Where the Ground Forms

It’s so strange
The place where I stand might have the dead buried underneath
Just as many things that used to live
But things are still living and perhaps

From a Story about Shoes

a group of pilgrims
bore a cross through the skies of exile
on combat boots
one crusade
one dreamland

Opening a Blank Page ♦ Being Less Human ♦ To Concentrate

I open a blank page I open a blank page
to expand my place of shelter
no night no day
no first haste no last fatigue

I Recall So ♦ Contraceptives ♦ Postcoital

Through the slits between my fingers. I see you
leaving behind. Colors from the moon slipping through like
threads. Tangled and dissolved. I have sown them onto my
left chest…

Lời kết của một tập đoàn phản động / The Conclusion of a Reactionary Clique

Vì tin vào định hướng, tránh sự xuyên tạc của kẻ địch
Tao quyết làm những bài thơ minh hoạ mà nội dung bằng hình thức, hoặc cao hơn.

Because of the belief in the policy, the retirement programme
I will make works not turning their backs to national art.

Three Poems by Trần Dạ Từ

I’ll give you twenty endless years
Twenty years seven thousand nights of artillery
Seven thousand nights of artillery lulling you to sleep
Are you sleeping yet or are you still awake

April ♦ Passport

I don’t believe history; I want to turn it all over, smack it and push it out the door
I doubt my country’s delicacies, its distinctive culture; I want to
dig deep, turn them up-side-down, and shove

Just Picture Me / Hãy tưởng tượng ra em

Just picture me in
a strange new house
alone in my language

Hãy tưởng tượng ra em
một đời sông cát lở
một cuộc tình hư hao

City of the Past / Thành phố dỹ vãng

Beneath that thick layer of fog is the city
There, I have a past
Like that of a bus station, a market, a town

Young lad
Come to me. Don’t be afraid

The Old Story / Chuyện Cũ

generally
nobody is still wailing
death and separation
persecution, poverty, and starvation
have gone into the past

We Wiggle ♦ Still-Life Dinner

in just a moment, the sun will go down and we won’t need to mind
the outside world
we won’t need to mind disasters, wars,
human misfortune and happiness

I Get to Eat Meat

why don’t I dream one day I can have meat to eat
I talk and laugh happily
the piece of meat with a thick chunk of fat

Meditations on Love / Tình sầu

Love as an artillery shell that blinds
the heart.
Tình yêu như trái phá
con tim mù loà.

Bend Down, Come Close / Cúi xuống thật gần

In this moment’s magic,
after twenty years, a chance for love.
Trên phút giây nhiệm mầu
Hai mươi năm xin còn một sớm thương nhau

Three by Trịnh Công Sơn

The remaining eye looks at the lightness of life
Sees you as fleeting, like dappled sunlight
Con mắt còn lại nhìn đời là không
Nhìn em hư vô nhìn em bóng nắng

Tombstone Stories

the man
in this grave is a john doe
name age origin unknown
found dead wearing a Southern army shirt
and brown women’s pants

Người Đàn Bà Mặc Áo Choàng Đen

Sao không mặc áo hồng, áo tím
Nàng choàng chỉ màu đêm
Why doesn’t she wear purple or pink?
She wears nothing but black …

February

words are for smelling the sweetness only
not to sound,
to be absorbed into our body
nothing else

The Cough of a Man Moving towards the Wall

I come back just to hear your voice
a woman’s voice which is thick and hoarse
and sometimes turns into a cough pill
a cough pill wrapped in a piece of newspaper
that’s your voice

Khó thấy/Difficult to See ♦ Không đề/Untitled

Chúng ta
Những cư dân không được đón chào

Gió chiều nào
Ta tào lao chiều ấy

Rồi, tôi / Then, I

Rồi tôi nhận ra tiếng nói từ bầy súc vật
Mơ hành vi của những con người

The world also soars by well-worn footsteps
With one belief under the heels

Ai?/Who? ♦ Hiện thực xã; hội chủ nghĩa/Socialist Realism

Mất đi tiếng nói bản thân
Mất đi những cái thuộc về giá trị
Chúng tôi còn sở hữu duy nhất một điều
Nỗi sợ

In this ill-fated house
Who wants to inherit their legacy?

Phương pháp điều chỉnh / Method of Adjustment

Chúng nhất thiết cần sự thay đổi
Để chết chóc vượt lên. Tựu thành
Quan tài hình dép

They inevitably need change
For death to prevail. Achieving
Coffins in the shape of sandals

In the Evening You Walk/Em đi trong chiều

You walk in the evening / Em đi trong chiều
A life without solace / Một đời khôn nguôi
A life of private yearning / Một đời riêng ai mong ai

Sống ♦ Hoa sữa ♦ Cóc ♦ Thôi, đi (with English translations)

Chọn một niềm đau. Mỗi ngày
Để sẻ chia với thế giới
Dân tộc này

Choose a death. Each day
In the eyes of the regime
To be free

Resurrection / Phục sinh

humankind never can forgive homicide
headsmen collapse on their knees
at the time of resurrection

utterances are prayers
in centuries of longing

Where’s My Soul

The Dalai Lama said that if I look at you superficially, we are different, and if I put my emphasis on that level, we grow more distant. If I look on you as my own kind, as human beings like myself, with one nose, two eyes, and so forth, then automatically that distance is gone…”

Catching Clams at Lake Isabella

Lowering my voice as though about to unleash some deep secret, I tell them about the journey of the small clam in the palm of my hand-starting not from the high summit above Lake Isabella, nor from the steep cliff three hundred feet above the violent Kern River, but from a small village on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, where a passing river would, in time, dry up.