|
MAI
VAN PHAN
_______________________________
I...I, You...you...,
After-effects,
Suppose
Translated by DO
XUAN OANH
I...I, You...you...,
Morning, back to work at the desk. Open notebook to list
necessary things to do. Your hand from behind took my pen and pressed. The
line just drawn trembled.
Wandering about like a fish, you said:
- Your room is too cramped!
- Cramped but warm - (I laughed pooh bah)
Sticking one’s chest to all things of spheric form. Beginning
from lamp shade, paper-weight, tea service, vacuum flask, TV set, to wall clock,
ventilator...And you taught me the way to breathe: inhale deep into the
thoracic cage, press everything down the feet! You had given me another
perception.
The road was my own limbs
Once leaf drifted back to leaf
moonlight didn’t move
The road glued tight
lifted up together with horse hooves
Made the tree vault recreate me
Your hair shade of roots
Tree trunk vertical high
willing to tear away
from unequal low pressure zones
in shakings
willing to tear away from body warmth
pushed from under ground
from marrow sleeping deep in condensed air
support human lives
Decant from you
extract from you
I existed
while being non-existent
Frenziedly the top of fall dropped
Or the howl, the groan, the voice...
Foams threw into the air and ran away
Splashed into one another gleams of five colors rainbow
Off to the sea alone
Remembrance tied to hair roots
Your body facing the ocean flapped
Faces inserted one another. Meaningless words open up imagination.
Placed you in an empty place, blew into toes and made your body suddenly
tense and invaded space. Breath began with motions. Your feet glued to my
shoulders. Drop of sweat lighted in dark throat. Didn’t care soft tongue just
hung us up...
My mouth still fragrant of fruit and tea aroma you drank. Sweet
cake mixed with cream and cinnamon twig. I still remembered. The seat was
quite large. When shoulder bloomed, my lips lighted sacred lamp in dark
corner. Flower could only express a small part of the wide land bed. Land bed
shook when flower stood still.
Light was torn. If ever a morning. Really antipathetic when it
was seen resemblance to eye-protruding fishes. You splashed into me several
deformed flowers. Easy mentally troubled if compelled to live in astigmatic
world. No, we still have voice. Each syllable would then make truth appear.
Obvious truth upset all universal convention.
Gone to suburb looking for space to relax. Looking straight into
a point on the green floor. Comparing oneself to a cloud ripple both flying
and rallying. Your breath suddenly rose from grass root. Big rain here last
night. Even cyclone, lightning without noise...You had been waiting for me
long before.
Loving one another. Being rituals for chanting sky and earth. Now
is spring. Mine the fate of Metal and yours, Fire. From fire Earth, Wood and
Water were made. Earth trembled. River flowed. Thousands and thousands of
sprouts burst out from body.
MAI VAN PHAN
Translated by DO XUAN OANH
After-effects
Picking up a few dots of sunlight, pecking the way of
community’s gastronomic culture. Compensated for the days of starvation.
Trying hard to keep cool and courteous before dawn. All are yours, such concept
resounded vague in each jaw bone motion. Penetrated of spirit until the heel,
throat instantly transmitted password down to stomach, waiting for knee to
tremble and repeat it. Ankles open wide, winced that feet might tread on
twilight.
Only after a long sleep was it realized that the whole past had
been stolen. On green grass over there, mountain peaks had been leveled,
fences carefully plaited shrunk and hovered on the head. Eye of the lamp
lighting in muddy night and important look of the neighbor had now become
rot. On that green grass I was born and warmed by numerous concepts. Had once
been self-sacrifice, twists and turns, respect, toadies, arrogance,
flatteries, wrong claims, masturbation, sanctity, false accusation,
sacredness...Grass stately rose up in front and intimidate me.
Light off. The crowd grievously returned to city. Deliberately
and accurately. Moved ahead one thousand meters to meet the square, turned
right three hundred meters to see the avenue, then a school, then a bookshop,
then a few inns...They silently walked while talking to dark walls, dark
electric poles, dark panels, dark bits of garbage...by dark languages. They
followed one another under dark sun to sink deep into the past. Strange that
thru an empty space none among them could remember what had happened here.
Took a book and swam towards the sea. Fixed a knife on the
ground then watered. Covered a blanket to attend wedding ceremony. Climbed
alone on high hill and raised hand to speak. Played a trumpet tune to attend
funeral of spider. Wrote one’s name filling the pages, here underlined there
not. Wrapped hands on two poles of the bulb waiting for it to emit light.
Whitewashed those walls not able to receive moonlight. Noted money serials
existing in pocket, classified and numbered them in order. Hung one shoe and
used the other to beat the rhythm. Raised toothbrush and calmly pressed
trigger.
Huge ant-letters flocked on me, inconsiderately moved back and
forth through body holes. Confusion, heap up, weighing...which made me
perceive that ants were also killers. A way must be found to chase them away
or make them line up. Only semantics could now control, but all concepts had
been dimming. I tried to pronounce the word “dark” to call dark ants.
Immediately ants of all kinds and colors gathered to make up meaning of the
word “flocked dark”.
People said the river there had been sterilized. I cautiously
bathed and washed from precious aromatic matters. As I waded, water level
turned my body black and blue then feathers grew. So half of my body under
water became that of a bird. But twitter must escape thru throat and tongue.
Since then, my mouth constantly resisted inertia of the dark part submerged
in water.
MAI VAN PHAN
Translated by DO XUAN OANH
SUPPOSE
I slept on the bed
The dog on the floor
at 03m75 centimeter from me
It began to rain
We began to dream
The dog dreamed
of waking up in early sunlight
acquainted with odor of passers-by
no need of rushing out and furiously bark
not being despised and beaten
the familiar food had been served
I dreamed
of sleeping in the night without the need of locking door
of going out without being duped by anyone
people said what they thought
a glimpse of good food and nice sunlight
Pity for the dog !
Tears woke me up
Pain rolled into silvery waves
Suppose it didn’t rain last night ?
Suppose I didn’t sleep on the bed ?
Suppose the distance was not 03m75 centimeter ?
MAI VAN PHAN
Translated by DO XUAN
OANH
· THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467),
the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation.
VOLUME 7 ISSUE 1 JAN 2005
Editorial note: Works published in this issue may be
simultaneously published in the printed Wordbridge Magazine Issue 6 January
2005 (ISSN: 1540-1723).
Copyright © Mai Van Phan & The Writers Post 1999-2005.
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.
Return to Contents
HOME
|