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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.
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.
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
·
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
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.
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