Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
About the author: Nguyen Quang Hung, a Vietnamese poet, born in 1980, a member of the Vietnam Writers’ Association, currently lives in Hanoi and works at Thoi Nay newspaper – a publication of Nhan Dan newspaper. Nguyen Quang Hung has published 15 books of poetry, prose,… and received some literary awards in Vietnam.
Transitional Sphere
(Author: Nguyen Quang Hung)
(Translated into English by Vo Nhu Mai)
Don’t think about the time of bombs and bullets
Let me train to be as strong as steel and iron
Don’t think about the time of hunger
Let me appreciate grains of leftover rice
It is now!
Statistics of millions infected in the epidemic
Sad news of those who died
Does that make you value physical health?
There would be new epidemic area broken out
Would you be more serious about kindness and discipline?
Would you happen to shiver
When vaguely know you are adding and abetting to?
Would you happen to shiver
When moutains bare, river dried, ocean trashed
City smoke and a life of programming
There is nowhere to hide!
Where is the safest place in the global epidemic!
Where we are we could live with it!
Don’t think about tragic!
Or you would be in danger of falling
While rolling on the planet sphere
Centuries when mankind faces misery
This century there would be more trouble
Gardeners still have to water the plants and mow the lawn
My whole life I face the virus
When it is in those faces
To separate exclusions
To renew myself
To repair humanity
I seriously relaise the thorny earth
I would have to walk on it
11/28-2021
Mutated Season
Clouds in the shape of thorns
Of flowers
Of time, mildewed
Of transforming movement
Big shadow covering sky
Signaling something confusing
Aren’t you struggling with such chase
Around seriously
While shining brightly the floating after sensation
Like a sudden call in the air
the fearful silence
About the persistent creeping and mingling
Of an enemy next to you
In his familiar outfit
Until someone breathlessly lay down
Then the face bending down would turn into the path of piercing
Iconic clouds fly over or fall down
Or something brighter
Or is it just a bad signal?
Follow every eye in shock or euphoria
The big shadows are so silent that they shiver
Slowly passing day and night
It’s still there in sleep
Drag us into self-inquiry
With not yet an end
Something is not clear
That’s the reason for panic right now
About a life that is not normal anymore
About the unexpected that can come at no time
Make us fall into a state of obsession
And become a potential patient
Of heart attacks
Open from thought
(In dedication to poet Hoang Nhuan Cam)
There is a train line stopping at Phung Hung station
For the people heading to distant Long Bien
Evening star showing the way to Morning’s
Welcome a blue dot joining the sky
Or is it just the line to Văn Điển only
Ashes getting cold buried to the ground
A loud call, still can’t wake up in time
Only marked on the wall the smile
Such voice following us many days later
Squeling each line suffocating in mind
Breathlessly weaving a wire of explosion
Reminding us of the endless flash of life
Is it real something melting
If the tree you plant giving cool shadow
If sorrow turning into deep amber
Flowers brilliant at the end of the day
Will you ever visit this old apartment
Lò Đúc whaft filled with questions
Damp lime wall faded in the century
A rainbow shuts its door to shine nicely
My Sister
As if she is madly crazy in her role of a farmer in need of assistance
Disadvantage of half year paralysing in bed
Life stage in darkness
Without any audience
Tonight there is wild laughing
Mixing the fate of those chasing
Hunger, cold, injustice, shiving with dampness
Actors bursting into dreams from last season
It turned out to be incubated in the dryness and thirst
Fresh bub leaf placed at heart core
A year, those years of silence
Still flashing from the chest
Keep on burning, the dim star
The thread weaving, green in city and town
Time has gone, not a single tune
You are no more than a scarecrow
Tonight there is an old worker
Once at youth time had so much fun
Return to see his daughter performing under the arch roof
Where I sang a year ago
Still tell stories while hair turns grey
Then line of chairs would disappear
On his smile sparkling with joy
Small mountain in Phuong Cach region
How many years have I seen him go far away?
I’m busy turning the other way
The hills are built on all sides
The paths of thousands of people
Overwhelmed by wind
Overwhelmed with rice
I go forever to the great mountains and rivers
Đoài Area, immense and increadible
The patriarches work hard
To build endless kingdoms
Shining bright with gold
I walk into endless corridor
I go up the stages
I sing the song of jostling
Today it rains I turn into the new village path
Land subdividing walls surround
Suddenly I realise the place circled behind
In the middle of green vegetables
In the heavy rain
Deep in pride
Quiet rock, quietly the place stands
Resounding the signal of forest and mountain
Though around
Rushing near from all about
