EPITOMIZING DAY TO DAY LIFE / poems by THEPHONG / translated from the Vietnamese by DAM XUAN CAN.

Today the sun shone brightly as on other days
Rain or shine did not matter much, but the cost of living had risen sky high
The price of the bicycle imported from Europe had been increased by 50
per cent.
If the bicycle was sick the owner would pale too ).

In my family there were neither women nor small kids
There were just four of us of various ages
The head of the family of forty six had been a widower for four years
Of his two sons theolder son just turned twenty
We had enough food but we were not very happy
The sixteen year old boy started coloring nudes
He was fond of cutting out pictures from mobie magazines and watched female
loveliness closely
As for me I saw life pass by calmly
This did not mean I was free from worry
P my twenty year old girl. I love you simply charms
You do not wear ornaments ( the price of gold had nearly doubled)
But your sweet smile could make many a heart b eat quicker.

At the back of our home there was a thatched house
They needed a dependable sewing machine but they could not afford it
The foreman had lost many a finger
Looking at him, I suffered as much as he did
Every mornibf he got up very early and hastened to start work
He was a real beast of burden
Beside our dwelling was a house crammed with so many beds that there was
apparently noway out
The soldiers's wives renting the house could do nothing but sleep
Their husbands at war had not come back
We read in newspapers that thousands of youths had been killed, their
bodies left unburied
A silent sea of faces blurred in tears
Every month one thousand soldiers lost their lives while the enemy
casualties were four times as numerous
Lets' hang these papers as talismans on our beds...

On the farther side of the road
A curious news is being spread - a reliable one alas !
Concerning a seventy - thousand-piaster worth American motorcycle
A two-cylinder Harley which can ride fast on the mute road
And the Vietnamese motorcycle whose price is unknown
A talkative woman-motorcycle who only moves in bed
The two crazy owners echanged the aforesaid things, as in a fairy tale
A lover of good living, the airman preferred the flashing motorcycle to
his wife
So he was in treaty with the American and the woman-motorcycle are free
to rock in their bed
Meanwhile the Vietnamese husband can ride the Harley on the road
We rightly guess he would avade any questioning on its price
Such is the story of the woman with two husbands
The story which makes an eighteen-year-old girl burst out laughing
hysterically
Sewer water, rain, tear, tea and semen
( Those kinds of water need being purified to bcome just clean water)

Epitomizing life I could not help frowning and sighing
The forty six year old woman is still a widow
The twenty six year old chap is still reading death announcements
of known persons
Ths sixty year old boy does not want to be a man yet
The foreman. after the incident, is still collecting trophies
The old man of seventy has died, buried without a proper funeral
I, ovwer thirty now, is still without a woman
The bicycle, after being repaired, is laying still in a corner
And the eighteen year old girl is criticizing my poetry
" I don't known what you mean
" I don't like poetry, I don't like you at all
"I hate all man who are bachelors
" I hate your so called " Uplipting poems" !".

Saigon, July 7, 1963
THEPHONG

( from " UPLIPTING POEMS" ,
Dai Nam Van Hien Books, Saigon 1974.)