Biography of Mai Văn Phấn
Vietnamese poet Mai Văn Phấn was born 1955 in Ninh Bình, Red River Delta in North Vietnam. Currently, he is living and writing poems in Hải Phòng city. He has won a number of Vietnamese and international literary awards, including the Vietnam Writers' Association Award in 2010 and the Cikada Literary Prize of Sweden in 2017. He has published 16 poetry books and 1 book "Critiques - Essays" in Vietnam. 15 poetry books of his are published and released in foreign countries and on Amazon's book distribution network. Poems of Mai Văn Phấn are translated into 25 languages, including: English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Swedish, Dutch, Albanian, Serbian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Slovak, Rumanian, Turkish, Uzbek, Kazakh, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Thai, Nepalese, Hindi & Bengali (India).
The Flower of Mount Yên Tử
It blooms on the mountain top
Serene in strong winds
Under the clouds of change
Seven hundred years ago
The Buddha King Trần Nhân Tông
Lowered his head when passing by
You and I
Lower our heads when passing by
The children
Also lower their heads
When passing by
As we descend the mountain
We meet the pilgrims
Holding small bamboo canes
All eyes turn upward
As we amass heat to burn the flower to its roots.
The Opening Ground
Gushing
between the screams of ephemeral belts of land
the riverbed writhes in waning light
dusk holds day tight in its mouth
fire convulses
fiercely ascending the tree tops
scorching the buds
A flight of birds spreads across the sky
so thoughts can reign on earth
where the wind’s face meets a bowed hill top
a deep cavern exhales myths to morning dew
ponds and puddles find a heavenly direction
the river gives birth while flowing
An open embrace of waves
playing in childish ebullience
the water surface turns to ruins
You set up an already broken sun
Drifting...
An unknown silence is drifting by
the lamp wick shortens
as kerosene soot says its last words
I vaguely hear the boiling batch of herb saying its apology
Erupting...
A flower opens vast expanses of land.
Lotus
The mute patches of mud withhold their sparkle
Strained eyes compact space
A figure
Stands on the lotus pedestal and delivers
Water weaves together
Waiting for the rise of any off-season lotus shoot
To target a flying cloud
mysterious as a text with fading characters.
The lake bed no longer holds fire
The wild grass has grown cold
Flickering rags of black butterflies
shoot out from explosions of tree root
Water weaves together memories
of yesterday’s scent
of yesterday’s silhouette
lucid in the falling leaves of human voices
The human voice grows indiscernible
It is not as fearsome, as fingers that clip a lotus
emaciated under a transparent robe.
The Soul Flew Away...
A spider’s hammock being torn by the lifting fog
Returns freedom to the soft tongues of grass
The drifting clouds rub out
A horizon that has just buried darkness
Blood resurrected within the ground
Turns into young sap welling up at each falling leaf
While long-suffering shadows remain silent
The thrush bursts out a firework of calls
Buds are shooting up dividing walls
As arteries of streams clear and circulate
Tongues made of glass break into voices
To discuss each discolored photo
The words in a notebook having dreamed of fire
Just before they become ashes, suddenly come to
When moving out, one has tossed the incense sticks’ leftovers into the river
So one wonders why fragrant smoke still lingers…
The Pace of Coming Autumn
Autumn releases a thousand boats
Rhythmic breathing as water splashes
An invisible hand rests on my shoulder
Both riversides tremble in anticipation
Rain breaks out from a summer's dream
Blades of grass turn upwards to receive each slow drop
As leaves rot, their souls rush to the tree top
A blue sky comes back, as fog lifts from one’s hollowed eyes
From here to the other side is so close
Yet it will take an entire restless autumn
Someone is immersed in ardent flowery colors
Causing the boat over there to drift its way back.
Variations on a Rainy Night
Rain comes at last
And thunder rumbles
Tender shoots strip naked in darkness
The land tries to hide its barren dryness
When roots feel their way into our chest
Together we desire
And together we recall
A leafy cone hat and raincoat or lightning across the sky
Night lies down with all the tombs
Its black shirt still hung in the trees
Together things cool down
And together things echo
The sounds get lost inside our deep sleep
Where countless upside-down dreams are shattered
In this cool, expanding, reverberating rain water.
Village
Water drives the pond’s shimmer high up
flooding the placentas, dispersing destinies of bindweed
the anxious way back
Roots that keep the ground
The path scattered with the scent of breasts
connecting faces with numerous skulls
one or two dangling from each arm
Again the path
footprints of the sickle
footprints of the scimitar
tears run on crumpled patches of wheat-grass
sharp pains for a life of needle and thread
to safeguard the dam from breakage
A call disrupts the space of a slaked lime pot
crumples the crane’s resin-stained wings
fills with air the basil shirts of drums and rattles
blows away banners
We dig up graves one by one
solemnly pick up each syllable of the word “ancestors”
O village!
our hands trembling as we rearrange the bones
before it dawns.
Written for the Flute
I blow into the dark-as-hell hollow of a flute to discover the seven ways to paradise: do re mi fa sol la ti.
Each scale flaps its wings and flies away, gliding into the mysterious glittering seven-color light. Those shadows bear the shape of the flute. Soon I will put my lips to each shadow and blow.
Leaving the bass section, they fly, and then release a myriad of pitches into the night. I hear laboring footsteps of night echoing, as it leans on the octaves to ascend.
A muted universe is hanging in the night. Tender waves let the shadows know to wake up in the morning and meet the light.
Each dark corner inside me is sucking on sounds, like sucking on a mother’s breast, and from my half-open mouth, light slowly streams in.
At the Root of the World
For Susan & Bruce Blanshard
I see at the top of the hill
A beardgrass flower just bloomed
Light emanates from there
Dawn emanates from there
And illuminates the foot of the hill, a forest exit
Birds depart in the early morning
I too have just left my memories
Not from anywhere else
But from that very beardgrass flower
An extremely beautiful day is forming
I walk to the nearest café
To wait for my woman
And for a long time I look towards the hill
True, very true
All of us were born there.
Translated from Vietnamese by Nhat-Lang Le
Edited by Susan Blanshardf
VNQD