GRASS CUTTING IN A TEMPLE GARDEN (Collected Poems) - Mai Văn Phấn. Translated from Vietnamese by Nhat-Lang Le. Edited by Susan Blanshard
Mai Văn Phấn
Translated from
Vietnamese by Nhat-Lang
Le
Edited by Susan Blanshard
GRASS
CUTTING IN A TEMPLE GARDEN
Translator - Poet Nhat-Lang Le
Poet Susan Blanshard
On Pole Tops
My tongue is tied
to a pole top
so each time I speak
the tongue has to
contract
pulling this obese body
up
I thrash like a piece of
cloth tossing in strong winds.
As
I think about my tongue’s pain
a butterfly forms on a
stone ledge
Its trembling rosy wings
shake the stone embankment
Then a billboard
advertising a carbonated power drink
Boasts high quality
ingredients for performance
From another fanciful
place
A girl twists her back
inside a calendar cover
She smiles and holds her
hand up for a long time.
I exist because of the
butterfly, billboard and unknown girl
They speak for me
Now the root of my
tongue is an abyss.
But why do they exist on
their own?
Maybe their tongues are
hung from other pole tops.
Notes
Taken at the Great Wall
Clouds are stacked like heavy
boulders on my shoulders
My eyes blurring in the blowing
sands
which fill my lungs with every
breath
Is the Great Wall still being built?
In the air the voice of a eunuch
blasts out a decree
Anyone who creates poetry while
carrying boulders
will be beaten until they spew out
blood
End of decree!
Looking up I see a sagging face
cold hands, leaden eyes, gravel
voice
The roof of a beacon tower in
crimson red
bares the shape of a bloody blue
dragon saber on his neck
I bend my back to cart sunlight away
I thrust my legs to cart wind away
Anything to get near that flower
waving lively in strong wind.
Your Majesty / Dear Sir / Reporting
to Comrade...
This lowly officer / base citizen /
humble self...
will fulfill his responsibilities
Whether this is the top of sky
or bottom of abyss
I only feel your burning whip lash
on my back
On gray stone, travelers’ sweat
blooms into poppies.
And You! Stand Out There!
Tonight
many strange things.
My sleep drenched with
poisonous wine
My memories tangled
TV signals lost
My open eyelids
stretched over two rotten eggs
two dead snails agape
two clues’ holes removed
Someone whispers in my
ear:
Stay awake and wait to see moss covering the sky
And waters swallowing the last stars.
Tonight
Snakes, centipedes and
scorpions overflow into cities
But don’t you worry!
Every house is built
blockhouse-style
No one goes out on the
streets in the dark.
After midnight, in a
neighboring house
an intellectual wakes up
and laughs out loud
confesses that whatever
he says during the day are just jokes
Some jokes go too far!
Someone is hiding in the
trees
waiting for falling
leaves to turn into money
Better stash them away
before dawn
Or all will be
confiscated or eaten by ants.
Oh well
Let me lie in ambush
here
and wake up at five in
the morning.
Looking
Closely
Inside the trash can
there is a fish skeleton
stripped bare
Still held in its
swimming position
next to a disposable chopping board
All are crisscrossed
with blood.
A wool hat still warm
with a faint smell of dandruff shampoo
The hat’s wearer doesn’t suffer from hair fungus.
A sharp pair of
scissors. A thermos. A pen...
Some blank sheets of paper
next to the minutes from a meeting
with names of chairperson, secretary and representatives from above
“Today, at 17:30, in…
Total: 32
Absent: 04, with reasons...”
Inside the trash can
a paper kite on top of a
bouquet,
a few pairs of shoes.
The wind still blows unaffected through kite flutes.
One printed line on the
trash can:
“There is no pollution here. Please rest
assured!”
Utter
Lucidity
I use my thoughts to
direct a rat
to emerge from a narrow sewer
stroll into a trash can
lie down and die
If trash trucks carry dead rats to their burial places
this city will get rid of rats permanently.
A new way of thinking:
Scoop water from Hải Phòng harbour
Water becomes
self-purified
Bottles roll by themselves into restaurants and hotels
The poor come to those places to collect fees.
Celebrated as a
phenomenon
featured on magazine covers
I feasted until I passed out.
Are you people guiding
me home?
Is that someone on a bike going into a narrow alley
or thousands of actors performing in a square?
No need to prop yourself
up and talk about trust and hope
passing through a
tight slit of doorway
Ocean wind shooting cool fresh arrows at you.
Turning with the Roof
I wake up at night in
the room. Wooden furniture bristling with wood ear fungus. A statue sinks into
a flabby clump of soil. A hand-held fan opens for the last time and closes down
into a bamboo tube. In the dark, voices of deceased artisans are echoing:
-
Let’s turn with the roof and wake all objects up!
I turn with the bottles,
animal figures, light bulbs... through the lips of a glassblower, through
trembling letters watching paper powder sinking in bleach. Ink drops gather
then spread like an oil stain. A formal suit of clothes slouches. This is the
time to reflect on the nature of silk and cotton plants. Darkness swallows all
stale food, without any concept of culinary culture. Teas fragrance returns to
the forest. Water howls with rage inside an earthenware pot with a broken base.
The turning objects cannot stop themselves. The
turning trash can gets stuck to a photograph frame, a ceiling fan, the
telephone cords. A pair of underpants gets stuck between crockery cabinet and
exercise machine. An exhausted broom, mosquito repellent canister, and several
CDs end up inside the refrigerator. A fish stopped breathing near the end of
its journey to the window. Little mice drown swimming across a frying pan.
Washer detergent powder turns and sprinkles itself on vegetables, knives,
cutting board, and the altar. A dipping cup turns together with one piece of
tofu. A jar of hot chilli sauce flings itself upside down. And the second hand
turns much slower than the hour hand.
Everybody wakes up while turning. They still have time
to drink water and wash their face. Each picks a random object. And quickly
place their feet on the Starting line.
Hearing
About a Friend’s House Being Burglarized
for
the poet Nguyễn Quang Thiều
Perhaps the burglar
climbed stealthily through the window when you were tired. Your thick moustache
no longer turned up at the corner
of your mouth, your eyes open suddenly watering, glaring and turning blood red.
Your breath puffing furiously, forming a tall tower over the town of Hà Đông. I
want to become a private detective, to immediately catch the one who snuck into
your house. Now look how that cloud forms a human shape just as it enters the
blue sky. Who knows if the burglar snuck into your house in that same position.
Now he is disguised as a decent person, and that playful cloud is still flying up
there. Heat spreads out relentlessly. The burglar is like a poker stirring up a
red-hot furnace. Fire blows through windows, key holes, vents... like an angry
person throwing bars of silver into the night, or a multitude of fingers raised
up to press on a giant acupressure point. He drops down along the mangrove tree
roots, slips through each white peony flower that is exhaling its fragrance.
The burglar
doesn’t know he is left with invisible sparks of fire and bars of silver.
Teaching the Children
The children in my
neighborhood know so much about adults; they catch ailments of old age,
prematurely. At night they gather and whisper in deserted gardens. Some stand guard while
others dig tunnels to bury old worn-out things and prepare for eventualities...
They panic when the sky changes color at dusk, when waves splash, when fruits
split open... They copy each other with diets to prevent high blood pressure,
high cholesterol, prostate cancer...seldom seen crying and screaming in
tantrums, yet most choke with tears, “Children’s
tears flow inward!” Some of us adults team up to perform tricks for
children, play merchants, build castles, pull paper boats over tile floors… We
fight mock battles and feign being dead. The children pick leaves and put them
on the noses of those who pretend to be dead. The leaves suddenly wither and
turn yellow. The confident high-spirited one says, “If on the road for one day you go, a sieve of wisdom you learn.”
They
all laugh when we stand up. I become stupefied and stagger back to my place. I
totter on my feet in awkward steps, like a child.
A
Dream Retold
Last night I dreamed of
being forced to carry out an espionage mission, the double agent kind, referred
to as being loyal to two sides.
Unintentionally I am involved in a raid, so I have to become one of them. It’s
not for the money. I remember my passwords, know how to cut off a tail, tap a wire, or send secret
messages via telegraph…
Strangely, the telegraph still exists, that primitive means of communication
from the beginning of the last century. I also dream that I have grown so old
under another regime. Each morning I carry a cane and walk in the streets to
listen to the wind and smile. Then unknowingly, I am discovered. Someone spots
my name among a pile of waste paper. This dead document declares that I am a
spy loyal to twenty sides. Apparently
some nasty person has deliberately added a zero after the number two. How, in
such a remote rural region then, are there twenty regimes? Is my rural region
the setting for a battle of wit? A communication center? Or a hot spot? I am
derided by my offspring and incur their contempt like a man of no character. My
honor smeared with no chance for clarification. Before committing suicide, I
want to cry. But naturally crying is a very difficult act for an old man. I opt
to console an infant who has just woken up in his tightly wrapped diapers.
Bitter
Potion
(For Ngọc Trâm)
As fever is burning you
on its pyre
I become ash too
The bitter potion cannot
wait any more
Holding your hand
I
pour
My grief into the empty
bowl...
O’ daughter! As the mist
falls
My hardship arches
across the cold night
For frail flowers
To give off scent needs
bitter roots.
Sweat becomes callused
hands
Spring pours into the
medicine bowl
My old age weeps with
mute tears
While truth bursts out
for no reason.
I wonder what you eat in your dreams
I put the bowl on the
window
When you grow up to my
age now
At the bottom of the
bowl
There may still be a storm.
On
the Way Up to the Pagoda
As I climb up the slope
to the pagoda gate
Your face suddenly
appears as Kwan Yin
Carrying a brown sac
Long neck, slack robe,
white ring...
Many halos
Under a clear bright sky
In my mind’s eye, I bend
down low
My body is empty
I know only the dry
knocking of a rattle
… Om Mani Padme Hum
Winds rise among thorny
bushes along the road
I hear the clamor of
wild animals running deep in the forest
The cracking of branches
breaking.
From
Our Home
You
gather things according to their seasons
a
bunch of grapefruit flowers for autumn
plums
for spring
We
are the pulse of air, deep abyss, breasts of soil
we
choose warm places to set our furniture
uncluttered
places to put our tables and chairs
We
drop our worries at the dinner table
with
chopsticks we pick vegetables from the field afar
the
fish bites on the bait inside our clay pot
We
love the footprints near the rice stubble
deep
wells, streams and rivers, ponds and puddles
Don't
sit in the room too long
go
out into the field, out to the riverbank
where
leaves grow green and fish wriggle
Bite
on fresh pineapple or sweet orange
and
let juice drop on brown soil.
Release
Your Grasp for It to Dawn
I.
You dream of a boat
Floating
You can see to the
bottom
Imagine I am coming near
A light beam from an
asteroid
A canopy of tall trees,
stars
Break apart when the
boat steers
I imagine myself
Holding your hand
Tucking your blanket
Fondling each lock of
your hair
You can rest assured
For the boat has been
tightly fastened to shore
When currents flow
Here’s a row of bollards
Tight ropes
Taut muscles
Robust arms
I hold my breath
Firmly and fully
Immobilized...
You still dream of
guarding the boat
Waking up to pour
moonlight into dawn.
II.
You can’t sleep under a
shaking canopy
A twig has just fallen
onto the sheet-metal roof
The sound of a broken
fruit rolling on the old tiled floor
The raging wind breaks
any water surface
A path stretches out to
grasp this skirt of forest
Your eyes open into deep
night as the furnace glows bright
Swelling with aromas of
grilled corn and glutinous rice
The sound of boiling
water in your memory
Reverberates until early
morning
Trying to lie flat next
to the bed’s edge
You hold your breath
waiting for a quiet moment
Embracing an invisible
dove
You wait until the earth
becomes peaceful
And release your grasp
for it to dawn.
III.
Flowers glisten in the
rain
When you miss me
Leaves grow dark green
When you call me under
the rosewood (*) tree
You have been crying
Because the rain water
is too clear
The tree’s canopy lies under
too vast a sky
This year’s blooming
season is different
I know a dragonfly
On its flight keeps
Images of flowers in its
eyes
In this peaceful morning
The tree stub has turned
the other way
Restless
And numb in the rain
Fingers
And calves are snow-white.
IV.
Swimming only ten meters
from shore
I am afraid of drowning
And getting lost deep
inside the ocean
The blue waves this
afternoon are furious
Flashing their blades of
water high
Wild in their menacing
beauty
I want to send many
wishes
And my desire for
freedom
Into the open space of
weather forecasts
I sit on a sandy beach
Filled with happiness
As I watch the purple
flowers from afar
Bow down
Trembling in the wind.
V.
A narrow stream of light
on that paved road is an infinitely deep doorway leading to our past lives.
In a previous life you
and I were a pair of water snakes slithering through grass into a lake,
swimming together side by side. The tides that swept the foothills left their
mark through a thousand years. Two raging dinosaurs in a hot desert. A pair of
eagles mating while free falling in the air. Two braided trees amidst a storm.
Thunder and lightning struck and collapsed a summit and left a sunset burn...
Here comes the chariot
of autumn. The grinding sounds of chain wheels on windy tree tops. Torrents of
tiers of leaves falling.
My chest jolts as if trying to withhold
an explosive shell, a drop of water, and a flower bud on that paved road
alight.
___________
(*)
A valuable wood tree, with clusters of white flowers blooming in March and
April in Hanoi
Traces of Dawn
The horizon is broken by
razor-sharp waves
Dawn billows where
boundaries are smeared
Your thousand eyes turn
around in cubist space
Palpitating sentiments
are floating in dew.
Don’t drift near clouds
drenched in gasoline
Even as you hide your
ten fiery fingers
The wind’s aromatic
tongues slip into my ears
Draping the wilderness
with dreams of grass.
My rapturous flesh
already bears your footsteps
Making your nails on
earth more resounding
Each of my joints aches
to modulate a woodwind voice
While I feel your lips
blowing over my head.
A
Tree’s Dream
@
I
stand next to a tree in my coat. It’s colder in late winter rain. Leaves stack
up. I imagine the tree is dreaming about its roots walking underground. It
dreams about its stump being no longer at its source. One morning the earth
wakes up to see trees walking among us.
@
I
am occupied, taking care of trees, expecting a day when they grow strong and
open their lush, green canopies where I stand, and encroach the sky. Birds land
onto our vast property, hopping from branch to branch, singing loudly without
finding a way out. You put your hand on me. Leaves dream of protecting flowers
and fruits.
@
Each
day I am reborn from a canopy, learn to make plans, so I can begin a new life
every morning. There have been times when I return as a gaunt old man, only to
bloom again next to the trees. Passionate as a kid playing under a shady tree,
I look up every time I feel happy or sad.
@
Abandoning
their shells, the seeds bask in dew and sunlight. The center of the earth sucks
down clusters of young roots. Seed and leaves cover the ground. Winds and
storms may break, bugs may gnaw through, birds may prey on, and hoes and
pickaxes may accidently grind creatures that spawn miles of greenery, which can
grow into millennial giants. Life is born as craving; we bury our soft tongues
into each other, as the vast sky swoops down to fill each seed tightly.
@
Beneficial
fruits. With a fleeting bitterness. Dangle in the air. Roll on grass. Fall into
dreams of passionate giving. Bathe in earth’s darkness. Closing my eyes, I
imagine a ripe fruit drops into my body, a glossy yellow juice overflows,
nurtures me into a hearty seed, fresh and fragrant inside. I imagine it’s you,
picking me up, sniffing me, and biting into my skin. How you refrain from
breaking me. It is you who guard me. And you who wait for a drizzle of rain
before sowing me into warm earth.
Grass
Cutting in a Temple Garden
A sharp blade hacks
sideways
Close to the grass stubs
Souls still stuck
To the grass
Stretch out their arms
Grass piled high
To be served as cattle
food
Or dried
Any souls not allowed to
fly
Are held by a circle of
hard-heartedness
All pain of slaughtering
Lingers in the strong
smell of grass milk.
Spectrum
*
Whoever
passed through here, made the landscape glow. I arrive
at the end of the street, next to a lake, where the light from a row of trees
recedes to make space for the early morning sun. As I listen to dried leaves
rolling quietly, gathering into heaps, I know many lights traversed the ground
last night. There is a lonely aura from the inside of a pit, which doesn’t
belong. I
pick up a pebble and throw it hard towards a tree. The pebble bounces back from
a wall, an electrical post, a sidewalk... Its sparkling and zigzagging strokes
reveal the first manifestation of a new day.
*
A
bird lands on the canopy,
tucks away light
in its breast and beak, and begins to call its friends in a crystal,
singing voice. A needle, shiny glimmer in the worker’s
eyes,
after it has done stitching, laid
neatly inside a
box;
thinks of
loose cotton
seeds, delicate threads, then seems to accepts its fate, as
junk. Tearing
off the calendar page at the day’s end, I paste it on my memory
wall. It comes
unstuck, floating on an
imaginary river. Slapped
by waves, it sticks back to other calendar pages. I sketch three calendar
images on each corner of a painting with the same color scale, then poke vents
of different sizes to let the light from the inside… escape.
*
Like
people with cataracts under a beautiful sky, we are wrong to guess the color of
a carpenter bee flapping its wings, or fathom the exact shapes of flowers and
fruit, or guess the distance a nightingale’s call travels before it hits a
stone wall, to size an outsize fish by the splashing sound it makes as it tries
to break apart a garden pond... Each morning as soon as we wake, we fall into
each other’s trap, eat each other’s venom... This thought suddenly occurs when
I am surrounded by fear and anxiety. I stand up and lean on a dark, bruised
tree. I breathe heavily. My heart beats. Blood rushes up the smooth green
leaves.
*
A
bird approaches the lake surface. I wave my hand, ladle up, then realize that
water does not retain anything (or I think so at the moment)! I make some
gestures to make the bird aware: cupping my hands and calling, looking in one
direction, in several directions. Weaving my fingers like intersecting swords
and arrows. Stretching my arms to glide. Stamping my feet. Throwing away a
fistful of soil. My face turns from angry, to happy, sad, serious, dull...
Suddenly the bird swoops down to the water, then flies up high. It flies into a
sky that holds another lake.
*
I
see a lamp as a flower just bloomed, will-o’-the-wisp lights, wild fire
flames... My chest expands; my nerves stretch up to touch the night. My thinly
plated body lights up with connecting bands, rhombuses, ellipses and cubes.
Emerging parts move in a cubic way. The night, salty with inclining sea, fills
my mouth, overflows my eyelids. The oceanic pressure lapping on my body is
solely the dream of people in agony, or surprising things... when you wake up
at dawn.
*
As daylight recedes, everything around
us
falls into darkness. Dark
fields hold
dark rice. A dark tide draws
a school of dark fish. A
dark voice sings to dark background music. A dark classroom, misled by a dark
syllabus. Dark files conceal dark material. Dark boulevards lead to a dark
square. A military parade boasts dark weapons. A dark hand releases a dark
dove... From today, I will save and store light away, gather and hoard light,
accumulate and refract light, cherish and fight for light, revere and restrict
light, love and steal light, purify and reach out in light...
*
Dawn
spreads her thin layer of paint on the ground. Darkness leaves his stains here
and there, in tree shades, under bridges, inside downward-hanging bells, in
closed rooms, along underground sewers flowing through the city... It takes
cover in our bodies, within our memories, ears, blood and beating hearts.
Places sunken, hidden and deep, are dark with dangerous traps set... I join the
crowd as they hurry upward, climbing on rooftops, crossing bridges, perching on
boat bows... It is almost high noon. I quickly seize the moment to stand on any
table or chair, to dangle from a tree, or to hold onto a gate. I need to
increase my height with anything, books, a cushion, pieces of scrap paper.
Mismatching sandals and clothes stack themselves up to reach the abundant
light.
Silence
A thousand dharmas come back to one,
where does one go?
A ZEN KOAN
1.
A page
Opens territories of letters
Forests and mountains
Rivers and lakes
Roads of letters
Holding the book
I
I am a letter
The letter strokes are my rhythmic
breath
My upturning palms
My slash of black hair
My yellow skin
The light on the page
Reduces the world
And me
Into one.
2.
A small stream in the mountain
Flows steadily
Into a lake without a sound
Fish swim
Water remains at the same level
A kingfisher
Still perches
On a nearby tree top
At the throat of the outpouring
stream
Waves gently expand in circles
And fade
The lake bottom is infinitely silent
As the mountain moves with the
water.
3.
A stream of light is surrounding
Me
At the foot of the altar tower
Drawing near to my father’s face
(He was 3 years gone)
Drawing near to my grandmother’s
face
(She was 27 years gone)
My father has recovered from hand
trembles
My grandmother no longer
stoops
Each of them teaches me how to
remember
A way to forget
I am transparent
As I leave
Holding in my hand
A flower.
4.
A table with four legs
A flat surface
Place it on waves
The ground doesn’t yield
It flies like fog
Is light as a cloud
Rustles like leaves
I close my eyes
The teacher is grading
Giving me two points… ten points…
Even a zero
On top of my head.
5.
An egg
Warm under
Its brooding mother’s
Wings
I sleep soundly in the mountain air
Tree shades
Water that pounds rice
Deer footsteps
Lying inside the eggshell
I gradually take the form of ants
Fowl and poultry
Like so many animals
I grow up on
Dreams of early sunlight
Of rains
Of stars falling
Down to earth
Shaking off the shell of light
I open my eyes and stand up.
6.
A black fruit
Ripened high in the sky
Where lotuses
And chrysanthemums are blooming
My hair and shoulders are white
My stalk
Begins to turn yellow
Black areas are shrinking
Vanishing quickly
A hand
Buries me in a pit
Needing no water
I grow as a sapling in
the desert.
7.
Between the circle of light around
me
And the void of darkness
Stands a wall of nepal paper
I contemplate
Making a drawing on it
From darkness
Someone is writing on one side of
the paper
A name for my drawing.
8.
Bird calls, a dream, falling drops
of water…
Draw vertical lines
A voice, sadness, kisses…
Draw horizontal lines
The intersecting lines
Are sparkles of light
Which show you the way sometimes
And blind you other times
I settle down
To pull the lines further apart.
9.
I open my chakras (*)
Light does not fill up my body
Darkness still centers on my
forehead
And my back
I open my eyes to watch a burning
fire
Fire is the gate
For one to leave concealment and
darkness
To return to a cool place
I watch!
I swallow the fire with my eyes
I destroy concealment and darkness
With my eyes.
_____________
(*) Energy points inside
human bodies, according to Hindu and tantric traditions.
10.
The laughing doves
Trapped in a net
Next to a decoy bird
Their eyes are sewn shut
But
they are never in pain!
They cry in the hands of a
bird-killer
Incarcerated in prison cells
They are plucked and bled
But
they are never in pain!
They are roasted golden
Inside a greasy pan
But
they are never in pain!
My thoughts turn incoherent
I open my eyes to watch the field
just harvested
See laughing doves collecting rice
They come in flocks
Collecting rice.
11.
I am a ceramic vase opening its
mouth
To the outside world
Inside me
A garden is incubating seedlings
Early sunlight soaking
Each plant root
On a river bank
My feet touch the tide ebbing
beneath
On a rising tide
Fish and shrimps just let go
Without swimming
A boat floats with no one paddling
I cannot sit for long
Water tapping on the sides of this
boat
Birds calling from high above
Someone knocks hard
On the side of the vase.
12.
A spider web is spun
Between two ends of thunder
Within a bullet’s echo
An electric hammer’s thud
A train’s screeching jolt
The sound of an asteroid falling on
earth
A shiny thread is stretched out
In countless fleeting
Disappearing sounds
Only the spider turns back
And spins more threads.
13.
Dawn’s light is thrown across my
chest
When I begin to meditate
One strip of sunlight is the gate
To begin a journey
I silently become sand or a stone
Inane in weather
And night’s pristine darkness
No longer dry
No longer sharp
I am equal to
And mixing into the world
As I return after a long journey
That strip of sunlight is still
there.
14.
A bridge spanning two riverbanks
With a steel frame
Is built with dark bricks
Their insides remain red through
many years
When bricks are laid next to each
other
The road is smooth
With heavy human footsteps
Or sounds of animals’ hooves
The bridge begins to vibrate
I sit in lotus position (*)
Under the bridge the water is still
I know the current is still flowing.
__________
(*) A cross-legged sitting position in which the
feet are placed on opposing thighs.
15.
A black bird sinks in
A black roof
A black ground
And colorless light
All
is whitening like milk.
I am burning like a tree trunk
Hollowed out by insects
The bird is wounded
The ground is convulsing
All vegetation is poisoned
I gather light
And collect tears
To stream through our wounds
All
is whitening like milk.
16.
I am in zazen next to a flower
All fragrance lingers
Near the ground
The sky turns over my head
I am turning into an obstacle
Things around me growing
Getting older
The flower in the middle
Erects a glass post
Marking today
Now
Past
And future
Look at each other from two sides
The flower represents Buddha’s lips.
17.
A grandiose drop of water
Lying in a deep well
Concerto No. 1 in D minor by J.S.
Bach
Falls into the well
Small drops of water
Carry green light
The green of rice seedlings
Seeds
Banana buds
A field of young mulberry
It’s the season of chlorophyll
Born out of water drops
In the shape of green eggs
Swelling
Overflowing the ground.
18.
Through the candle
And into another realm
Eyes open
In the shadow of a wall
I am at the crossroads
Many systems of reference
Many souls animate
Inanimate
And unnamed
The more awareness is filled with
sound
And color perceptions
The more one is still
And free in all things
19.
Light
Splits a tree trunk
Yellow on one side
Dark purple on the other
Bark is smooth on one side
Rough on the other
Sap is different on two sides
White
Black
I close my eyes and breathe
The tree is growing
Both halves of the tree have the
same color flowers
Blooming in crowds before a hatchet
blade of light.
20.
A glass of water
Is placed in front of the candle
Colorless light
Dropped from above
Shows the way for water to settle
The more transparent I become
Spike trap
Black arrows
Escape
From my soles and palms.
21.
I am lost in the world of toys
Boy and girl dolls
Smile next to a fish made of wool
A wooden rooster
Stands firmly on one foot
A paper dolphin
Carries a tiny globe on its head
All are immobile
In nothingness
The halos of dreams
Of humanities’ children
Those who are moving
In order to be natural, equal,
innocent
I am made of wool, paper, wood…
22.
Sounds of wind chimes
Fall in the night as sparkling seeds
I hardly realize
Tree trunks have just grown
The garden has shrunk into an arm’s
embrace
Another lullaby of chimes
I sit up
Drop a coop around me to stop the
wind
And a myriad of sounds
The chimes are strung
On top of the sky.
23.
Only in silence I realize
That I am in zazen with many others
Mixing auras
From other spaces
I heal my own wounds
But others
Are treating unknown patients
The patients don’t know
They are going through auras.
24.
Two
objects on the table
A clock
A pebble paperweight
I cannot read a book
Or think through any subject
My mind is vague
As I stare at each object a long
time
I turn one of them
Adjust the space between
I see a single trail of light
Between the clock and the pebble.
25.
One by one
A flower’s petals fall
Fragrance
Is light and pure
I shut the door tight
Not letting anyone in
Nor slanting sunlight
Nor blowing wind
Where Buddha has just appeared
Within the fleeting space
Between the receptacle and the
ground.
26.
The ring-ouzel which just flew away
Has perfect color harmony
A gray bird
Two white stripes on its cheeks
One black spot from breast to chin
I draw a picture of the bird
And color patiently
Not like that!
Still not like that!
I keep sitting here
Looking at the flying birds
And coloring.
27.
My body blends into darkness
Only my hands remain alight
My palms turn up
Like two lake surfaces
Two open bowls
Two winter caves
The deep pits of two stars
The mouths of two fish…
One cannot find in the universe
Pairs
Like two hands
Joining
Because each star, bowl
Fish, cave, lake…
Connects to a separate darkness.
28.
At dusk
Or probably at dawn
An albatross
Lands on a barrier pike
Seen from afar it is only black
Like a paper cut painting
Or a single block statue with stand
The sea is a calm brown
I focus my thoughts
On walking on water
Without leaving any footprints
Behind me
The bird no longer flies.
29.
On the way to shore
Lies a sand plot
Oyster shells
Bow in the lapping waves
Shapes of seagulls flying
Or just landing on the horizon
Are like contours
Of a person lying face down
Wind blowing from the sea
Sticks me to my shirt
Then inflates the fabric
My body inside
Is the core
The bitter seed
Of a half ripe fruit.
30.
A garden
A ditch
A quiet and transparent
Space
A butterfly
Red and lonely
Glides
And flutters
It lands on a tree top
No
It is not lonely
The butterfly is a flower
From this space, this ditch, and
this garden…
It lands
To shut down time
For the flower to become a bud.
31.
The sky is like a bow
I am in the middle of it
Wind howls
From the top of my head
Through my soles
I breathe earth’s generous air
Into the deep sea
I stretch the bow
For trees to press against
mountainous profiles
To compress dawn into night
Like
a pine tree
Clutching
earth
Stretches
its branches to the sky
My heart aimed at the target
Energy concentrated in my belly
I release the bow
The arrow and I fly parallel to the
earth’s surface.
32.
A stone slab emerges
Its chunk still buried in a pit
A bird
The sky hides its flight path
Fire
Burns in longing eyes
A martial artist draws his sword
When the bird finishes its sketch on
sky
Earth’s soul permeates the stone
slab
Humans turn into coal by their
longing.
33.
My father’s hand
Is in my shadow
While I am mixing tea
Water is boiling
Steaming the kitchen
Tea leaves soaked in earthenware pot
I serve tea to my father
The deep tea fragrance is blending
With the aglaia fragrance from the
garden
A whiff of my father’s sweat
Holding the earthenware cup
My father’s hand dry and rough
Inside my palms.
34.
New day on the coast
The waves have receded
Leaving behind a clean stone slab
Somebody has come to step
And sit on it
Bird feces
And dust settling on it
At night
Water rises again and washes it
The sea
Is patient
In years.
35.
The wind upon leaving
Imprisoned me here
With a leaf
Looking at the door frame and window
bars
I know I cannot break
The leaf’s veins
If only its yellow spots
Spread out fast
But moisture is breathing
Into green chlorophyll areas
One should not overreact
In spring.
36.
I am a trinket
Made of metal bars
Bent and attached
With paper fastened to my head
Just out of love
Or anger
The alloy has been bent
Last night in a dream
That trinket
Grew up fast
Seed to leaf.
37.
I get lost in a fabric store
Rolls of fabrics piled up like logs
I use adeptness to sneak through
This is deep brown
Blue
That is orange
Delicate white
Bordeaux red…
Any color
Is more than enough
For one person to wear throughout
his life
I walk
Holding a glass of water
My only concern is
Spilling on any step
38.
I am vegetation
Light from my previous life
Draws on a white canvas
My body is immobilized
In a group of sheaths
Waiting for roots to penetrate from
either side
Once withering
Once thriving
Both are common experiences in this
light.
39.
I stack up five pebbles
And draw circles of waves around
them
Today I realize
I was wrong
From the five pebbles
Straight lines are radiating
I will not stack
Things upon each other any more
In my field of vision.
40.
The river runs dry
We walk across its bed
When water rises
We will probably be notified.
41.
I sketch on paper
Thin pencil lines
Downward strokes make leaves
Upward ones are flowers.
42.
I sit under the cloak of Light
At the very bottom
When He walks
His cloak touches me
Sometimes from above
Sometimes from below
I am dyed with light when waking up
But when sleeping
I leave it up to dreams
There are dreams
Where you cannot find darkness.
43.
I sit down
And drop flowers on water
Releasing them
On a surface vast
And clear
Bells
Ring through my body
Into the depth of water
Dong!
I sink
Then emerge again.
44.
On top of the hill
I see inside the ground
A flaming red eye
Looking at the sky
The earth
In the shape of an eye
Flaming red
Floating away…
Floating…
45.
The bowl of water and I are white
The ground an ancient yellow
The field in front
And the bell
Dark yellow
The tabby cat in the yard
Has white patches on its back
I ring the yellow
Bell
A white color spreads
The cat walks softly
Shaking sunlight all over the ground
It walks until
it is only a white spot.
Biography of
Nhat-Lang Le:
Nhat-Lang Le was born in
1969 in Saigon, emigrated with his family to France in 1983, and moved to the
U.S. in 1985. He has a B.A. in Linguistics and Computer Science from the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Nhat-Lang Le worked for more than
a decade as a software programmer, before switching careers to work as a news
translator and editor for a Vietnamese media organization based in the Little
Saigon area of Southern California. His poems and translations have appeared in
the printed magazines Thế Kỷ 21, Văn Học and Văn, and the literary e-zines Tiền
Vệ (tienve.org) and Da Màu
(damau.org). He has been on Da Mau’s
editorial staff since 2007.
Biography of Susan
Blanshard:
Susan Blanshard was born in Hampshire, England. She is an
internationally acclaimed Poet, Essayist, and Best-selling Author. Susan has
written more than 35 books. She has edited
translations for 7 international volumes of poetry. Selected poetry and essays
are published in The World’s Literary
Magazine, Projected Letters, Six Bricks Press, Arabesque Magazine, Lotus
International Women’s Magazine, ICORN International Cities of Refuge. PEN
International Women Writers’ Magazine. PEN International Writers Committee The Fourth Anthology, Our Voice, Nuestra Voz, Notre Voix.
Her literary essays The Pillow Book, Four
Recipes, The Traveler, Orientation, published in Arts And Culture, Lotus International Magazine, Hanoi. Her
collected poems Running the Deserts,
Midnight Mojave were included in the Vaani 9.69 seconds, a collection of short stories and poems dedicated to
the London Olympics
2012. Selected new poetry from Poems from the Alley, have been translated into Bengali to be
included in three upcoming literary reviews. She has also published book-length
poetic prose: Sheetstone: Memoir for a
Lover, Sleeping with the Artist, Fragments of the Human Heart, Memoir of Love and Art: Honey in My Blood.
Susan is member of PEN Interntional Womens Writers and a Foundation Member of
Asian Pacific Writers APW. She lived in Hanoi for eight years and has written
two non-fiction travel books on The Old Quarter of Hanoi. She is married to a
visual artist and writer. They have two adult children. Susan resides near
Sydney, Australia where she is currently completing a three book work of
fiction.
Biography of Mai Văn Phấn:
Vietnamese poet Mai Văn Phấn was born 1955 in Ninh Bình, Red River Delta in North Vietnam. Currently, he is living and writing poems in Hải Phòng city. He has won several national literary awards of Vietnam. He has published 24 poetry books and 1 book "Critiques–Essays", 10 poetry books of those are published and released in foreign countries.
• “Giọt nắng” (“Drops of Sunlight”. Poetry book. Hải Phòng Union of Literature and Arts Associations, 1992);
• “Gọi xanh” (“Calling to the Blue”. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 1995);
• “Cầu nguyện ban mai” (“Prayers to Dawn”. Poetry book. Hải Phòng Publishing House, 1997);
• “Nghi lễ nhận tên” (“Ritual of Naming”. Poetry book. Hải Phòng Publishing House, 1999);
• “Người cùng thời” (“People of the Era”, Hải Phòng Publishing House, 1999);
• “Vách nước” (“Water Wall”. Poetry book. Hải Phòng Publishing House, 2003);
• “Hôm sau” (“The Day After”. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2009);
• “và đột nhiên gió thổi” (“and Suddenly the Wind Blows”. Poetry book. Literature Publishing House, 2009);
• “Bầu trời không mái che” (Vietnamese-only version of “Firmament Without Roof Cover". Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2010);
• “Thơ tuyển Mai Văn Phấn” (Mai Văn Phấn: Selected Poems - Essays and the Interviews, Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2011);
• “hoa giấu mặt” (“hidden-face Flower”. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2012);
• “Bầu trời không mái che / Firmament Without Roof Cover” (bilingual 2nd edition. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2012);
• “Vừa sinh ra ở đó” (“Just Born There”. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2013);
• “Những hạt giống của đêm và ngày / Seeds of Night and Day” (bilingual Vietnamese-English. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2013);
• “A Ciel Ouvert / Firmament Without Roof Cover” (bilingual Vietnamese-French. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2014);
• “Buông tay cho trời rạng / Out of the Dark” (bilingual Vietnamese-English. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2013);
• “Ra vườn chùa xem cắt cỏ / Grass Cutting in a Temple Garden” (bilingual Vietnamese-English. Poetry book. Page Addie Press of United Kingdom Australia, 2014);
• “Zanore në vesë / Vowels in The Dew” (Poetry book. BOTIMET M&B, Albania, 2014);
• “บุษบาซ่อนหน้า / hidden face flower / hoa giấu mặt” (Poetry book. Artist's House, Thailand, 2014);
• “Yên Tử Dağının Çiçeği” (“The Flower of Mount Yên Tử”. Poetry book. ŞİİRDEN YAYINCILIK, Turkey, 2015);
• "The Selected Poems of Mai Văn Phấn" (Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2015);
• “thả” (“Letting Go”. Poetry book. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2015);
• “आलाप प्रतिलाप” (“Echo of the Aalap”. Poetry book. Publishing House of Kritya, India, 2016);
• “Không gian khác” (“Another Dimension”. Critiques–Essays. Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2016);
• “Два крыла / Đôi cánh” (“Two Wings”. Bilingual Vietnamese-Russian. Poetry book. “Нонпарелъ” – Publishing House of Мoscow, 2016);...
Poems of Mai Văn Phấn are translated into 22 languages, including: English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Albanian, Serbian, Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh, Slovak, Rumanian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi (India), Bengali (India), Korean, Indonesian, Thai, Nepalese.
Simultaneously on the book distribution network of Amazon, thecollections “Firmament Without Roof Cover”, “Seeds of Night and Day”, “Out Of The Dark”, “Grass Cutting in a Temple Garden”, “A Ciel Ouvert” waspublished and exclusively released in the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia and European countries by Page Addie Press of the UK.
December 2012, the English collection titled “Firmament without Roof Cover” became one of the 100 best-selling poetry books of Amazon.
June 2014, the three collections in Vietnamese and English titled “Ra vườn chùa xem cắt cỏ” (“Grass Cutting in a Temple Garden”) and “Những hạt giống của đêm và ngày / Seeds of Nights and Day” as well as his Vietnamese-French collection titled “Bầu trời không mái che” (“A Ciel Ouvert/ Firmament without Roof Cover”) were among the top ten of the 100 best-selling poetry collections from Asia on Amazon.
Poems of Mai Văn Phấn were introduced in newspapers and magazines of Sweden, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, India, Albania, Turkey, South Korea, Hongkong, Indonesia and Thailand, etc.
Poetry's Mai Văn Phấn on Amazon