“There’s a man who drinks nothing but memories”: Vietnamese poems: Nguyen Quang Thieu, Nguyen Ba Chung, Thich Nhat Hanh
Posted: November 11, 2012 Filed under: English, Nguyen Ba Chung, Nguyen Quang Thieu, Thich Nhat Hanh Comments Off on “There’s a man who drinks nothing but memories”: Vietnamese poems: Nguyen Quang Thieu, Nguyen Ba Chung, Thich Nhat Hanh
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Nguyen Quang Thieu (Vietnamese poet, born 1957)
“The Inn of Snake Alcohol”
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The snakes are buried in alcohol.
Their spirits creep over the mouth of the jug,
They lie in the bottoms of cups.
Creep on, please creep on through white lips —
Listen: Drunk is shouting his vagabond song.
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With the top of a hat, with a pair of shoes
With glazed eyes that search the horizon
With anger setting fires in the temple
A whole life stunned by nothingness —
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Like a broken stone, like a bending reed
With the startling turns of a poem
With a frenzy of fears that lick like fire
With the laugh in the sleepwalker’s crying —
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Creep on, spirits of snakes, creep on!
Dazzling venom spurts from the jug.
There’s a man who drinks nothing but memories
Whose veins are the paths of snakes.
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The little inn buries the great night
The forest recalls the name of Autumn
Alcohol carries the spirits of snakes
And Drunk is making a song from his own venom.
“My Mother’s Hair”
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One of your hairs fell out last night,
a piece of your life was gone without a sound.
I know a difficult day is coming,
my heart, pierced, utters a quiet cry.
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Let my childhood smile again, in the sun,
and turn me into an innocent little headlouse
so I can crawl through the jungle of your hair
and sing a song of darkness in its fragrance.
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Under your fingernail-roof I’ll sleep in my house;
in my black dream I’ll water your black trees.
I’ll pick black fruits, and hair-jungle bees
will bring me black poems to be opened.
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How will I live, without your hair?
How will I breathe without its fragrance?
How will I survive when I am discovered
by ghosts of wooden combs combing your hair?
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Let me wear shows made of dawn-flowers
and crawl without a sound into your sleep.
I’ll take the place of the hair that’s gone
and sing of hair-clouds flying from night to day.
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“The Inn of Snake Alcohol” and “My Mother’s Hair” © Nguyen Quang Thieu
Translations from Vietnamese by the poet – with Martha Collins
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Nguyen Ba Chung (born 1949, Vietnam)
“Non-attachment”
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Let’s gather every fragment of our memories,
it’s all that we have at the end of our life.
Warring days and nights, showers of sun and rain –
what’s left of love?
Let’s gather what remains of our memories,
it’s all that we have at the close of our life.
Warring days and nights make us wonder:
Should the bundle we gather be empty or full?
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Thich Nhat Hanh
(Buddhist monk, poet, peace activist – born 1926, Vietnam)
“For Warmth”
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I hold my face between my hands
– no, I am not crying
I hold my face between my hands
– to keep my loneliness warm
– two hands protecting
– two hands nourishing
– two hands to prevent my soul from leaving me
– in anger.
. . . . .
Zócalo Poets 