Your heart
trimmed in snowflakes
imprinted
speckled
Categories
Đình Nguyên | Spring is in the air (23)
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Đình Nguyên | Holding on (24)
January light viewed through a foreigner’s eyes
How many could attain such intimate moments
Rolling out the endlessly vast separation
Trapping our soul in earnest yearning each spring
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Lê Vĩnh Tài | the leaning tower (64)
possibly the inspiration for a million poems
straight up
you must note the moment
the poem is leaning
it’s when the poem expires
tries to lean
to further the romance
The moon was bright red. My fingers in the dirt. The lumps of soft earth broke away, revealing a tongue that has disintegrated, turned black. My useless tongue. The tongue that could not keep its word. Then suddenly there it was, I discovered another tongue by it. It was tarried by the soil, but it was still clear that it was still fresh, its flesh damp with blood. I was very confused, for sure I had never buried such a tongue. Who’s tongue is this? Where did it come from? Why would anyone want to cut their tongue off and bury it as I did?
The kindness of people helped me up
while my pride lay forlorn on the concrete,
alone I stood up and thanked them…
Eo tròn mông tròn…
tôi vẫn bước tới vôn vớt dành lại một tí tôi.
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Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | Summit. (89)
Summit.
Surrender.
Under the blanket of blue
Within the dissolving morning dew
Your intangible body
mine.
you dream of being
the coroner
the slippery human fate
surrounded by no one
escapes no one
you know
it’s not the sea
but all the fields are now
in pitch darkness
stricken
silent…
Categories
Võ Thị Như Mai | Trâm
Võ Thị Như Mai, the poet, my compatriot from Western Australia. Where Margaret river flows with fine Australian wine.
I’m thankful for her kind words in the vernacular of my mother’s tongue.
Always grateful,
Trâm
hãy học, học cách tử tế, bạn yêu
hãy học cách để tôi tự do
hãy giải phóng tôi
đơn giản là
tâm hồn yêu thương của tôi luôn biết bạn là ai
tôi bay một đoạn dài
vượt qua vách núi vút cao của đất trời
trong túi xách của tôi
là tình yêu của bạn
dành cho tôi…
—
learn, learn my dear
learn how to set me free
just be
the loving soul I know you are
I thus heed
—
across the precipice of heaven and earth
in my bag pack,
your love for me.
His eyes glossed over white, icy, opaque. The stranger, the father of my thirteen year old daughter. I had begged him- please forget her, I forgive you. He just laughed, the light never reaching his eyes- she, to you is the mother of my child. I had loved him, the love of my life. He had picked me to dance, me the awkward skinny girl, amidst all those tall pretty ones.
By Charles Wright, translation into Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài “Thế Giới Này Không Phải Của Tôi, Tôi Chỉ Đi Qua” Càng nói nhiều, bạn càng lảm nhảm vì vậy hãy thật đơn giản. Không ai đến mà không sớm bỏ đi. Thế giới mắt màu xanh, bàn chân màu xanh này, nàng ơi, […]
The south falling in autumn
Ears for distant sounds sitting by the moment
Hugging one’s shoulders on the verge of the day
Categories
Lê Vĩnh Tài | Justice (17)
an anthem for the forgotten
for those abandoned by their country
died at sea, in re-education camps
you’re always bored
your fingers agitated
with intent
till sadness
drips from your skin like sweat
tears
even with both eyes blind, glorious is terror
keep writing
not so incapacitated
that my love you think it’s like death
and we shall think of love
as the length of a roll of rope
and the last twist
not only are our hands tied
not only did we fly
loved
and together fell…
Categories
Đinh Trường Chinh | I came across (29)
I came across
quickly across
someone’s shadow
frozen solid on the ground
a shadow
not mine.
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Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | Đoàn Xuân Cao
Pencil sketch
Cô độc lãng du
Xung đột trong mặt máu ta
Thấm da thịt hơi thở (em)
Trong thân xác tan nát này
Thời gian
—
Pulsing through my veins
The wandering desolation
Permeating my flesh the air(of you)
Into this broken body
For a moment
