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The Writers Post VOLUME 8 NUMBER 1 JAN 2006
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NGUYEN
PHAN THINH __________________________________ two
poems by NGUYEN PHAN THINH translated by the author starting from logos and then
they didn’t call one another they
forgot they
forgot to call they
forgot their voices they
forgot one another they
ran they
pushed they
stamped on one another in
a dark tunnel like
running rats they
shrieked they
screamed they
forgot their words they
lived a throat and
they lived two legs at
the far end of the tunnel the
gate was locked they
fell down crying and bursting out a human voice all are strangers a new people each person a language uh--ah in the dark tunnel and
in hunger and thirst they ate human flesh they ate one another seasons went by the earth had more caves of moles
in silence, Dalat
I could say nothing the old pack horse was thoughtful on the crumbling hillside bare pine stumps facing the sky eternal blue weeping blues raindrops during the helpless night though I so much desired, my dear to tell about some secret joy to you at dusk the stars came with the night so close and on your hair glittering was the fragrance of fairy tales the myth was dead our lives, the feet of the hills the endless slopes sometimes up the
hills we went so hard like today to the very top the high sky and
the faraway earth
love filled our eyes with tears
in the magic of time
and of nature
and of void
and of winds
and of young leaves
and of clouds
and of the evening star
and of everything I couldn’t say silent and still were the feet of the hills the
hillsides were more the
top of the hill was the most of
us as fragile as
two grains of dust as
two grains of dust from the stars shining with desperate wishes of
love to be humans we
couldn’t understand under the silence of the sky the
secret holy power of breath as
life sweeping over the hillsides in
rain we quietly cried beside the old orphan pack horse
NGUYEN PHAN THINH The Writers Post & literature-in-translation, founded 1999, based in the US. Editorial note: Works published in this issue are simultaneously
published in the printed Wordbridge magazine (ISSN: 1540-1723). Copyright © Nguyen Phan Thinh & The Writers Post 2006.
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