OTHER POETRY
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THƠ KHÁC
Khế Iêm
OTHER POETRY
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THƠ KHÁC
A Bilingual Edition
Ấn Bản Song Ngữ
Translator J. Do Vinh
Consulting Editor Richard H.Sindt
Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing Club
2011
Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing Club
P. O. Box 1745
Garden Grove, CA 92842
World Wide Web Site
http://www.thotanhinhthuc.org
© 2009 by Tan Hinh Thuc
All rights reserved
Cover art: Inspired by the poem A Row Of People by Lê Thánh Thư
Cover design: Lê Giang Trần
Printed in The United States of America
Other Poetry
By Khế Iêm
Translator: DoVinh
Consulting Editor: Richard H. Sindt
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009942301
ISBN 978-0-9778742-4-8
OTHER POETRY
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THƠ KHÁC
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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Meaningfully selecting a number of poems from the first phase of Vietnamese New Formalism poetry prepares this form of poetry for a new period of changes. This prepara-tion is necessary so the next generation can create their own styles and contents. As such, each poem in this collection is a small gift for readers, young poets, and old friends with whom we have collaborated and shared our enthusiasm and concern for this new form of poetry. We hereby gratefully acknowledge the contributions of poet and translator J. Do Vinh, editor Richard H. Sindt, poet Stephen John Kalinich, Mr. Michael Estelle, writers Phạm Kiều Tùng and Dương Tất Thắng, painters Đinh Cường, Lê Thánh Thư and Nguyễn Đại Giang, and poets Nguyễn Đăng Thường, Đỗ Minh Tuấn and Nguyễn Hoàng Nam.
Thơ Khác • 8
CONTENTS
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MỤC LỤC
Acknowledgment
8
Thư Cảm Tạ
122
Khe Iem’s Selected Poems: An Introduction 16
Giới Thiệu Tuyển tập Thơ Khế Iêm
123
Frederick Feirstein
Author’s Notes
20
Ghi Chú của Tác Giả
128
New Formalism And A Story
23
Tân Hình Thức và Câu chuyện Kể
130
Boxes
24
Cái Hộp
131
Stairs
26
Bậc Thang
133
Chairs
27
Những Chiếc Ghế
134
Blank Verse
28
Bài Thơ Không Vần
135
The Dining Set
30
Bộ Bàn Ăn
137
9 • Other Poetry
Pages (From a Book)
31
Trang Sách
138
Life Story
33
Chuyện Đời Kể
140
A Saying
35
Câu Nói
142
Illusion
36
Ảo Tưởng
143
A Death On Television
37
Cái Chết Trên Truyền Hình
145
Refrigerators
39
Tủ Lạnh
147
The Black Cat
40
Con Mèo Đen
148
Between Who And Who
41
Giữa Ai và Ai
149
The Woman
42
Người Đàn Bà
150
A Cigarette
43
Điếu Thuốc Lá
151
The Story Of Your Life
44
Chuyện Đời Anh
152
The Afternoon
46
Buổi Chiều
154
The Morning
47
Buổi Sáng
155
Us
48
Chúng Ta
157
Dark-Skinned Girl
49
Cô Gái Da Đen
159
The Girl In The Mirror
51
Cô Gái Soi Gương
161
Suffering
52
Khổ Đau
162
A Row Of People
53
Một Hàng Người
163
Sadness
54
Nỗi Buồn
164
Tsunami
55
Tsunami
166
A Dead Bird
57
Con Chim Chết
168
On The Spur Of Moment
58
Tức Cảnh
169
A Drama
59
Vở Kịch
170
Thoughts
60
Ý Nghĩ
171
11 • Other Poetry
Talk
61
Nói
172
TV Script
64
TV K ý
173
Readings Of “The Song Of A Warrior’s Wife”
66
Đọc Chinh Phụ Ngâm
176
Many Faces
68
Đa Bản Mặt
178
Quatrain
69
Tứ Tuyệt
179
Negative
71
Âm Bản
180
The Poem Searches For The Poem
70
Bài Thơ Đi Tìm Bài Thơ
181
A Celebration of the Silence
by Stephen John Kalinich
74
Ngợi Ca Sự Im Lặng
182
Bud weis er – drawing
78
by Lê Thánh Thư
185
Bud weis er – drawing
77
by Đinh Cường
186
Bud weis er – drawing
79
by Nguyễn Đại Giang
187
Thơ Khác • 12
Khế Iêm – design
80
by Nguyễn Đăng Thường
188
Khế Iêm – drawing
81
by Đinh Cường
189
Introduction To Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry 84
by Khế Iêm
190
Tân Hình Thức Nhắc Lại – 10 Năm
How To Read
95
by Nguyễn Hoàng Nam
200
Cách Đọc
Heaven and Earth Amidst Storms
102
by Khế Iêm
206
Thuở Trời Đất Nổi Cơn Gió Bụi
Biography
122
Tiểu Sử
243
Ghế Và Người
216
Kịch
Giải Mã Thơ
229
Nỗi Khắc Khoải Thời Gian Và Ngôn Ngữ
Đỗ Minh Tuấn
Cover Art
Inspired by the poem of A Row Of People By painter Lê Thánh Thư
13 • Other Poetry
Thơ Khác • 14
ENGLISH
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KHE IEM’S SELECTED POEMS: AN INTRODUCTION
_______________________________________________
Frederick Feirstein
Robert Frost said that reading a poem in translation is like kissing a girl through a handkerchief. What is most difficult is not being able to hear the poems in a foreign language. Yet in translation we can get the structure, imagery and meter of the poem, and these will give us a feeling of what the poet is trying to convey emotionally.
This is the case with Khe Iem’s work. Via the Internet, I have heard a few poems of his poems in Vietnamese, which gives me some sense of how lovely are their seven-tone melodies. I wish I had a CD of many more. But what he is doing metrically becomes clear through translation. Interestingly enough, the meter reminds me of Kenneth Rexroth’s translations from the Chinese in which he uses the seven- syllable line with the repetitive technique of assonance that he learned from the French. In Khe Iem’s poetry he similarly uses five, seven, eight syllable lines that repeat key words and uses alliteration also for repetition which is very effective in ways poems in Old English (also a monosyllabic language like Vietnamese) can be.
The lines are limited to 5-8 monosyllabic words in four-line stanzas with or without enjambment, which sometimes creates a counterpoint between symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns. The use of enjambment also allows Khe Iem to write short narrative poems which depend on continuity of thought Thơ Khác • 16
and feeling. This flow is made easier by the plain diction he uses which The New Formalism in America considers important.
Khe Iem often deals with the reliability and indefiniteness of the narrator and the reliability of what is being narrated. For instance, he ends “Boxes” this way: “… but i am about to / say, as i have said the things that i have / said, regardless, it is better to have /
been than not to be, but those are not things / that i wish to say.”
In “Chairs”, the poet tells us what chairs are not and are until we lose the word “chairs” in an attempt to find its concrete reality.
Khe Iem accomplishes this by the end of the poem after a whirl-wind of words about chairs: “... chairs that / are not far away, chairs beyond / all things; chairs that are just / what they are chairs.
I am a psychoanalyst as well as a poet and am treating a young poet who was trying to express to me what he had no verbal expression for. He wanted to know if I understood what his wordless experience was like. I read “Chairs” to him, and he said, “That is exactly what I feel.” He then proceeded to imitate the poem himself in various ways.
Three of Khe Iem’s best poems using reliability / unreliability (in a carefully organized book) are “The Dining Set”, “Pages (From A Book)” and “Life Story”. Although he explores the uncertainty of reality where time and space lose their boundaries, he returns us to reality in almost a Zen-like way by the end of these poems.
One of the most moving poems in the book is a narrative, “A Death On Television”, in which “The woman sees the death of her own son / on the screen but does not believe that her / son is dead, and even though the news came like / a storm about the death of her son, she / does not believe what she saw …”
This is all too common an experience for the survivors of trau-ma. Leon Klinghoffer, a family friend, was one of the first public, Western victims of contemporary terrorism. He was thrown 17 • Other Poetry
off the cruise ship the Achille Lauro in a wheelchair. When his wife Marilyn was interviewed about it, she said she had such a sense of unreality when she watched the event on television that she momentarily felt she just was watching a television show.
This experience partly is the result of the blurring of boundaries in our media-saturated age. It is a central theme in Khe Iem’s work done seriously and sometimes even comedically, as in his poem about a Budweiser beer commercial, which il-lustrates the attempts of advertisers to enter our unconscious.
Khe Iem is one of the leaders of his own literary movement in which several poets whose work he anthologizes* follow his style and the ways he perceives reality / unreality. The movement is called Vietnamese New Formalism – the newness partly being the use of colloquial diction in combination with enjambed or end-stopped blank verse. He traces the origin of the term to a name given to an aspect of Expansive Poetry, the movement Frederick Turner and I started to open up American poetry, then restricted to the free-verse confessional lyric. As I have pointed out in my essay “After The Revisionists”, there was nothing new about The New Formalism, that it simply was a return to a tradition discarded by several of the Modernists and Postmodernists. Khe Iem sees this clearly as well.
I have not only disavowed what our imitators have made quaintly formal but have emphasized that Expansive Poetry is simply one historical literary movement like Modernism and Postmodernism.
I expect that Khe Iem, being such an original poet, might find yet another new way to articulate and perhaps expand what he and his followers have been doing. Personally, I would like to see, if they already doesn’t exist, very long narratives which the form allows for. Turner, for instance, has written three book-length narratives.
I am very interested in what Khe Iem’s movement not only is doing in his poems but is explicitly stating in prose. In his “Introduction to Vietnamese New Formalism Poetry”, he has de-Thơ Khác • 18
fined clearly the main characteristics of his movement. He also emphasizes one of its broader goals in saying: “The purpose of New Formalism poetry is to propel Vietnamese poetry onto the international stage. That is why translation is emphasized to seek readers from different languages and cultures.”
From what I have read of his work and the translation of his allies, Khe Iem seems to me to be accomplishing that. He has his own press and is translating some of our work into Vietnamese. He quotes a letter from the website www.thotanhinhthuc.
org that says: “Come join us in this small, yet warm corner of poetry. Let us raise a glass and toast each other in this meeting of minds.” And so my glass is raised and I congratulate Khe Iem on his excellent book, his anthologies, and essays.
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Footnotes
* “Blank Verse”, Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing club 2006, 64 Vietnamese poets. And “Poetry Narrates”, Lao Động Publisher, Viet nam and Tan Hinh Thuc Publishing club 2010, 21 Vietnamese poets.
19 • Other Poetry
AUTHOR’S NOTES
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This is my first collection of poetry translated into English. I had previously published two collections of poetry, Thanh Xuan (rhyming) and Dau Que (free verse), in Vietnamese only. This new collection has an entirely different style. I have always composed in Vietnamese, a language that permits me to express the art and spirit of poetry – it is a language that I love, and my mother tongue. However, as an immigrant to America, I also love my new-found land. And that is my motivation to labor: to introduce American poets and avant guard movements to my Vietnamese readers, to seek new compositions that can easily allow translations, and to effectively introduce Vietnamese poetry to American readers. I have previously written of these techniques and have refined them. I have introduced Vietnamese readers to the theories of Chaos, Fractal Geometry, and the application of Butterfly Effect, feedback and iteration, in that poetry which imbues natural rhythm. Of course, in order to produce works of quality to our satisfaction, a long period of time is required.
Let us look back on American poetry in modern times, from Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and e.e. cummings at the first half of the 20th century, then the later half, with Charles Olson until the avant guard poetry movement of L=a=n=g=u=a=g=e Poetry in the 1980s, which Paul Hoover calls the post-modern American poetry. But I was excited about the New Formalism, Expansive poetry and Slam poetry coming next, and peaking in the 1990s.
Thơ Khác • 20
Expansive Poetry has revived poetic forms to balance the dominance of free verse poetry. Furthermore, Expansive Poetry and Slam Poetry utilize common language and thus has freed American poetry from academia in order to communicate the poetic expression to a wider, more general audience. This development is similar to Vietnamese poetry from classical to modern times; its main function was to serve the nobility and intelligentsia. Thus a revolution was required in order to usher in a new century. Poetry today no longer has the important effects of past centuries because information technology has captured the time and attention of the public with many other things. However, it is ironic that poets have sprung up in abundance everywhere and at all times. I believe that poetry’s hidden potentials have not subsided, but have actually increased because poetry has the ability to bring people back to the realities of life, and to balance out the illusory existence of cyberspace created by the Internet.
Regarding this collection of poetry, there are poems, like “Readings Of The Song Of A Warrior’s Wife” or “TV Script”, which require an accompanying essay in order for the reader to better understand the poems. Some composition could not be translated into English because its essence is grounded in the Vietnamese language, such as the drama “Chairs and People”, an essay about my poetic developments by the literary critic Do Minh Tuan. This collection of poetry is introduced by Frederick Feirstein, to whom I am grateful and honored. It is these small accomplishments that have given us the much needed exposure. These achievements have been the contributions of many: writers, authors, translators and poets who composed in this new form and beyond; also the readers, critics and essayists who collaborated with The Journal of Poetry ( Tap Chi Tho) throughout its 10 years of existence (from 1994 to 2004). I beg your indulgence to allow me to collectively thank you all.
21 • Other Poetry
I am also indebted to and grateful for the contributions of editors Dr. Carol Compton, Angel Saunders, Richard H. Sindt; American poets Alden Marin, Frederick Feirstein, Frederick Turner, Michael Lee Johnson, Rick Stansberger, Stephen John Kalinich, Tom Riordan; English poets James Murphy, Paul Henry, and Australian poet Phillip A. Ellis for their collaborations which have assisted me tremendously.
Thơ Khác • 22
NEW FORMALISM
AND A STORY
While I sit sipping my coffee
on the curbside and telling my
story passed down the generations
telling a story like the story
told by every generation,
about a woman and her sorry
brood (on a corner of a city
known as the place of death, on a
corner known as the place of life),
drawn in by dark lines of charcoal;
broken curves, ugly shadows of
old photographs, like today and
tomorrow and the day after
tomorrow, and that’s about it,
who knows if the woman and her
sorry brood, still telling the story
that has been told by so many
others, nothing different from
the story, the story that tells
itself, even though there is no-
thing beside the story that tells
itself, including the woman
and her sorry brood, stepping out-
side of the story being told.
23 • Other Poetry
BOXES
The trash upon the streets, the rags upon the streets, the thrown-away boxes upon
the streets, that cannot be argued with; and i am about to say the things that i
am about to say but i keep saying
the things that i have said, that i am crowded in a thrown-away box, as i am crowded
upon the streets; unable to step outside of the box, just as the box is unable
to step beyond me; like the boxes that
hold old shoes the boxes that hold old clothes, the boxes filled with vanity items,
the boxes lost and confused, as i am
lost and confused; boxes telling old stories, boxes repeating themselves, retelling
old stories, such images, appearing then disappearing, such realities, appearing
then disappearing, such unfortunate
events, such unhappiness, such pasts, and as such, as such, as such; carton boxes, plastic wraps, soft nylon, personas of cartons, of plastic wraps, of soft nylon like trash, like rags upon the streets, scattered as such, miserable as such; but i am about
Thơ Khác • 24
to say the things that i am about to
say, as i have said the things that i have said, regardless, it is better to have
been than not to be, but those are not things that i wish to say.
25 • Other Poetry
STAIRS
Stairs connecting many floors, stairs leading to many ports, stairs and footsteps; footsteps within me some pigeon-toed, from the city to the open sea; footsteps within me
bleeding a lifetime of nomadic
wandering, though I have never lived
the life of a nomad; this is to
allude to the fact that i am a
fragment of the past, crushed by butterfly wings, cast away to become exiled in
strange lands; no different from the stairs and the footsteps, appearing and then
reappearing, fallen into chaos; because
it isn’t the stairs connecting many
floors, stairs leading to many ports, and footsteps within me still echoing sounds drawing me eerily closer in fact;
I do not wish to speak an iota
more of what I am speaking, the footsteps and the stairs are coming to a close here.
Thơ Khác • 26
CHAIRS
Chairs not of the same colors,
chairs not used for sitting,
the words for chairs, not chairs; chairs that can be touched, chairs that can
be called names, chairs that are
indeed chairs, that are not chairs;
chairs that can never be drawn,
chairs that can never speak, chairs
that can never be had,
because they are chairs that
never change their form, chairs that
can never be misplaced or
lost, chairs that are not present;
chairs, alas, that is what they
are indeed chairs, alas, not
of the same colors, chairs, alas
not used for sitting; chairs that
are not far away, chairs beyond
all things; chairs that are just
what they are chairs.
27 • Other Poetry
BLANK VERSE
In memory of writer Hoàng Ngọc Tuấn (1947-2005) You came to see me every Friday
as if everyday was a Friday and
on other days you went to other friends
as if for other friends everyday
was another day, until one day I
suddenly disappeared, like every
Friday disappeared into another
day, like one life disappearing
into another life, I disappeared
from you, you disappeared from me because I was swept up into a life of exile,
and you were forever lonely, forever
homeless, forever remaining, and I
did not know where you lived on every
Friday, until today when you suddenly
disappeared, you disappeared from yourself, you disappeared from me as if we are
both coincidental, like every road
is a passage, temporary as such,
nothing interesting, nothing worth
talking about in this world, there is only what you leave behind that is worth talking about. “The Hammock-Hanging Girl”,
“Maybe It’s Love”, “Letters to the Chrysanthemum Thơ Khác • 28
Mountain Road”... Like blank verses, like your life because it is also without rhyme, no
rhyme at all with life all about, thus, you are forever a wanderer, a never
ending wandering towards wind and sand,
while I am also a wanderer, but
wandering through a normal life, very
ordinary, not knowing when I will
be finished, when I will be done. But now we can say goodbye to Fridays, and say
goodbye to each other, because it has
been a long time since there was not any day that was Friday, your’s and mine, and since then you and I have not once met. Anyway,
let me wish you a peaceful rest.
___________________________
Footnotes
The writer Hoàng Ngọc Tuấn was born in 1947 in Thừa Thiên, Huế and died July 9, 2005 in Sàigòn. He was the author of several short stories written for teenagers: “Maybe It’s Love”, “The Hammock-Hanging Girl”, “A Place Where Everyone Knows Each Other”, “The Wedding”, and “Letters to the Chrysanthemum Mountain Road”.
29 • Other Poetry
THE DINING SET
The dining set takes up an empty space,
including a table and four chairs, white metal, next to a white wall with a hanging painting; the face of the table is a brown circular formica, the leather of
the chair is brown; it is a cheap dining set, bought from a garage sale, and the person who sold it at a garage sale had bought
it from another garage sale, used it
and resold it, selling it and giving
it away at the same time; the dining
set had no origin, mute, belonging
to the world of things, to take up an empty space, nothing worth talking about, just to realize the true existence of space,
the true existence of the painting,
the true existence of the flower vase,
abstractly existing. The dining set
including a table and four chairs, once
upon a time, came from a garage sale.
Thơ Khác • 30
PAGES (FROM A BOOK)
He steps out from pages of
whispered tales of love stories
from The Hunchback
of Notre Dame to the
Strange Tales of Liaozhai to
the “magical realism” (One
Hundred Years of Solitude)
thousands and tens of thousands
of love stories and all as
fictitious as reality and
after he had stepped out from
the pages he is no longer
himself and he is a fictitious
character he is no longer
himself now no longer the
person he was he is himself
but why is it that people
are still crazy about fiction
unbelieving of that which
is real but he still believes
that he is himself and not
believing that he is not
himself although neither is
real and thus that which is fictitious
is considered to be real
after all he had stepped out
of the pages but the pages
had not stepped out of him
so that these stories are now
within him or without him
and he tells about stories
or the stories are telling
about him and then there are
31 • Other Poetry
times when he is telling about
himself and the stories are
telling about themselves or
the stories are just stories
and he is just himself
etcetera etcetera until both
he and the stories are fictitious
as fictitious as reality.
_________________________
Footnotes
1. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a novel by French writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885).
2. Strange Tales of Liaozhai is a novel by Chinese writer Pu Songling (1640-1715).
3. Magical Realism is the technique that Gabriel Garcia Marquez (born in Aracatara, Colombia, in March 1928) uses in his novels and short stories.
Thơ Khác • 32
LIFE STORY
Yes he has departed this place some
Twenty years ago without saying
As single word of goodbye and I do
Not understand what happened he
Usually sits on this chair next to the
Chair that I am sitting on twenty
Years and perhaps even before that
Because I had just discovered this
When what I said echoed back to me
I do not understand what has happened
I have remained silent for twenty years
Now everything else remained normal
Activities normal, the woman said; but
I remain sitting on this chair next to the Chair that she is sitting on for however Long I no longer remember perhaps
Over twenty years only I don’t hear
Her anymore although I know that
She still speaks because I see her lips
Moving just flapping up and down
But there is absolutely no sound, and
I am still sitting here and perhaps she
Doesn’t see me anymore just as I can
No longer hear her voice if she speaks
33 • Other Poetry
But I have been sitting here for
Twenty years let’s just assume that’s so But because time has curled up so we feel Like it’s just yesterday, everything else Is normal, activities normal, the man
Said; and the story continues as such
The woman doesn’t see the man and
The man doesn’t hear the woman
Although they are both sitting there
On the chairs next to each other
Like two shadows next to each other
And it has been some twenty years
Everything else is normal, activities
Normal twenty years has come to pass,
But because time has curled up so we feel Like it’s just yesterday.
Thơ Khác • 34
A SAYING
“I stepped out my door at five” but which of the doors and what of the hour, five, and a bunch of other questions that should never be answered to an end, because “I stepped out my door at five” is a saying that
came from a story that has since
disappeared like so much noise in the city, like so many daily lives, even though
anybody can stuff it into any
other story and any other story
is not necessary the same story
whence came the saying “I stepped out
my door at five”; so what is the story
behind that ordinary saying that’s
like every other saying that’s
secret even though a saying is still
handed down from person to person and to a yet unknown crowd, to spread the untrue story of the saying “I stepped out
my door at five”. I go! Bye.
35 • Other Poetry
ILLUSION
A man twenty years late speaks to
the man twenty years early that on this
bench, under this sky, almost twenty years that the drama not been written yet, and the nighttime play did not start yet, the trash can contains trash but nothing else, and there are the heavy footsteps in the streets and sleeplessness in the town, the muscle sprains and fractured spines, for twenty years; the man twenty years late pulls a coat over to
shield the cold from earth, measured by hand between the evil eyes and decadent breasts, groping for scripts torn and then glued together in stupid memories; but the man twenty
years early is not listening, not seeing anything in the man twenty years late,
he still walks lonely, lonely like a ghost and never knows that the man twenty years early is the same man twenty years late, waiting for each other as if the life waits for
the death, almost twenty years, that
the drama not been written yet, and the
nighttime play did not start yet, the trash can contains trast but nothing else.
Thơ Khác • 36
A DEATH ON TELEVISION
AP. – MRS. ROSA GONZALEZ SAW HER SON’S BODY ON THE
ARAB NEWS-CHANNEL AL-JAZEERA ON SUNDAY MORNING, AND THE NEXT DAY SHE WAS NOTIFIED THAT HER SON HAD
BEEN KILLED IN ACTION. “I SAID POOR, POOR BOYS. THEY
FELL THERE. BUT WHEN I SAW THE FACE, IT WAS THAT OF
MY SON,” CPL. JORGE A. GONZALEZ, 20 YEARS OLD, WAS AS-SIGNED TO THE 1ST BATTALION, 2ND MARINE REGIMENT, 2ND MARINE EXPEDITIONARY BRIGADE, IN CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA. MARRIED TO JUZTY, 25 YEARS OLD; HIS
SON ALONSO, WAS BORN MARCH 4, 2003, SEVERAL WEEKS
BEFORE HE WAS DEPLOYED FOR COMBAT IN THE MIDDLE
EAST. END OF NEWS FLASH. END. THE END. SILENCE.
CAN NOT BE SILENT.
AND A POEM, READ
RYTHMICALLY,
LIKE A
PRAYER ...
The woman sees the death of her own son
on the screen but does not believe that her son is dead, and even though the news came like a storm about the death of her son, she
does not believe what she saw; no one received the news and recognized the death of her son and she also could not understand
even her own pain because that is only
37 • Other Poetry
a partial death on the screen and in the news, and the pain is only a partial
pain; the story both real and unreal
about a son in times of war continues
to be told without ever quitting like
the pain shivering in her heart; her son dead or alive, no one could know what is behind the death of a young soldier leaving a wife and a newborn child growing up
without a father other than a letter remaining
“And if you can wait just a little longer, I’ll be there as soon as the war ends.”
“I’ll be there …” no one could understand except the woman swallowing her pain
waiting another death of her own in
order to be with the son losing the
way home, and her memories fading for
more than once she does not believe what she saw – the death of her son.
March 27–2003.
Thơ Khác • 38
REFRIGERATORS
Refrigerators are for free on the
streets, refrigerators advertised,
these cold, cold refrigerators, refrigerators that possess me and did not possess me;
but what I have done for these refrigerators and never ask what these refrigerators
have done for me, because the refrigerators are my code number, the refrigerators
are me and i am the refrigerators;
so what, what about refrigerators
that open and close, what about the selves that open and close, these refrigerators are difficult to see on the streets, these selves are easy to see on the streets,
these refrigerators are advertised,
these selves, on the contrary, are forbidden to be advertised, these cold, cold refrigerators, these cold, cold selves. Please ask these refrigerators, who am i? And never ask me about
these refrigerators. “I consume! Therefore I am.”*
_______________________
*imitation of the saying: “I think, therefore I am.” René Descartes.
39 • Other Poetry
THE BLACK CAT
The black cat with my soul and a piece of my rib, wakes up every morning not
washing its face, every morning not
brushing its teeth; the black cat with clay-like eyes, opening and closing, or opening and never closing, as it climbs up
and down the stairs, dragging with it my soul and a piece of my rib, forgetting that
i had lived much darker days, since when and why it was i had buried them in my
pocket full of notes gathered from
many different tales, strung together
to make up this story about the black
cat with my soul and a piece of my rib;
of course, that is the black cat with clay-like eyes, not any other kind of eyes; even
as the black cat climbs up and down the stairs.
_________________
Note
“The Black Cat” is one of three very fine poems in the December 2007
edition of Poetry.about Forum (http://poetry.about.com).
Thơ Khác • 40
BETWEEN WHO AND WHO
The truth is, the truth is, the truth
is i don’t know how to begin,
since i acknowledged the space be–
tween the unoccupied chair and
the chair i am sitting in, but
i had sat in the unoccu–
pied chair before, and the chair that
i am sitting in, i also
had sat in, so the space between
the unoccupied chair and the
chair i am sitting in shouldn’t
occupy my mind at all, such
as myself, i don’t even know
if i exist or not, if i
am sitting or i am not sit–
ting; what i am saying and at
the same time, sometimes when i meet
with bad winds and why i am just
saying a bunch of things at the
same time, but that’s the conclusion,
i will tell everything; right now,
i still don’t know how to begin,
how to begin; let’s wait a few
moments to catch enough words, right!
41 • Other Poetry
THE WOMAN
The woman sleeps with a man who is not
her husband, in a room that isn’t her
room, with herself that isn’t herself, in an evening that is unlike any
other (like any other evening),
in a station full of mosquitoes and
horse piss, regurgitating whatever
can be regurgitated, erasing
whatever can be erased, throwing the scrap of old newspaper into a pile of
trash, telling a depraved and tired story; stepping into wooden heels, lifting past the threshold, to find the man who isn’t her husband. That’s a given. So let it
be. The woman who’s lost her past, or her past has faded, unreal, a hundred years
gone past, once upon a time, once upon
“a white-shirted time long ago”*. The woman spins on her heels, goes back to the room that isn’t her room, with herself that isn’t
herself, apathetically, such as
the truth was never true.
_______________
“A white-shirted time long ago ...” quoted from a song by Tram Tu Thieng
Thơ Khác • 42
A CIGARETTE
I stand under the porch, glancing
at the derelict man, stinking
of alcohol, walking back (and
forth) begging for a cigarette;
of course, it’s just a cigarette,
how could i not have one, but there
has been many times in my life,
when i did not have even one
cigarette; one cheap cigarette
not worth anything, one time i
did not have even that which isn’t
worth anything – i’m sorry – but
the derelict man, stinking of
alcohol had gone (then came back),
handing me a cigarette, a
cigarette not worth anything
and now i still don’t have even
that which isn’t worth anything –
thank you – thank you, to the dere–
lict man stinking of alcohol
and for the cigarette, simple as
that, strange as that, floating every–
where around us, around me, and
i’m simple as that, strange as that
under this porch; who am i, who
am i, oh, ah yes, i am who.
43 • Other Poetry
THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE
For a poet
Deaths that have never been real
deaths they have never occurred
like we have been born without
origin and arrived here
from the chaos momentarily
stopped because life and death
have been a story retold
incidentally retold and
is nothing more than a story
that within a few moments
has become old and after
a few moments the story
has been told and it is over
after it is told returning
to the teller so that other
stories like those have not been
told about life repeated
that have never been real
because we only exist
temporarily in a
Thơ Khác • 44
life’s few moments and then
return somewhere from where we
came deaths that have never
been real and you have just
momentarily stopped
a few moments. Thank you for
coming into life and for
telling the story of your life.
45 • Other Poetry
THE AFTERNOON
Or I walk in the afternoon, faded
into the afternoon, when I am no
longer myself, I am the afternoon,
or I stand to look at the afternoon
with eyes, the afternoon in me, of course the afternoon does not fade in me as
I fade in the afternoon, the afternoon
remains the afternoon, and I remain
myself, but when the afternoon is trapped in me, the afternoon becomes my sadness, the afternoon becomes me, but it isn’t
me that feels the sadness in these afternoons, as such or I am walking in the
afternoon, or the afternoon walks in
me, there really isn’t any difference,
other than that sometimes I am the
afternoon, and sometimes the afternoon
is me that is all, and so in order
to solve this confusion once and for all, the only way is to close the afternoon
in me and beyond me, by remaining
in a room behind a closed door.
Thơ Khác • 46
THE MORNING
I exit and enter the morning
like the morning exit and enter
into me, but how can the morning
exit and enter into me, as
for myself of course I always have
a way to exit and enter
the morning, this can be explained
because I am not within myself,
therefore the morning can exit
and enter me, like a wind into
an empty house, and if you
the reader wish to be sure if
this is indeed the case or not, then
just take me and the morning out of
this poem, then the poem will have nothing left in it, absolutely nothing,
so that it is as if the poem is
no longer a poem, because it is
no longer me, and the morning is
no longer the morning, but it is
not so, for no matter what the
reader had already read the poem,
and so this story, really only
means to make nothing out of what
is something within yourself, and
a poem that has nothing in it is
what makes it the best poem ever,
isn’t it so according to me.
47 • Other Poetry
US
Each of us looks at each of
us differently, like us
today looking at us
yesterday, us now looking
at us tomorrow, we are
copies of infinite
copies of us in the loop
of time, each moment is one
of us, each of us is a
different us, each of us
is one of us past, but each
of us also looks back at
us differently, because,
if we step outside of
the loop of time, the us of
today does not exist and
the us of yesterday does
not exist, and the us of
the present does not exist
and the us of the future
does not exist, each of us
is not different from
the other and our play is
different us and not
different still we keep
performing life’s drama as
if we are not us.
Thơ Khác • 48
DARK-SKINNED GIRL
Oh dark-skinned girl, with a
beautiful face and yet your
eyes are so sad, sad as jazz
songs in the afternoon sad,
upon hearing the news
about her younger brother
living on the streets and shot
down on the streets or like a
sad story about a father
that amounted to nothing
because of gambling and
addictions and he left a
young wife and two young children
leaving without a single
word of goodbye oh dark-skinned
girl certainly those eyes
are not your own but exact
duplicates of your mother’s
eyes because that is the sadness
that has built up over time,
over a husband and a
young child that has made up those
sad very sad eyes as such,
oh dark-skinned girl with a
49 • Other Poetry
beautiful face who should
really have the innocent
eyes of an angel and so
you should return those eyes
to your mother, because
your life is not the life
of your mother, each life
belongs to itself, and
no life should be the life
of another, and oh dark-
skinned girl my words are not wrong
(even if they are wrong they
are not too far off) such a
beautiful face as yours should
have the innocent eyes of
an angel.
Thơ Khác • 50
THE GIRL IN THE MIRROR
The girl in the mirror is
reflected yet only the
reflection recognizes
the reflection the reflection
doesn’t recognize her, she
steps out of her, only her
body recognizes her body,
her body doesn’t recognize
her she does not see herself
who is she who is she and
who it is that is asking
the question unanswered
because only the question
recognizes the question and
it doesn’t recognize her
because she herself is the
question and because every
question is meaningless when
it is unanswered so all
the reflections are meaningless
like all bodies are meaningless
because she is the reflection
that is her body that is
she is actually everything
that is meaningless.
51 • Other Poetry
SUFFERING
For two young brothers
Because you were born into suffering
and having traveled all the paths of
suffering and thus capable of
understanding that suffering grows and
grows until it can no longer be
forever imprisoned in bodies and
bodies are too wasted to bear the
suffering and thus perhaps that is why
the tears start falling the tears are the suffering departing from the body
the body departing from the suffering
and we depart from each other although
we have lived with each other in brotherhood for a long time beginning with some
fortunate chance… the body returns to
the great motherland while suffering
disappears into the skies and then suffering is no more bodies are no more in the
lonely journey elsewhere. Alas, let’s
rest, o my beloved brother of old, rest
you now, listen to the earth and the skies disappearing with the melodies of
a sunsetting afternoon.
March 7, 2008
Thơ Khác • 52
A ROW OF PEOPLE
A row of people sitting on a bench,
on a bench a row of people sits, each
person, each person as if from a mold,
each person, each person, not known, not unknown –
some slang seeps out from between their teeth, um-ahs, um-ahs, blah-blahs; no words uttered, just imagine that they are mutes – waiting, waiting for something, something else, but that something, that something else (that hasn’t happened and will never happen), has nothing to
do with a row of people sitting on
a bench, on a bench a row of people
sits, like a dream without a source (how could there be a source), they look sad happy (and to the contrary), within that which is
forgotten (what is something forgotten) –
because a row of people sitting on
a bench, on a bench a row of people
sits only some words made up from copies that are not real at all this row of people sitting on a bench, on a bench a row
of people sits; staring straight away,
staring straight away, staring …
53 • Other Poetry
SADNESS
sadness stands on the other
side of the street waving to
me and I stand on this side
of the street waving goodbye
goodbye to sadness from now
on we each part to our own
ways in life and of course no
one really knows where sadness
would go after so many
years lying within myself
other than sadness because
everyone has their own private
sadness and who wants to store
even more and more sadness
(sadness will fade away once
it can no longer find a
place to be nurtured, certainly
so) regardless I and sadness
still have some sort of sympathetic
relationship thus there is
this moment of departure
and the situation now is
sadness still stands there on the
other side of the street waving
to me and I am still here
on this side of the street waving
sadness, goodbye, oh, sadness.
Thơ Khác • 54
TSUNAMI
Tsunami, Tsunami
thousand meters high opening
up the abyss swallowing
my brethrens. Dear brethrens
of many colors, dear
brethrens of one great mother,
dear brethrens of mother
earth, in a moment turned
into defunctness. Oh,
unknown time to come, unknown
time past, we are thus born
from fragile living things we are
born from suffering and
whether it is known by
the green waters or by
the blue mountains, we are
still brethrens because fragile
things are but fragile living things
because suffering remains
with suffering. Tsunami,
Tsunami, why around
me was it twilight soon?
Dear brethrens of one great
mother, dear brethrens of
55 • Other Poetry
mother earth, thousand meters
high thousand meters crashing
down upon a century
in the blink of an eye.
________________
A tsunami in Southeast Asia occurred at 8:00 AM on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, magnitude 8.9 Richter, killing over 203,000 people. Indonesia was the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand.
Thơ Khác • 56
A DEAD BIRD
A story is told of a flock of migrant
birds flying in the sky when one of the
birds falls upon a gifted painter’s
stand bringing with it the deathly cold wind of an early winter, the dead bird slumbers in a thousand years’ sleep upon the canvas (leaving its mark for a thousand generations) and for those who have seen the flock of birds disappearing into the horizon,
while the dead bird (as if it’s real) still lives in front of the eyes of people from one
life to the next, the dead bird flies up to become beauty, the flock of the bird always flying in a fog, life entering into
death and death exiting life, the dead bird has died while the flock of birds flies on, no one needs to know which flock of birds is which although, no matter what, life continues to be unexplainable confusion, goodbye.
________________
Inspired by the painting STILL LIFE WITH DEAD BIRDS by the painter Christoffel Van Den Berghe (1617 – 1642), Dutch, 1624, Oil on canvas, 28 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. 71.PA.34
57 • Other Poetry
ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT
Sitting and sipping a cup
of coffee in the morning
and listening to birds singing
on rooftops and feeling light …
like cloud shadows * … like cloud shadows …
a cup of coffee… like cloud
shadows … tables and chairs and
pots and cups and still life and
me and others … like cloud shadows …
turning into life gesticulating …
day after day sitting and
sipping a cup of coffee
waiting waiting waiting for
what … like cloud shadows … the songs
of birds early in the day
tables and chairs and pots and
cups and still life and me and
others right in the life of
sadness and joy but nothing
comes of it … not even cloud
shadows …
_____________
* “like cloud shadows” is to be read softly like four bell sounds.
Thơ Khác • 58
A DRAMA
A drama wherein the only character
is half of this person and half of another written over the course of twenty years
until an actor is found because how
could there be an actor who is half this person and half another person, therefore the drama must wait for a very long
time to be completed and on the first
opening night the person who created
the drama threw it into life seeking
congratulations for an intellectual
child, but the person checking the ticket pointed to the person selling the ticket who said, “we’re sorry there are no more tickets, please come tomorrow night” although I am the author “there are no more tickets, come tomorrow night”, several tomorrow
nights came and went but the tickets are still not there when the drama only exists
for a few tomorrow nights and it is
unknown when it will happen again because the author of the drama must wait for
some unknowable time because the drama
must wait for an actor for over twenty
years because how could there be an actor that is half this person and half another person in one character.
59 • Other Poetry
THOUGHTS
Thoughts springing up from the earth, thoughts falling down from the skies, thoughts chasing and pursuing, quick footsteps growing
ever quicker, thoughts eliminated
rising and falling, thoughts that are
left behind and a body that
carries an empty mind flowing
away, flowing away, ever
present like the earth and skies,
peaceful like life and death in the
sound of silence of old… and then
continuing as such footsteps slowing
down, going ever slower, thoughts
chasing and pursuing until they
fill up the mind and then quick footsteps growing ever quicker clumsy,
cluttered thoughts, making noise on
a clear, quiet night and then
dissolving, what remains is
a body and a mind that really
aren’t anything to be busied
or bothered with.
Thơ Khác • 60
TALK
Talk when it is not possible to talk
and don’t talk when talk is necessary,
and this dilemma is prolonged, perhaps
from a century earlier, “hey, those of
you who have low necks and little mouths stick your head out a little further”, these things i am uncertain, because i cannot know
when that century earlier actually
began because as i am talking right
now i cannot know when i actually
began talking, and is it me who is
talking or is it someone else who is
talking and i am listening; and maybe
i had been enticed into this dilemma
because the devils and demons of time
have captured me like they have everyone else by trick and by treachery; although i have tried many different ways to
change one me for another me, although
i am not the main character of myself
and neither i could step out from my own body nor my own body step out from
me, and as such there is some oppression upon the face of God; for what to seek
61 • Other Poetry
when my Mexican neighbors are near earshot, they play their music unbearably loud,
and so i have to make efforts to go
outside to see what kind of people these people are, how do they behave, but when i open the door, i am surprised to
find that there is no one in the empty
room, screeching with irritating noises, closing in from all sides while i can no longer crawl and pounce upon a pillar
of the house to interrogate why,
perhaps if i could grab hold of something or other what would befall me except
deadlock because of a language barrier,
therefore i dig into these piles of old
books; finally latching onto a book
with yellowed pages chock full of ancient thoughts of thievery lying in wait; and now
it occurred to me, that i am not much
good, only a stagy manner, regurgitating things that had been handed down, and things belonging to others from ages past, that i rarely understood in any sense,
never leading to any finality;
but back to the loud noises which i am
still burdened by, and thus subjected to hearing on a daily basis, from
morning to evening and i want to
Thơ Khác • 62
go crazy such that sometimes i feel like i want to cut off my ears, but if i
do that then my face will certainly appear strange; on the contrary if i remove
the ears then what shall i do with the eyes, nose and limbs that remain, “hey, rugged ragged guys, why hang yourselves in the middle of the day like this without shame” imagine right now, that i am like a log rolling
at the edge of the forest, and having
the misfortune of running into a
woodcutter who takes me home, chops me into pieces and tosses me into the fire pit,
to cook and to burn, then my life would turn into ashes; but being the chameleon that i am i would have to step out of myself
otherwise all would be … lost. Bye.
63 • Other Poetry
TV SCRIPT
bud weis er
Suggested Use:
– Reading depends on the sound of the voices of bull-frogs.
– Take away the sense of words, both literal and figurative senses.
– Repeat it to produce the images and ideas.
Thơ Khác • 64
65 • Other Poetry
READINGS OF “THE SONG OF A WARRIOR’S WIFE”
Thơ Khác • 66
Notes
“Chinh Phu Ngam” (“The Song of a Warrior’s Wife”, 1741) is a lam-entation written by Dang Tran Con in Han characters and free verse, with long and short sentences, and was translated into Nom by Doan Thi Diem (1705-1748). Dang Tran Con (1715?-1745?), exact dates of birth and death unknown, was reputed to be liberal minded, to like wine, and to be a good poet. During his period, the Le emperor and Trinh Lord enforced strict rules regulating such things as no fire at night. To avoid punishment for breaking this regulation, Dang Tran Con dug a shelter in the ground and lit lamps to read books under cover of earth. When the Trinh Lords took power, they entrusted much power in eunuchs who abused their privilege and oppressed the people. Hostilities broke out throughout the country. The mandarins sent in soldiers to crush these rebellions. These soldiers had to renounce their homes, wives and children, and were often killed in battle. Dang Tran Con wrote these famous Chinh Phu Ngam epic poems, which have been handed down through many generations.
67 • Other Poetry
MANY FACES
Thơ Khác • 68
QUATRAIN
69 • Other Poetry
THE POEM
THE POEM SEARCHES FOR
Thơ Khác • 70
NEGATIVE
71 • Other Poetry
ADDENDA
__________
PHỤ LỤC
73 • Other Poetry
INSPIRED BY KHE IEM
A CELEBRATION OF THE SILENCE
________________________________
Stephen John Kalinich
i read them in one sitting and was transformed they flow the poems
i love them they are simple and complex they flow like a little stream and at times
a great mighty river runs through them
you are to be commended or what within you that is you and not you is to be commended
the you in you
that wrote the verses and rediscovered the lines that feel like they were revealed..
your poems have grown and they are stark and beautiful like a slender willow or a tree branch with a few leaves but strong roots into the nature of things like bamboo
seeing through and beyond yet in and not getting attached to illusion
that what we experience is life
but is a dream like suffering and awakening of mankind woman-kind the road to kindness
lies with us and yet what is not within us are we not even within our own within for is not everything within us
what we know
God can only be where we are
this door
through which we perceive ourselves
and express ourselves we are the door and window we are nothing but floating images of clouds and colors smoke and the Thơ Khác • 74
transitory nature is the beauty and
ye yes you capture and hint of that in the poems and take the attentive reader-listener’s experience beyond the images and the words
and one becomes the experience
of reading your poems and viewing them one finds that you are willing to let them go and not attached to them you are not screaming like many poets... poets look at me
i am something
your are sharing your journey and there is much beauty in the simplicity of your expression
for a chair
is a chair and not a chair and stairs are stairs but going no where i think once i
wrote a song about stairs a thousand lifetimes ago and mirrors surround me in your poems
and every where I see myself and feel myself and i am trapped in that knowing
and there is the door to my liberation for we are one and we experience ourselves
we are these kinds of beings and believe that you have captured this in these lovely snap shots of your soul and the death of a son to a mother is something
that one can not really talk about
unless
one has lived it walked this path
you hint that there are no words for life and these things and it draws one to the beauty
of the silence
water on a lake
water on
an ocean
75 • Other Poetry
no ears to hear the sound
no eyes to see the beauty
or the ugliness
and a glimpse of hope emerges
and life has joy and is to be taken lightly and enjoyed, yes my friend i enjoyed these poems you can quote me.
Love
Peace
Stephen
i am seldom hear from you these days and it is not necessary but this was a good exchange and i wish you well..
for there is no you and me
only us
Peace
for the greatest poem
is the silence ...
Thơ Khác • 76
“Bud weis er”
Drawing by Đinh Cường
77 • Other Poetry
“Bud weis er”
Drawing by Lê Thánh Thư
Thơ Khác • 78
Bud wei ser
Drawing by Nguyễn Đại Giang
79 • Other Poetry
Khế Iêm
Design by Nguyễn Đăng Thường
Thơ Khác • 80
Khế Iêm
Drawing by Đinh Cường
81 • Other Poetry
Thơ Khác • 82
ESSAYS
______
83 • Other Poetry