|
THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) VOLUME 5 DOUBLE ISSUE WINTER 2003 SPRING 2004
|
SONG NHI
_______________________________ A DRUNK POEM (Translated by Tony O’Donnell) Sitting,
and drinking, all alone My
cognac tilting Sky
and earth rotating Generals,
officers, troops and courtiers All
are wavering. Sitting,
and gulping my innermost feelings The
worm in its home is crazily rolling The
kite is dead in the wide open spaces Swallows
gliding in boundless, misty places Some
friends have gone, all of a sudden My
heart also died with the farewell verses. Sitting,
and mumbling private thoughts Red-eyed,
with dimly flickering moon and stars Maudlin,
babbling, and prattling on Reading
a poem ‘til eyes are raining tears Sitting,
and drinking, with ghosts Exquisite
talents in great disarray Heavenly
gifts are on display Bohemians
cluster in their finery Strings,
flutes, castanets; drums, gongs and clarinets Poetry,
songs, paintings and music, all in a mad whirl. Sitting,
and drinking-in Ho Truong* A
toast to the west, vast world so strange A
toast to the East that’s unrestrained A
kiss for the bottle that consoles a bursting heart Bridges
broken bring decades of separation Those
yonder feel compassion for us chained here. Sitting,
and drinking, to see off the turncoats They
who now change their heart and manners From
beginning to end! What Constancy? Voices
buzz about my ears. I close my eyes tightly. Sitting,
and drinking to the future Singing,
leg-slapping and laughingly fussing Looking
at the sad strange scene before me** The
migrant bird twitters its melodious songs Sitting,
and drinking to my country Dear
Mom! Please forgive me, not once could I return. I’m sorry. SONG NHI [Original
poem Bai Tho Say by Song Nhi Interpretation
and the footnotes by Tony O’Donnell: * Nguyen Ba Trac was a Vietnamese patriot who successfully used both
the pen and the sword. Ho Truong is his famous poem, written while drinking
wine on a visit to China before he fought against the French. Here, Song Nhi is borrowing Ho Truong to show much he misses his
homeland. ** This line is a direct quote from
the famous Vietnamese epic poem, Kieu, written by
Nguyen Du long ago and readily quoted by the people.] · THE
WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467), VOLUME 5 DOUBLE ISSUE WINTER 2003 - SPRING 2004 Editorial
note: All
works published in this issue are simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge magazine double issue 3 &4 Winter 2003
& Spring 2004. (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright
© Song
Nhi 1999, 2004. Nothing in this issue may be downloaded, distributed, or
reproduced without the permission of the author/ translator/ artist/ The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge
magazine. Creating links to place The Writers Post or any of its pages within
other framesets or in other documents is copyright violation, and is not
permitted.
|