CRITIQUE OF LIFE, A POET IN SOCIETY / a poem by THE PHONG.

                                             


                                                 CRITIQUE OF LIFE, A POET IN SOCIETY
                                                              a poem by THE PHONG
                                                          translated by ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN

1.

In this century,
       the kife 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 verybody
   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 aout 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 moungtains 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 tim 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 alnd 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 onself.
I choose Autumn
      pine forest and sad sunshine;
I give up wrting 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
Outsidethe helge near th farm gate
We'll put up a board
        'TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED' '
In all languages of the world .

Saigon, Nov. 8-12. 1963.
THEPHONG.

( from Asian Morning Western Music ,
poems by The Phong.
  First publihsed by Dai Nam Van Hien Books,1974
   This Edition, Jan. 2012. - Ho Chi Minh City )