hoàng khoi phong-- the phong--
tran thi tue mai -- van nguyen duong
TENGGARA 6/ Kuala Lumpur 1973
TENGGARA 6
(Department of English -- University of Malaya-- Kuala Lumpur/ Malaysia).
VOICES FROM VIETNAM *
TRANSLATED BY DAM XUAN CAN
Hoang Khoi Phong
My Legacy to you
This is for HUONG.
When I am near you I can never think of tomorrow
Because of mixed feelings in my heart.
My joy-lit eyes suddenly darken
When I think of long, cold nights without you.
I can only think for the future
Awakening at midnight inside the tent
not much higher than the grass;
Lying ready for the night battle
the wind blowing in my hair.
I can also plan for thew future
When I come back to the boarding-house following the fight
In the room empty of everything
Apart from the table de nuit with your portrait on it,
A mess of dirty dresses,
and a couple of studies of nudes with tantalizing smiles.
These times
I can think of a very modest future free from picture-like
prospects,
We know we cannot hope to have happiness, living on
plain- water,
I could by
a presentable house somewhere in the suburbs,
And a bicycle to ride to work twice a day.
We do not need barbed wire fences around the house,
nobody envies the land;
But it should have a flower garden for you.
Alas,
these things
though modest
seem to be beyond our reach.
I want to rise higher
but my knees re tired already.
Besides, fate seldom fails to play fatal dirty tricks on me
So, a second thought comes to minds :
In the event of my death
Though I cease to breathe
I will provide for you all the same.
What else can I leave you ?
The tent which shelters me through the nights won't do for
any worthwhile purpose ;
A best it could be set up as a make shift selling stall,
It cannot be used for living
in a townful of buildings.
Let me think some more ...
They are of no earthy use -- the rusty sliver and copper medals
Awarded to me before my journey into death's country ;
They deserve to be pinned to the coat hanger as relics of
this war.
Let me see again ...
My posthumous twelve-month gratuity
Will amount to something like one hundred thousand piasters
(because of the recent pay rise) ;
You will see it's a very handy sum of money, roughly the price
of the vespa
-- but a vespa will not be much use
Unless I am there to take you for an evening drive,
I do not have the heart to leave to you my sorrows as a youth,
I have already paid for them toiling and facing dangers
perspiring and bleeding
Throughout my miserable career.
O darling,
there is one precious thing I would like to give to you,
The thing I do not hesitate to die for
PEACE!
If God is
Hd'll do the same.
That's right, my dear,
PEACE!
With peace you'll have plenty of genuine happiness.
* Selected from Voices, (Dai Nam Van Hien Books 1971).
(photo retouché by phan nguyen)
The Phong
translated by Dam Xuan Can
What I choose in this mad World.
I choose autumn, pine forest and sad sunshine ;
I give up writing poetry
and will not torture myself anymore
Do me a favour, my solemn-faced and wise wife.
Say to me,
"Burn a fire! Hang the mosquito-net!"
I am the voluntary slave who is full 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 "Trespasser Will Be Prosecuted"
In all the languages of the world.
1964
Tran thi Tue Mai
translated by Dam Xuan Can
[i.e. tran thi gia minh 1923- saigon 1983]
(photo: internet)
Way to look at things at dawn
Here I am with the long night
Of days in the past and the future
The late carriage hastily bids farewell to the sad streets ;
The time-ground wheels still go round and round;
Lofty trees cast shadows on the road,
While the leaves are waiting for the wind, and the branches
pitying the leaves.
Here I am with the deep night,
Bewildered with love and tormented by hate ;
Nothing is left in my arms,
Spring is only a useless and bitter memory.
Here I am with the long night,
With myself scattered on the open book and out in the rain-
tapped yard.
Embracing the flowery land
Is not enough to express my d boundless and compassionate
love and hope.
Here I am with the deep night.
My shoulders suddenly ache under the weight of history ;
Roads, far and near, are choked with the smell of history;
Whatever the name, my country is the testing site of war.
What is left? What is still amendable ?
Thousand of eyes are watching each other with rising despair.
In the long night, here I am
Awakened within the blood -- mine and my people'.
Ups and downs of life should not dishearten us ;
We will survive, we will survive
I am still with the tender night
My arms open, I look forward to watching things at dawn.
July the twentieth *
Nine o' clock at night;
The Faculty of Arts campus is packed as on festival night.
I sneak in
The fire has risen high ;
Shoulder to shoulder in a circle
We assemble around the fire
The fire is burning hot :
-let us all sleep not.
Sleep not!
Sleep not!
After years of intolerable ignorance
The call is thundering in every direction.
Wake up. We cannot indulge in sleep anymore.
Stand up! March !
The turning of history is here
We have had too much bloodshed and misery in this
wretched land ;
We will no longer stand such cruel humiliation ;
We are all children of Trung Vuong, Tran hung Dạo,
Quang Trung, Le Loi,
Keep on marching ! says the voice yesterday.
Clear the trail! is today's call.
His voice resounding
The young speaker on the platform delivers the message ;
The starlight in his eyes he walks out to the road
Screaming in the fog and wind
The young and brave demonstrate
To wake up the town.
Sleep not to-night!
July the Twentieth
Sleep not tonight!
Whether in the North or in the South
Let us keep up our anger ;
Whether in the North or in the South
Let us hod each other's hands tightly
The hour has struck !
Wake up everybody.
* The 20th of July, 1954 was the day of the partitioning of Vietnam.
Van Nguyen Duong
translated by Dam Xuan Can
The still- remaining sadness
Give me the still-remaining sadness
Of your pair of pearl- shaped and crystal tears ;
At the bottom of the sea there are pearls
Along with mysterious eyes floating here and there
At sad as your tear-glistening face in the night light
Christmas night wakes my memory
With music in the background
Accompanying the worn-out song 'Desperate Frontier
Love'
I see your wet eyes
And crystal tears dissolve in my body
drop water of lip-burning gin.
My heart bitterly grieves as in a dream
You have become tears yourself,
O my old flame, now the wife of PHIEN,
The chap used to sing the song, and was always by
my side
In battles on green paddies ;
With his beautiful voice he took you from my hands.
You have moved on the dancing floor in the dim light
As on the desert of life to the waltz of the century of
wars,
The waltz you PHIEN and I liked so well.
You moved from country to town,
I from the partition line to the South
And poor PHIEN became a war casualty
We there belong to the generation of shattered dreams.
ou are familiar to no one. You are frightened
At being exposed as a prey at the music and drinks
And the singer's staccato voice keeps ringing in your
ears.
You will hold orther bodies
than that of the husband surviving the war
Give me the still-remaining sadness
The pearl shaped eyes
And crystal tears,
I will cry for you in the days ahead
Filled with the sounds of the lean waltz of the troubled
century.
Autobiography
I first learned the story of my life the year I turned ten,
When I started learning the history of my country.
My teacher used to say,
"Long ago our predecessors founded the country of Vietnam
Under the Sun.
Now the sun has gone down-- but why in the East?"
Then I understood and was deeply moved.
In the morning I looked at the bridge sun on the fields
Where scarecrows had been set up for some thousand years
Where Black buffaloes were pulling plough
And the menfolk planting seedlings with their hands
For one thousand years my country was enslaved by
the Chinese
For eighty years by the French,
No change whatsoever was brought about
So runs my biography up to the age of ten ;
The story of my ten years in the darkness of eighty years ;
I learnt more about my life when I was twelve,
I started missing the school drum beating.
Dreadful scenes right under my eyes ...
My family fled to the coastal area leaving the beloved
House behind;
The peasants rose up to fight.
Vast fields were left overgrown with weeds.
I no longer heard love songs alternately exchanged in sun-
drenched days.
The sarecrows were in tatters showing patches of straw
and mud.
Decent common folk were like scarecrows
They woke up very early in the morning to watch the
situation,
At dusk they were still heading to some refuge in
the hamlets.
Everywhere we fled the soldiers wearing combat boots
We saw with our own eyes
The stinking corpses drift to the riverside
And attached by hawks and crows.
So runs my biography at the age of twelve,
At the start of a bloody war.
With the turn of the tide life changed,
Life was so sad when I was fourteen
When the comeback took place everywhere.
I returned to my old village
In the old days my beautiful three-roomed house with
red tiles
Occupied a privileged spot at the end of the village
Right in front of a bamboo hedge.
Now the fire of war had burned all the supporting pillars,
Even trees were mowed down, the trees with gorgeous
leaves,
Weeds were growing everywhere, blocking the entrance.
VAN NGUYEN DUONG
- p. 93- 99 TENGGARA 6 / 1973
dam xuan can (translator) [1939 - ]
courtesy photo of dam xuan can/ australia)
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