Pencil sketch
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | Thái Hạo

Pencil sketch
I shall recall the scents of guavas
Mixed in with the scent of her hair
A love affair sound in autumn followed by the sad prayers
The sadness bleaching the blooming branches of pomelo
The chilling scent in the wind
The pouring of dusty storms
The breaths with smoke overwhelming
Across the vast sky unfurling
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I carried myself on my back
upon the letters of the alphabet
at the precipice
I lead myself
treading upon the discarded sharp accents
the pad of my feet the freakish feel of the moon(up high)
I grew up on a windy field
Gales of wind like embers delivered from the Sun
Incinerating our naps beneath the trees
The fields bleached white by dead fish
Together with the old
Carried to be buried at the spine of the mountain
Decimated by the tramplings of cows and buffalos
The sandy soil tumulus void of green grass the entire summer
The forest storm ever ceasing
My ox cart full of books soggy, muddy
The spine of the books
Held the details of fallen stars
I’m there composing poetry in thoughts of philosophy
By the rubber sap consuming mice
By the petty thievery of men and women
By the buildings by the schools void of the sound of people
Nothing but the scuttering sound of mice trying to make a living in the sewers
I grew up under the shredded clouds, meadows of thin harvests
By skinny buffalos sneaking bites of rice on the edge of the field
There were very mean guards at the fields
Drunk every day
Took the buffalos as hostages
We follow them in tears through the bruising country dusk
Together with the screams of ravens over our heads
Again, I’m here
by the blank white screen
tap tapping into a fog a word a poem
learning how to converse
Waking myself up from the bottom of a well
The wintry water vapours
Bleaching white the foot of the meadow
I shall greet myself in familiarity
and we shall hand in hand
walk endlessly
the banks of the river of white reeds
Void of the coucal visit
I shall light a cigarette, make the clouds
set them free
a charcoal exclamation mark in white
a cross
the words brightly burning into the night
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
***
naked shoulders, sharp boulders
grinding, every eroding bone fracture
grinding, the tightly locked jaw
shattering the mountain boulders
the shattered life
laughter corroding by the salty waters
I’m awake in the heart of the mountain
the decade old flame kindling still in wisps of smoke
my father’s back an erect boulder
my mother’s hair
the whiteness of dreams
Even though I’m acquainted with such lies
no ripe golden harvest
but such fabrications are the source of my strength
so we could cross
this desolate, devastating land.
The passing storm
banging on the doors of the tightly shut homes
together with the screaming cries
burnished on the road emptied of people
the soul of the sea
the soul of a perished empire
twisting and turning through the night
Within the nest of crumbling leaves
winter
the pine cones yearn for the horizon
a soul cast in the wind
browns
in the fading light
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
***
November
the grasshoppers upon the tumulus of green grass
perched watching
the red Sun
anticipated the storm at the end of the horizon
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
***
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
***
A sound like a falling egg
breaking on a boulder
the earth in numbing silence
people whispering the name
Phạm Đoan Trang
snippets in all that loud Vietnamese
leather attaches
suits
and talk of democracy
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
_____
spawn from the cracks the destruction of time
a single yellow alder
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
_____
lost words at the edge of a blade
the deep cuts
bleeding saturated
steeped in the soil of the land.