a window,
between the rails,
unsearched, unseen: the one being silent under the bookshelves


1.

stinky   dirty
               clogging
permission, guarantee, authorization
wild, strange, stubborn, a mad man . . .
lurching, meandering, frail, irritated
bed-divan (fox holes)

lie down, lie straight down, express, conceal, hide, escape

cannot see (refrained, hooked, pinned)
a threat

clouds from the mountain top, in the storm, I still try to explain
they-command, control
(the rain pours down, erodes and blows away entire tents, underneath, human bodies buried deep in the ground)

pulling, dragging, drifting, limping
a harrow, a sled, a four-horse carriage, hoofs scraping

cannot see. still cannot see a thing. I don’t do it.
(nearest: the separation of a row of trees from its book, to make a stranger want to wear men’s shirts...)
it sticks, not dried yet, worn out, ragged, shabby

top soil, peat, paved with lumps of earth, bobbing
between rails
oh, humankind


2.

still cannot see (nearest words: darken, seem sad
                         gloomy darkness, appear hazy . . . )
many folding hems
cannot see (get real close, beyond the tunnel, surface, closer: (poetry)-cruel, whither)

cannot see (the gray color of the mountain range, shackled for life)

cannot see (mind too agitated, obstructed, hiccupping)

cannot see (guts, narrow underground passage, just thinking about this place sinks me into contemplations, a delta, the old days
                  feline entrails: feel the way, destroy from inside, dig, break)

stinking, inducing nausea and the measles, itch, and
they-speak softly, suggest vaguely . . .
they-sing lullabies, calming the waves, lying down, tranquil
they-smaller, fewer, whisper, tinier, less, not enough in number, eliminate

they, have removed
                                angry words, dew drops, water, shadow, this hand, exile, civility,
crystals, salted water, street names, rain on the roof, a house full of yellow powder, memory

there, the process of shrinking, bone displacing, neck breaking
         cure, restore it, compensate, remake
         objects lost, displaced, robbed, paid with a price
         organic fertilizer, ugly objects, mixed up, no dumping holes, not a local person, dirty, disrupting

        war, fight back, day after day

       (they try to push tiny flowers into an old jar and let water rot them, they hide behind the wardrobe and fall asleep for months and years, they warm themselves up by letting spiders crawl around them, they drop their hairs into a basin and let their scents fade, they cannot remember what have just shaken and nibbled)
until

                                                                                                                                                           [Sunday, January 11, 2009, 10pm].
                                                                                                                                                           -- translated by Lê Đình Nhất Lang

                                                                                                                     --sketch by Nguyễn Thúy Hằng