Critique of Life, A Poet in Society/ The Phong / translated by Đàm Xuân Cận -- tản mạn văn chương / thế phong 19, 1, 2012 . -- bài đăng lại: 6/4/2023.
Thứ Năm, 19 tháng 1, 2012
CRITIQUE OF LIFE, A POET IN SOCIETY
THE PHONG
translated by ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN
1.
In this century,
the life of man in a weak
small country
Still leaves much to be desired
( The world broke in two or three long time ago
There is little we can do about it )
For an ordinary man it would take him a long time
Before he can have a cool look at himself and his society
He must have a wife and kids
just to be called a responsible citizen
I live as bravely as a big tree in the forest
Braving rain and thumber and all...
Today
as yesterday
still without a family
I feel pity for all,
for everybody
in this wretched land
this society is full of injustice
It must be destroyed by fire and water
Only twice
did I weep
In 1945
when the Revolution broke out
and the day
I lost my Mother
Dear friends I've live enough
I 've suffered enough
In this stagnant society am I needed?
what I can do besides writing poems?
I give this critique of life out of concern for it
I want to be true to myself
and to others..,
Why are there more prisons than schools
more cops than people about in streets
(These poems have just been unearthed
To be pit under the glittering sun ).
Well,
in this society
monks and spies look the same
Poet only produce what haw been ordered
The sky today is cloudless
I feel like crying now
But isn'y it much better
to suffer silently.
2.
I grew up with the mist in the highland
In my home place the straight
standing trees outnumbered spikes
My first love left me
when the Revolution broke out
O moutains and forests
I'm still alone
Is my mind being taken away from me
I have been over the abyss before
My days
Have been full of sweat and tears
The thousand love poems
I've written
are not love poems
I 've learned sorrow
since I first went to the graveyard
Just to pluck a flower
on an unknown tomb
My parents left me
a long time ago
Far from me
with no one to weep for them
In my childhood house
on that highland
I 've only the sun as friend
( Apart from passing girl as silent as shadow).
I' ve grown up
with love since that time
Now that I'm a man
I'm not too concerned with it
Love pure
noble love
does not mean a thing for me.
Past memories
make me truly sad
But I've become so mature
and so much wiser
I've realized my lot
of being in this land
Let me be without memory.
This century
rugged land far exceeds fertile part
I grew up in difficult times
I refuse to hear soothing words
Life is stripped of liberty
every line of poetry should be a bullet
To bring down walls of calumny and hypocrisy.
Look!
Even the grass we grow in public gardens
is imported from Europe
I feel estranged in my country
and turn a foreign visitor
Let me be evade a heroic mockingbird flitting in the
setting sun
Let me evade the world I never made
when I cast a glance t the desolate expanse...
The best way to travel is to walk by unself.
I choose Autumn
pine forest and sad sunshine;
I give up writing poetry
and will not torture myself anymore
Do me a favour,
my solemn-faced and wise wife
Say to me,.
' Burn a fire !! Hang the mosquito-net!'
I am the voluntary slave
who is fully contented
Let us have a long sleep
O wife, sons and daughters !
Tomorrow morning
We'll wake up early
set out to grow vegetables
Outside the hedge near the farm gate
We'll put up a board
'TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED'
In all languages of the world .
'TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED'
In all languages of the world .
Saigon, Nov. 8-12. 1963.
THE PHONG.
( from Asian Morning Western Music ).
---------------------------------
- bài đăng lại: 6/4/2023
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được đăng bởi khedo@outlook.com @ 04:53
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