Thái Hạo is a Vietnamese poet, journalist, and currently an editor of vanviet.info
Tag: thaihao
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
_____
words crawling out from mouths. eyes
crawling out from pale bodies
bleaching the screen
like hatching baby spiders
scratching – screeching a single web-swinging into our face
ignites
—
những con chữ bò ra từ miệng. từ mắt
từ 10 đầu ngón tay đỏ rực
bò ra từ thân thể trắng bệch
màn hình
như lũ nhện túa ra từ bọc trứng
cồn cào – gào 1 sợi tơ đánh đu vào mặt
đốt cháy
Categories
Thái Hạo | THE CROSS – THẬP GIÁ (11)
By Thái Hạo, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
_____
The cries couldn’t form the words
the wind in sound caves
the falling sound in the depths of wells
the calls of monkeys in old books
monkeys weeping
searching for a forest already gone
Categories
Thái Hạo | the brown dark earth (40)
Thái Hạo is a Vietnamese poet, journalist, and currently an editor of vanviet.info
—
The moon had disappeared into the empty sound void
the ants continued to solemnly stand tall in the dark
kept vigil by the celebrating darkness
pieces of the brilliantly blue wings to the ground fell
a pair of wings to the sky its last farewell
returned to the brown
dark earth.
Baby
don’t cry
the barbwires will hold us up
teach us how to walk
Categories
Thái Hạo | THE MICE CHRONICLES
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
Categories
Thái Hạo | Hungry dogs (38)
Wandering the street tonight
meeting up with the dogs with their tails between their legs
together with the people rushing around on the pavement
me
rushing on the pavement
the street filled with motor vehicles
horn honking
warnings
the nightly raid.
Categories
Thái Hạo | A Prayerful Sun (36)
I said goodbye to my sleep
as though I’m saying goodbye to you
approaching April
with the lies
like nails
nailed into the palms of one’s hands
pockmarks on the wooden pillar
like the bouts of insomnia
poking holes through the night
I woke up from a sleep on a sail
a spirit in the wind
a song within a seashell from the origin
the dragonfly wings now void of movement
perched upon a portrait of a weather-beaten sail
glorious on the blue wall
a room overwhelmed by the sea
Categories
Thái Hạo | March in the dark (35)
March in the dark
a volcano brewing beneath the yellowing cogon grass
from the heart of the back earth the shrieks of insect
shattering in time with the falling stars
March in the dark
I’m pacing in a room dense with cigarette smoke
by the window the falling neem blossoms like the rain
hastening the season
side by side with the cries of felines.
Categories
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm | Thái Hạo
Pencil sketch
Categories
Thái Hạo | The day I die (34)
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
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M-s4ciMpk8jdcGNzuRcP1I8jjy0vvi5M/view?usp=sharing
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)
The forest storm ever ceasing
My ox cart full of books soggy, muddy
The spine of the books
Held the details of fallen stars
Categories
Thái Hạo | THE MICE CHRONICLE (II/III)
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
Categories
Thái Hạo | THE MICE CHRONICLE (I/III)
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
Categories
Thái Hạo | Night – Đêm (18)
a charcoal exclamation mark in white
a cross
the words brightly burning into the night
Categories
Thái Hạo | the nation – đất nước (22)
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
