
The Phong [i.e Do Manh Tuong 1932- ]
Thế Phong is an airman working with the press office of the Vietnamese Air Force. He spent two years working for the American military in Vietnam and was a lecturer in politics at the Vũng tàu training center whci produced cadres for the Government of the Republic of Vietnam's pacification program. Working closely with the American military in South Vietnam, he has had an opportunity to observe the effect the presence of the GI's has had on Vietnamese society. many of his poems contain lurid details of the actions of Americans in Việtnam. Included here are excerpts from a longer poem.
Well, well,
Our friends
The Americans have arrived in our country,
They have manpower,
They have money,
They have munitions
( the recipes of the magic formulas,)
And there are 550, 000 of them.
Deserted places
Becomes military bases.
Petrified places,
Stupefied,
We Vietnamese see American establishments musheooming,
Cam Ranh Bay, Cam Ranh Air Base, Cam Ranh City,
Qui Nhơn, Chu Lai, Tân sơn Nhứt, Biên Hòa, ...
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 never suffer over population.
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' re doing all right --
While we suffer in the most cruel and obscene way,
What an irony!
I've been walking the roads of my beloved land,
One afternoon when I stopped, terribly hungry,
What have I to tell you?
Where I can ask
For a clean breathing space?
In thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku,
Kontum buried in the mud,
To dusty Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng,
Our girls brazenly ply their trade to sex-straved GI's --
Coloreds,
Whites,
Reds,
Blacks,
Democarcy protectors!
Freedom fighters!
I've seen them all !
Anyplace they set foot on
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 of these places,
Hundreds of raids are being carried out daily.
In an office there was a Vietnamese woman
Whose officer husband was away;
She had a cute son,
He could mumble a few words.
He wept and screamed,
Scared of his mother's American visitors;
Unlike her,
He was not a bit impressed by dollars;
Shaking his head
Shouting louder,
Broken into tears,
He called his father's name.
His father had long been enied a leave,
He was leading his troops
Against the enemy in the highlands.
The woman worked for the Americans
To get money,
And that would be that --
She thought.
The American officer who employed her
thought differently,
He said: " I will help you,
Your 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 .
Holding her tight
In his two hairy arms
He kissed her savagely,
Then raped her in the back seat.
He gave her all the MPC's * he had,
A lot of money.
That night
Her child went to bed early,
Unaware the officer had takes 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
And tore them to pieces
Calling to 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 tight his present,
Mumbling hia father's name ...
I have a question
To ask good Americans like Bernard Fall,
Who wrote "The two Vietnam", discussing problems in both
The North and the South,
Who died on Vietnamese soil
In the field trip with the US Marines
in Quảng Trị.
I want to ask good Americans
Like the Us missionary
Who tried to learn about us
And to do good things in the name of Christ.
You are people of wisdom,
People of strength;
But are you honest enough
To admit the silly mistakes your fellow country men committed
in the name of friendship!
I for one cannot entertain
The prospect of your girls becoming prostitutres
And boy pimps
This land of ours counts on you,
[Men who are not Comunists]
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 hope you will feel humiliated.
I tell you
You must learn American
If you want to know
What the hell is going on ...
THE PHONG
---
* Military Payment Certificates (MPC's) are issued to servicemen as currency for military-operated facilities and services provided in Vietnam. They are used in lieu of the gren dollar. (DON LUCE' S NOTE)
<We promise one another- poems from an Asian war- p.33 - 39>
we promise one another/ poems from an asian war : trinh công sơn
We promise one another/ poems from an Asia war-
selected, introduced , translated
by Don Luce + J.C. Schafer+ Jacquelyn Chagnon-
Published by The Indochina Education Project-
Washington D.C. 1971
trịnh công sơn
THE HERITAGE OF OUR MOTHER LAND
THE SAD COUNTRY OF VIETNAM
Trinh công Sơn lives with his mother, the brothers and five sisters in Huế, the bombed outshell of the Phú Cam Church. Formely an elementary school teacher, he now spend most of his time writing songs and encouraging either young songwriters and singers.
At thirty two, he is considered to be one of the most popular folk singers in South Việtnam during the past decade. He has been especially popular with Vietnamese young people. Students sing his songs at settings and demons-
trations. Tapes of his songs sung by Khánh Ly, a well known female vocalist, or by Trịnh công Sơn himself, are played coffee houses all over Việtnam and in the night clubs of the larger cities. During the monsoon rains students sit in coffee houses listening to his songs, waiting for the rain to end and for peace to com to Việtnam.
Trịnh công Sơn' s songs were banned by the Ministry of Education in 1968 on the grounds that they weakened the will of the people to resist. The ban has not been strictly enforced, however, and tapes of his songs circulate freely among the population. He has refused invitations of the South Vietnamese Army' s Political Warfare Department to cooperate with them in propaganda efforts. Despite the consistent anti-war mood quarters. Many of the more radical students say his songs are to passive and do not emphasite the necessity of active struggle to bring down the Thiệu regime. These students change the line of his song "Heritage of Our Mother land," which reads "Twenty years of civil war" to "Twenty years of American imperalists."
But Trịnh công Sơn is still very popular. He is respected for his modesty and his refusal to capitalize financially on his popularity. Thousand of his most popular collections of songs,"Song of the Golden Skinned People" and" Prayer for Việtnam," have been sold but he receives little money himself. Tapes of his songs are widely sold but he receives no royalties. Frail and unassuming, he accompanies himself on an old guitar worn and chipped around the edges. He rarely sings in public now for fear of provoking the Thiệu government into talking some violent action against him. But in the crowded cities and tense villages of South Việtnam, one still hears his songs singing of a heritage of sadness and hope for a brighter future.
A thousand years of the Chinese,
A hundred years dominated by the French,
Twenty years of civil years,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
To leave for her children,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
The sad country of Việtnam,
A thousand years slaves of the Chinese,
A hundred dominated by the French,
Twenty years of civil war,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
A forest of dry bones,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
A mountain of graves,
Teach the children the sound of truth,
For the mother hopes her children won't forget their race,
Their ancestors who built the old Việtnam,
She waits for the children to come home,
She waits for all children who are far away,
Whenever they are
They must forget how to hate.
A hundred years slaves of the Chinese,
A hundred years dominated by the French,
Twenty years of civil war,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
Dry and barren rice fields,
The heritage of burned houses.
A thousand years slaves of the Chinese,
A hundred years dominated by the French,
Twenty years of civil war,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
People not true to their race,
The heritage of our Mother Land,
A land where honor is betrayed.
MADENNED BY THE WAR
I had a love who died at the battle of Pleime,
I had a lover who died at Battle Zone "D",
Who died at Đồng xoài
Who died at Hanoi,
He died far away on the distant frontier.
I had a lover who died in the battle of Chru Pong,
I had a lover whose body drifted along a river,
Who died in the dark forest,
Whose charred body lies cold and abandoned.
I want to love you, love Việtnam,
The day when the wind is trong,
I whisper your name and the name of Việtnam,
We are so close, the same voice and yellow race,
I want to love you, love Việtnam,
But as soon as I grow up my ears are accustomed
To the sound of bullets and mines;
My hands are not free but I forget from now on
the human language.
I had a lover who died at Ashau,
I had a lover whose twisted body lies in a valley,
Who died under a bridge, naked and voiceless,
I had a lover who died just last night,
He passed away in a dream with no feelings of hate.
I SHALL GO VISITING
When my land has peace
I shall go visiting,
I shall go visiting,
Along a road will many foxholes.
When my land is no longer at war
I shall visit the green graves of my friends,
When my land has peace,
I shall go visiting
I shall go visiting
Over bridges crushed by mines,
Go visiting
Bunkers of bayonets and pungi sticks;
When my people are no longer killing each other
The children will sing children' s songs
Outside on the street.
When my land has peace
I shall go and never stop
To Saigon, to the Center,
To Hanoi, to the South,
I shall go in celebration
And I hope I will forget
The story of my country.
[]
< We promise one another / poems from an Asian war - p. 87-92>
lines upon lines by robert hughes (usa)
lines upon lines/ contemporary
poetry in traditional forms /
by robert hughes-
lily peak publishing.
lines upon lines
by robert hughes
Robert Frost, four-time Pulitzer prize winner and considered by many to be the greatest American poet, often stated that he would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down. Conversely Ezra Pound, a well known contemporary of Frost (and also an award winning poet) in describing his efforts to free poetry of fixed meter and form wrote in his Cantos "to break the pentameter, that was the first heave."
These contrasting statements highlight one of the dilemmas faced by the poet ---to write traditional verse or to write prose poetry. In this collection of poems, Robert Hughes strings up the net and volleys with traiditional verse. The poems in this collection explore the world of poetic form and most use traditional fixed patterns with the occasional use of variant structure. Explanatory notes are included to guide the reader through the maze of forms, as well as to point the reader to other poems using the same forms.
Robert Hughes has degrees from the University of Utah and Stanford University and has studied at the Yale-China Center at the Chinese University of Hong kong.
He currently lives in Vietnam.
Sanpate
A gift from God to Utah there she lay
Between the desersr and old Horseshoe Peale,
A land of refuge where the Danes could pray
For overlasting glory to the meek.
These forty-niners sought eternal gold
To live the holy principl in peace
They raised a sanctuary as foretold
Then swore with oaths the law would never cease.
The principle eternal met its turn ---
Her son and daughters thrown throughout the earth
Yet to the valley hopeful hearts do yearn
When searching sacred roots of greater worth.
Their father's faith, though somewhat rearranged,
The hills are everlasting and unchanged .
Dear Aunt Clara Hughes
Joseph Smith,
His life was surrounded in myth
Therefore th simple exclamtion
"He was the Prophet of the Restoration."
Brigham Young
Known for his witty tongue
If I ever meet him face to face
I'll thank him for saying "This is the right place."
John Taylor
Met the Carthage jailor
"The Kingdom pf God or Nothing was his cry,
Considering the persecution, I understand why. "
Willord Woodruff,
In pictures appears gruff,
But if you read his extensive diary
You' ll find he was gentle, as well as fiery.
Lorenzo Snow
A humbler man none ever could know
He brought the Church back from the brink
With tithing, of course, what did you think?
Joseph F. Smith,
Led some stubborn oxen forthwith,
Crossing the plains was not too brief,
Stubborn oxen became his beef.
Heber J, Grant,
When asked to sing, said "I can' t."
But his work and dream
Brought the faith closer to mainstream.
George Albert Smith,
Has little to rythme with
So I will not mumble or stumble,
I' ll just say he was vry humble.
David O. McKay
Started each day
By kissing his wife
This lasted hos whole life.
Joseph Fielding Smith,
Was about our only monolith
For having a gospel answer for anything queried
A task from which be never wearied.
Harold B.Lee
Efficient as he could be.
Looked after our welfare when things were depresssing,
He left us no greater blessing.
SpencerW. Kimball,
On the basketball court was quite nimble,
(And as an aside,
I imagine it helped him lengthen his stride.)
Ezra Taft Benson.
To the nation was an ensign
He was a national secretary
In Civil War times when life got scary.
Howard W. Hunter,
Could not have been blunter,
"Follow Christ"he said,
And then he was dead.
Gordon B. Hinckley,
With clear eyes that are twinkley,
Now think it's official --- not runner,
He's got a keen sense of humor.
Mekong
Across the Plain of Reeds
the Dragon River feeds the land
When rains come it expands
then floods, wiping the sand bars clean,
The source of living seen in rice-
rich paddies gathered thrice
each year through sacrifice), but none
work harder than the one
flowing under the sun each day,
Congested waterway ---
moving vast array of goods
and worker's livelihoods
carved in exotic woods and sewn
in brillant cloths, all shown
in floating markets thrown beside
canals that spread out wide
Small sampans quickly glide along,
the sound of morning-songs
from geese and cranes prolong the time
of echoed bamboo chimes,
until the fruit bat rythmes its call.
with evening songs that fall
in mangroves swamps where tall thin stilts
hold up the wood homes built
above the flood borne slilt . A grin
slips out from deep within
the woman with a thin cone hat
of bamboo carved in slats,
the grin masks the pain that she fears
Within a hundred years
uncounted are the tears that flow,
but where the river goes
it feels her pains and knows her needs
Phuket
The hills look lush and green
The sun feels warm, the sky shines blue
The beach lies white and clean,
The sunsets are romantic, too.
The air feels moist that breezes through the slcies
The food tastes too good to be true.
The crashing of the waves will hypnotize.
The friendly people smile with twinkling eyes
The voices sing-song with delight
The sensual fleshpots slowly mesmerize.
The incense fills the temple site
The music plays into the night.
The body begs for more The old life as a bore.
Kuala Lumpur
The artist framed the flowers in her mind
then mIxed the brightest pigments she could find,
she wove some cloth in swatches as milk
then splashed bright orchids on the virgin silk
and wore the work of art on cIty streets.
A crafstman sensed the beauty flowing by
and viewed his craft behind an artist's eyes
new buildings pushed up through the azure blue
with graceful arches sweeping imto view,
and shin twin sculptures towered over crowds
beside a spire that scared into the clouds.
And now, despite the crafstman's arrogance
colors still flow in simple elegance.
ROBERT HUGHES
<
poems by I. Ulaganathan / Singapore / TENGGARA
TENGGARA
Dept. of English -Univ. of Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia
poems by I.Ulaganathan (Singapore)
The Rubbish Bin
TRANSLATED FROM THE TAMIL BY RAMA SUBBLAH
Come and listen to the story
of the rubbish bin which rules every place ...
in the country, in the town, in the street
and in the houses
where civilized human being live.
"Used leaves. waste paper, broken bones,
All the remarks left over by the
damned fowls, goats nad the humans ---
We accept all there and our work is to prevent disaese.
The humans eat until their eyes and noses bulge out and
stink
When they come near us ---
we who stop the evil smell from spreading ---
they close their eyes and hold their noses !
We do great service
by keeping all the rubbish within us
for humanity to live and to promote their health .
Those who see us ---
Why do they move away from us
And push us aside?
Is this gratitude?
Can youth vanish, when the beauty mark on the forehead
and the flowers are gone ! *
Can one's senses be destroyed
by giving advice ?
All the children born, out of the burning hunger,
to the narrow waisted women,
are here.
I am the one who helps to hide
The child from the eyes of this world ---
The child of the young widow
Who breaks society' s rules
and brings the child forth .
When the pleasure found in the bed,
in time shapes into a child,
it is customary to rock the baby in the cot.
O misery, they throw the child in rubbish bin.
Compare my deeds with those of
the social worker who works for the welfare of others.
He is a rubbish bin because of his great love
I am a great social worker because of my noble deeds. "
-----
* When a woman becomes a widow, she is not allowed to wear the beauty
mark on her forehead. or flower in her hair. She is also not permitted
to wear any jewellery or fine clothes .
Request and Reply
If you say
"There is no home, no land
no fields, no harvest,
There is no salvation."
They will say sarcastically
" You have hands. There is a begging bowl,
and there are towns.
What other trouble do you have?
Run away."
and leave you to beg.
If you ask a way to remove the weed
They will be the guide to remove the crop itself.
If you say
"There is no hometown, no relations,
no feelings, no greatness.
There is no rice, no happiness."
They will say
"To live you have a heart
In death there is eternity
There is poison, or walk to the well!"
They will push you aside to die.
If you ask for a way to start
They will be the guide to the end itself.
If you say
"There is no life, no wealth,
no strength, ni prosperity,
The troubles around us are numerous
there is no comfort, no health."
They will reply
"You have the tree and the rope.
There is comfort in death
So what other misery can they be?
Don't talk, go away.
"These people without any qualms will tell you to die.
If you ask for a way to live here
They will show you the way to die.
When sou say
"Beauty mark and flowers are denied.
There is no silk, jewellery,
and no one shows love."
They will answer
"You have youth and beauty
Why are sad then ?
There re people to hold you close in their arms,
forget your money and enjoy life."
They will ask you turn prostitute.
If you ask for a way to wear flowers *
They will find means to buy your hair. **
If you say
"Tamils have no education.
They have no live in them.
There is no help for those with initiative
and Tamils have no guts."
They will say
"There is food, you have a stomach.
You can sleep, dream in yours.
What other worries do you have?
Eat well and sleep on ."
They will eat the remains of Time.
When asked for a way for bettering oneself
They will ask the price for life itself.
When you say
"There is no greatness for Tamils
no unity
and there is no way to change these."
Out of them love for sole leadership, they say
"There are platforms to talk,
There is greatness in presiding.
There is the garland and here is the neck.
Why do you need any unity?"
If you ask for a way to protect your head
They will be the guide to remove your head.
-----
* To wear flowers --- to start life anew, perhaps by re-marrying.
** To buy your hair --- to shame you .
I. ULAGANATHAN
has written play, srories, articles nad poems.
'Cantanas Kinnam' is his first book of collectd poems. TENGGARA
< TENGGARA/ APRIL 1968- p. 34. 37>
