you, this hammock, a garden between two trees
a swarm of ants sing their sorrow, let’s leave this, this haunted stump
how many times must we clean the corpses
dreams, stories told and retold, quick episodes of love, episodes of purposely failed suicide, a bunch of words hidden in the hollow cold earth
…
you, i have waited for your dreams to illuminate the silent night grass
the heart shakes, the music of an illusion returns, you grow more and more distant, fingers turn pages of colorful silk, sheets of cornea and we
see the nature of skin in wisps there
the heart heard beating beside me is not because of me but because
where you lie is so very deep
you, no reason just that you simply come to make me lose all hope, and refuse
thirst
the space between doors, the darkness after rain, the train swallows whole screams within its loud stomach
the misery of a crazed mother looking for her run away child who follows a dream of
fish scaled by narrow alley passings
you, today, because the monsoonal fever, falling leaves let out a whimper
with a muted pain, i complicate the world and a passion for strangers, unrestrained and ridiculous
whatever beats, whatever dies, whatever exhales except
in the head unfamiliar voices as autumn rain drops a block of dead rotting brain, the tip of a knife gently pierces an eye, a bird’s melodious call, we should clench our breath to be drifting and forget the blood running
strange seasons, us with a dreadful hope looking for each other in a clamor, actually just to execute obligation’s order
my obligation is to listen closely to your language and make a meaninglessness
as you resolve to abandon this love
you, the bereft air of our old letters throbs up in me a shadowy swarm of ants in orbital swim, pummeling waves, repercussions of the early morning
corpses
of old stories, tossing and turning without end
the land where we lie is so tight
you, we should love each other like drowning boats damaged in tidal waves
i love the cracked scars on the gardeners’ hands i cherish you as points of memory’s warm light and the hot breath of fog
covering all injury
you, that day, from the event of an incredibly beautiful drop of broken dew, i tell you the story of a small bird blown about by a mean trick of wind
a moan slips from my mouth, happy accidents have become tests of endurance, what are we running away from, and why, or rather, how much more, which dream of reality do i wait for, the dream of an afternoon wind pursuing me, which fragrance
recalls that season of coincidental death, season of sweetly seductive death, i only want a resuscitating breath, what i want to say, i certainly do not, i try not to be motionless, i gaze, i watch, i drink, i sing, i cry, i’m sleepy, i’m sober, i’m drunk, i’m sinking, i love and care, i’m almost drowned, i’m certain
that i stand as a pillar at the abyss’ edge in fervent reverie of passing clouds, watch a slab of heavy rock crawl down the chasm, and in just a bit, i’ll cover myself in the sleep of high clouds
no hand whatsoever touching me
when we are desperate with love for the grass and kneel before her single stalks, how to keep from breaking the drops of dew
you, the blood beneath my limbs, beneath your limbs, shouting in panic, we need an anguish a period of bizarre arrogance
teeming to a rupture oddly transformed objects
together we lick clean the blood on the floor and erase this trace of injury
and fondly call it oblivion
you, we reserve for each other our whole lives, it’s just that our plans are out of sync
the crying sounds now asleep, the wind gradually erases itself, the crumbling narrative of fire and paper and the whimsical life of an old dictionary that consists of only crossed out words
you, today the bird is suddenly injured inside its peaceful roof
you, i will kindle no more fire
children must leave school
outside the streets have only miserable love songs
questions and the great effort to answer them, stories that have died, meanings that have dried up, depth is a visual illusion, and my body is only the temporary substitute for an urn holding withered ashes of the dead, and i am the withered ashes of the dead, now i lie unmoving in that urn
you, is it the wind that licks along on your body with its slowly abrading tongue, the salt of you slowly fading the into the wind’s brackish mouth
insatiable hunger stays, i sit chewing your eyes your lips your pain the feathers fallen from your inert corpse
it still hurts me to dream
whenever the moon is full, the blind dark, no one sees each other, dreamers of the dreaming universe detach from the system and wander in all directions, playing so as to locate themselves in loss, a defeated search for road, and the endless flurrying of highway bushes
now, i have decided to lie unmoving in the urn i will lie unmoving in the urn and the ash will not rise again
-- translated by Kaitlin Rees -- image by Nguyễn Hoàng Giang