Category: POETRY/THƠ

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   days months yet in slumber back to what yet is left the climb small climb yet long came home yet in yearning   yet burns a smoke first light smoke thus yet this white plume quiet yet like floating clouds I sat thus yet […]

regretting no, the one-two-failures
a swinging fist enough to shatter a face
instead, laugh loudly
this long long life, another year done

following the verse, December greets its bride
their new life ran aimlessly the city
December now they remember
a smile so painful no longer hurts

they’re like two vacant holes
they ache

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   No matter, no matter what The long-ago rocky sad incline The dreams rushing came without a knock The mortal hand ever far away.   The arriving mortal a mortal too sad to knock listened to the resound of dreams  dreams of someone actually knocking […]

Poetry should be a little hungry…

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   THE HAIKU HAS DOUBLED IN LENGTH   hence she is stuck   as the autumn lay waiting the coming of winter   THOSE ARE THE REASONS   you hate poetry, with the rhymes are thrown around without reason   and not rhythming without reason […]

reading Vietnamese poetry means National pride, but

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   if a poem is a piece of garbage then so is she while she covers the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes with expensive powders and creams the poem hid behind its pain the long sleeve used to wipe away the tears behind […]

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   HYPNOTIZING PATRIOTISM   I am one share of all, and I am myself (to fixation)   I am a glimpse in the mirror I am a covert plan a mantra of fate locked up inside a metal safe of the soul   but you […]

INEBRIATED POETRY IS ALWAYS WAKING UP LATE

the old
often are stricken with senility
loneliness

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   1. days when it rained misty without end the ashes flew light witches nothing means anything impoverishment stays up late   mornings waking to the stove’s smoke mother leaned her back on the smell of the dark smells of charcoal smells of steamed rice […]

no, I shall never be able to touch you

By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm   I saw that he sleeps inside a woman but he’s not her husband   I saw the children he buried but he’s not their father   I saw him destroyed homes and he’s not a builder   he appears at night he also appears […]