dai nam van hien books, australia, 2014.
prose poems
by mai trung tĩnh
TRANSLATED BY ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN
DAI NAM VAN HIEN BOOKS, AUSTRALIA, 2014
I MOVE
Loneliness glides after me like a strange, sickly foot. I drift on day after day. I strain my eyes to look up and down only to notice myself in its pitiful march. To flee sadness my invisible self will go past planets, leaving behind millions of bits of space. My eyes ache.
Tomorrow I will leave my country, my parents, and my home place. What are they worth to me, a house and some figures ? Do you want me to bring anything for you ? Voices rise up into indeterminate space.
The giant arrow with me soars off into space in a journey ino the void. The time of departure is here. Mother don't you weep. Brothers, don't you weep. Brothers, don't bother to see me off.
Silence becomes a thick wall which blots out thousands of years. All of students I wake up only to see God's wild wrath and rain battering on the wretched prisoner. Over the misty field I am a bird with badly bruised wings.
In the shadow of destiny I have the eyes of a frightened bat. What else can I hope for ? I raise my wide wings and throw myself into mute reality.
MORNING DIALOGUE
- Man of century of grief and sins, what will you do today ?
- Don't ask because I have never though about that.
- Why do you always lie on that small, disordered bed as soonas night falls ?
- Whether it's day, whether it's afternoon, whether it's night, does it matter ?
- Why don't you sleep eternally, just as saints do ?
- I hate it as much as you do. Well, I'll get up, wash my face and have breakfast as usual. And if this is feasible I will go to a class to gave a look at the uniformed children, as hapless as the orphans waiting to be given something. Or, I will roam the streets like an old horse among silly creatures people are, I will work just as I live ...
- How about love, poor fellow ?
- We too have decided to part after a few days of ecstasy.
- Do you still recall her eyes, her lips, her brow ?
- Only if I can forget ! Unconsciously I often weep.
- When will you forget it altogether ?
- Maybe never, never ...
- What do you expect from this life?
- Just as day comes and goes, I have no time for expectation.
- But you live but once.
- I come and I go once only, what shall I bring with me ? Even a word, once spoken, will never be heard of again.
- Do you resent happiness that much ? Eveyone longs for it and you need not be an exception.
- You are hopelessly wrong. I have lived under its curse year after year. Why ? My answer is simple: Happiness is never with me.
- So what will you do ?
- Tell me.
The voice is out. It is morning and I go out in the yard. The sun is high. Through the shutters are my myriad of microbe infested dust grains.
IN THE CITY
Evening falls over the sluggish water under the bridge across a quiet river. The sky shakes off its makeup and darkness licks into its bare face. Whom am I vaguely waiting for ? I must come back to the city quickly at the urge of a vague train' s tooting. This evening I go to welcome a wanderer back. With the city behind me, the sooty smoke will not be able to reach. The faces of the passersby will not be dirtied. In think I will be drunk tonight with the old friend. Or I will reproachfully ask the reason he has not written for a long time. How does friendship matter for him ? Childhood years have gone forever since the day he departed. In this encounter both of us have grown older like two dying trees. But I will hold him in my two arms at midnight, in the wake of a sweet dream full of childhood memories.
The engine has stopped, the giant beast lies exhausted after a tiring chase. I get myself prepared, straining my senses in expectation. But no friend comes, the station yard grows wider and wider, the train lines blur and the huge animal bursts into tears. In only find beside me the married woman. I often meet when night falls in the garden at the back to the city. I walk after her, intending to ask the reason of her being here. She remains silent and I start talking harshly. Suddenly, a nearby human voice reminds me that my friend accompanying is bidding farewell.
Now that I am in front of the exhibition hall it is night already.
WILL I FIND IT ?
I watch life streaming and man's breathing weakening. In a desperate minute I want to go to restful place, among moss covered citadels and the old narrow river endlessly singing the praises of the past. With the murmuring field, flowers or the cracks on the stone walls I will carve for me a seperate world, meek and true to my soul. Or I will feed me with the soft chanting of time in a garden in the Middle Age castle, leaving out the wicked thoughts of mankind. I open the door of my room, casting a glance at the small road winding to a remote area. Then my soul is a clear mirror reflecting the shapes and hues of nature. I lose myself in the melodious music when morning sunlight frolic on the beds of grass. Like a free thread of silk, I relax. But the past is still a mist shrouded road, a black blanket enveloping the weary traveller in his endless torment. Faces vanish one by one. I am condemned to walking along the row of old pine trees all my life, hearing the willows mourning the dead. And reality raises high its bare, tattered hands, day and night I move on the edge of the abyss, looking at the thundering cataracts, feeling tipsy and annoyed. As I look far, future in throwing heaps of material by its huge, opened wings. My ten badly bruised fingers grope futilely. The space over the deep abyss is sinking and drowning all echoes from my passionate soul. No matter how many kegs of spirits in the cave I have drunk, I cannot ged rid of my panic. Where must I follow you to have a rest ? Shall I come back to look for morning glory in your eyes of peace. Will I find it ?
OBSESSION
Leaving a world I once knew, I let loose myself in the deepening darkness for new sources of inspiration. Evening is being killed off bit by bit, each wound is reddening space. Rows of trees raise themselves higher as if to obliterate the bleeding veins. In the agony of the
burning sun, birds are rejoining their nests, striking a strange note in the sounds of drums and trumpets which signal the hour of remembrance. O dear, never think of a marble temple at the end of the road, the eternal resting place of the soul, or a station for the train after its year long voyage. I must depart like the earth.
Look at the planets orbiting around the sun. Morning, it masquerades as a great director and evening goes behind the curtain. On the stage we put on an old show: I look at myself and you do the same. Meanwhile, the controller docilely raises his two hands to tell this person to stop or to switch on the green light for others. I have always had my heart of a citizen of a small, weak country. The monstrous world threatens me, an unlucky person who has a sweet mother and a haughty father.
I tell myself not to return to the house at the end of a hamlet off the road where my mother had devoted all her life to her son. I walk on his boulevard, watching evening hide among the dark trees which are but guards of a prisoner. The newly burned lamps look like the lifeless yes of a poor moribund person. Your image appears quickly as if anticipating the evening will blot out everything. I keep on walking and walking until I become one with the night which answers the calls of the wandering ghosts and devils. The shameless Moon has risen behind the immovable building to count every breath of my soul in a horrible place of evil.
I must bid farawell to all, even to the Void, so that I will not see another dawn which reddens your cheeks and lips. I must leave you, my eternal love who had visited primeval gardens. You invited me to eat the forbidden fruit, and we were damned forever.
Darkness has settled itself on my lips, the broken steps of the royal palace of old. Non will pay me a visit,a sinking pillar, a withered branch of tree.
IN THE TWILIGHT
1
A weary day, I am a curious man wanting to fathom the breaths of the passersby in the streets Evening falls, the bell sounds are lost in the air. The remaining light is reddening the sky like a piece of cloth which roll on itself at the sound of a horn. Is there any way for anything to escape ? I walk, the echoes from afar are urging me to come home. Tonight I will give back the dreams of yours. Many a time I have beem witnessing sad parting, each minute is a fallen drop of tear on the small tomb. Space cries or a prey, and lays down its trap once and for all. I start running and my face withers like the wind which is withdrawing from your field of ferility.
2
Memory piles up on memory. My mind is an unchanged realm. I tell myself I must believe others' words so when I leave you at nightfall I still see you combing your hair in my mind, caress your face of my dream. In tranquil ecstasy I hide in the deep red rose, the lips of my loved one laving aside all threats of the day to come. But the rose will soon be a thing past. You wander in the dark and my love is dying. I roam the big sky as a strange bird which flies to distant regions for fear of being tracked down by the human species. Badly hurted by so many calamities, the bird moves back to a somber corner of the world.
3
Winter is an age old dark sun. A frightening eye moves about the trees in the old, deserted house and alights on me. No exit I slumber in the depths of Fancy. In that immutable world, I find myself lying amidst a talking nature. I ask the young birds if they pity me and they nod, winking their eyes. It seems mankind does not know how to weep as around me are enchanting trees and flowers and space is filled with music. One day, the birth cry is heard again and I take hold of darkness, screaming with fear. I shudder as no one comes. Awakened, I find change has caused many a wound to my body. I grow up in illusion. I am but a silly chap who sitting by himself in the twilight, sees his loved ones with drawing farther and farther.
4
All my life I have been searching the lost sweet voice. It has gone with the birds to a place no one remembers ? I suddenly find myself taking a strange language. What I say none will ever understand. On the edge of the abyss I painfully call my mates but no one bothers to hear an innocent child's sincere words. Oh yes, I have the visage of a dumb man condemned to the vain labour of keeping a secret. But no secret will remain hidden for long. It will be as transparent as sunlight. Even you, the source of my Love, why do you not understand that the words of love we once exchanged in the garden of Eden will have to fade with the odor of the apples and grapes. Once fallen, the apple becomes poison. Even you are estranged. I turn to look at your eyes of innocence, the glowing pearls the world treasures. But I do not have enough sweet words to praise our love any more. It is dead as the broken rubies scattered at my feet. My face withers and I dare not hold you in my arms any longer. On the earth rages a fire which consumes me and the dream pearls.
Don't look at me, dearest love ! I am cold like a night in the desert, and as disconsolate as ruined, forsaken citadels.
[]
MAI TRUNG TĨNH
(THE END)
PROSE POEMS / MAI TRUNG TĨNH
Dai NamVan Hien Books, Australia, 2014
(back cover)
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