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THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) 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
2006. Nothing in this magazine 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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