THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation. PREMIER ISSUE VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1 JUL 1999

DINH CUONG ________________ YEAR-END BLUES Translated by NGUYEN NGOC BICH The same cello playing somewhere, very near                   year-end evening, on 18th Street                   with a small cup of wine, at Toulouse-Lautrec                   missing you. Six years - of loss                   loosing friends but gaining others                   and quiet flows the Potomac                   at tidal height, in a glory of bursting flowers                   I find myself walking on the edge of a December                                                             dry forest                   the winding path emptied of people in the afternoon                   as accustomed I drop by a secondhand bookstore                   still see the ancient rimes of Jacques Prevert                   who lived in dream                   "out there the winter                   "your lips a point of fire"                   Shon, out there is the sea in late night                   no sandcrabs are there to be seen                   Qui Nhon, Qui Nhon and the Princess...                   her slow, deliberate speech, echoing a sea of memory                   now transformed into froth in my beer                   So I remain alone, wandering at this year-end                   with a blue tune in the head --bass, melancholy,                                                             memory-filled. Translated by NGUYEN NGOC BICH (This English translation version has been published in Songvan magazine [ISSN 1089-8123, discontinued in 2000], issue 11, Sept 1997, which is under the same ownership and editorship of The Writers Post’s publisher and editor N. Saomai / Nguyen Sao Mai). · THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467), the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation. Copyright © 1999 The Writers Post. Nothing in this website may be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the permission of the author/ translator/ artist/ and The Writers Post. 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. The Writers Post Jul. 1999 Return to Contents HOME