THE WRITERS POST (ISSN: 1527-5467) the magazine of Literature & Literature-in-translation. VOLUME 13 NUMBER 1 JUL 2011

DIEP TRUNG HA ___________________________________________ two poems by DIEP TRUNG HA Perspective (Inspired by Octavio Paz’s “Viento, agua, piedra”) Water hollows stone. But to stone: Stone arrests water. Stone stops wind. But to wind: Wind assaults stone. Wind scatters water. But to water: Water whirls wind. Stone, wind, water. Only to itself: Does it matter. DIỆP TRUNG HÀ December, 1998 Waiting for customers Translated by DIỆP TRUNG HÀ (The form of Nguyên Sa’s “Đợi khách” – the number of syllables in a line – is preserved in translation.) You stand on the bare street’s corner Like wild flowers in the dense woods The silken skin’s sad in darkness The stunning eyes dim all stars Waiting for someone, not a date, To sell him all delightfulness  Remains of the fast spent flower Offering your lips dried of sweetness Tired in the night, moist blurry eyes The cheek on the pillow, ashamed, Face in the stranger, vastly cold, Small hands idle like being lost You stand on the bare street’s corner Johns are lost at twilight, you hear Footsteps waning at a distance Shattering all lingering hope The stranger’s lost his way in the night Walks woozily, shattering the moonlight You long for like a guarded thing A sad love with last drops of wine Time’s long weighed heavy since the time The bare hand trembling in a dream first Received dough for shared bed and board You cried, for the pistil was crushed The night’s waning, my dear hooker Waits in the night, the port’s asleep Eyes a home still lit, then hastens The scarf over the cold shoulders … DIEP TRUNG HA September 2010 The Writers Post the magazine of literature & literature-in-translation, founded 1999, based in the US. VOLUME 13 ISSUE 1 JAN 2011 Copyright © 2010 Diep Trung Ha Nothing in this magazine may be downloaded, distributed, or reproduced without the permission of the author/ translator/ artist/ The Writers Post/ and Wordbridge magazine. Creating links to place The Writers Post or any of its pages within other framesets or in other documents is copyright violation, and is not permitted. Return to Contents HOME