Special edition # 1 -- 4/30/1975 END OF SPRING => THE BEGINNING OF FALL

Fri, Apr 28 at 9:14 PM

For the first wave of Vietnamese refugees, after April 1975, the first sign of a normalized life was probably early fall of 1975, when losses settled in, and nostalgia kicked in. Homesickness began. Learned to love a new life, a different landscape.

The first version is the original poem; the second version contains some word changes suggested by my "partner-in-crime." 


FIRST VERSION:

Ng.Nicole Duong: Music, Artwork and Bilingual Poetry~~Forest-Tiếng vọng của rừng thu (first version)

Ng.Nicole Duong: Music, Artwork and Bilingual Poetry~~Forest-Tiếng vọng ...

SECOND VERSION: 

Music, Artwork & Bilingual Poetry: Forest-Tiếng vọng của rừng thu by Ng.Nicole Duong(second version)

Music, Artwork & Bilingual Poetry: Forest-Tiếng vọng của rừng thu by Ng....

VAN DE CUA SEN -- THE LOTUS DILEMMA

 Lotus may be the national flower of VietNam.  A free-styled visual artist and literary pen will not only paint, but will also communicate via the name of her works. So, what is the "lotus dilemma"? 

cubism a la DNN

 

 

More of Vietnamese poetry by DNN: límbs and literati in exile

 A VIEW OF TREES, artwork by Ng.Uyen C2018 pastel and enamels on paper 

MY VIETNAMESE POETRY -- three pieces about Vietnam -- Ba Bai Tho tieng Viet (PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO READ ON, MY EXPOSITORY ENGLISH TEXT)

TAY, CHÂN, KẺ SĨ -- LIMBS AND LITERATI IN EXILE

"Dang tay với thử trời cao thấp

Xoạc cẳng đo xem đất ngắn dài"

(Thơ Hồ Xuân Hương)

Dang tay chẳng thấy trời đâu cả

Xoạc cẳng không đo được đất cằn

Tôi thẹ.n thân tôi không đảm lược

Cầm bằng khách trú để nương thân

Tay tôi vì vắng đường tơ ấy

Chân thiếu đôi hài của cổ nhân

Tay chân có khác chi cây cỏ

Ven bờ ruộng nước của người dân

Đúng ra tay phải là cây bút

Chân giữ vòng quay của tử sinh

Xin lấy tay chân làm cốt nhục

Bầu bí? Rồng Tiên? Một chữ tình

Wendy Nicole Dương Như Nguyện

(Copyright 2012)

TÔI HỎI TÔI QUESTION FOR THE SELF

Một cánh chim bay, một góc trời

Trần gian đôi phút đã tăm hơi

Mỹ nhân không thoát vòng kim cổ

Tài nữ không ngoài cuộc nổi trôi

Một cánh sao sa, một quãng đời

Dưới kia trái đất tỷ con người

Trên cao nhật nguyệt hai vầng tỏ

Phật Chúa đâu rồi? Tôi hỏi tôi

Dương Như Nguyện

Oct. 2012

Copyright 2012

NUÔI MỘNG GIỮA ĐÁM TRO TÀN -- THE DREAM THAT RISES FROM THE ASH

Như cánh quỳnh hoa mộng hướng dương

Tìm ai, tìm mãi một mùi hương

Ngó xuôi để thấy đời quay ngược

Ngó ngược ... không xuôi cuộc hý trường

Tình lụy làm chi hỡi Tố Như ?

Ba trăm năm trước lệ còn dư

Một thiên bạc mệnh, cung ai oán

Hai chữ tâm tài, rõ thực hư

Bình Bắc làm chi hỡi Nguyễn Vương ?

Bốn mươi năm ngoạ.i thử can trường

Ai Tư Vãn ấy, sầu muôn thuở

Gò Đống Đa này, mộng viễn phương

Tài tuấn làm chi hởI họ Cao ?

Tiếng thơm hậu thế có là bao

Ngòi bút văn phong tri Hán Đế

Để nước sông Hoàng cũng xiết đau

Ô ngắn làm sao một kiếp người

Anh thư nào thấy ở trên đời

Ví như tráng sĩ hào quang kiếm

Chờ đấng minh quân rủ trướng mời

...

Em cứ tung tăng giữa kiếp người

Trái tim kỳ nữ trót đầy vơi

Hình như tráng sĩ vừa buông kiếm

Giữa đống tro tàn, viễn khách ơi !!!

Dương Như Nguyện

Copyright 2012

POSTCRIPT:

chi cu tung tang giua cuoc doi, giot sau khong ha?n phai day voi, mac cho thien ha ai buong kiem, rieng chi moi son van mim cuoi..."

EXPOSITION:

Que Huong Ngay Mai ̣QHNMĐ is a web forum with only Vietnamese postings...In fact, in music, they expressly forbid the posting of non-Vietnamese [American] music. Occasionally, they have been patrons of my poetry since 2012, accumulating about 11,000 hits so far.. Above are three pieces taken from postings by QHNM, which I hope may ring a nostalgic note for my Vietnamese readers...

First, I speak of "tay/chan" -- limbs, the blood ties, tools of the labor mass: humans can't LABOR without limbs ̣̣ (tay, chan). Limbs carry out the brain's directives. I also speak of "ke si," the "literati," a concept from feudal Vietnam that produced civil servants and national leadership in aid of the "King" (the last "literati" national exam given by the king was abolished in the early part of the 20th century, when, to produce native techno- and bureau-crats for colonialism, French education took over a country in which about 90% were farmers without formal education...As you know, the later part of the 20th century marked VietNam as the situs for a "proletariat" revolution, paving the way for communism in an agricultural country that hardly knew who Karl Marx was. Yet, as of now, Vietnam has consistently called for in influx of the "gray matter" (chat xam) rather than pure labor of the proletariat...I would say that Ho Xuan Huong (whom I quoted) is my example of the Vietnamese literati, except that she never sat for the king's exam, and of course she never ran for office...like Hillary Clinton!

Second, I go back to the spiritual quest: the self in the cosmos. Vietnamese society has rested on Buddhism and later Christianity. But, in the middle of such religious hybrid has always been the internal quest: outward ancestors' worship and inward self-discipline called "nhan le, nghia, tri tin etc." a product of Confucianism, plus efforts at harmony between the self and the larger universe (the "Way (Tao) or Dao" of Taoism). And, of course, the 20th century marked the introduction of... socialism-cum-capitalism (Is there such a thing???). Everything then becomes...chaos like...my L'Art Brut!!!!

Last (but not least), I borrow symbolism from Vietnamese history and literature to speak of "dreams..." (my phoenix who rises from the ashes..."). Vietnamese readers hopefully will recognize the metaphors I made to Nguyen Du, Cao Ba Quat, and Quang Trung Nguyen Hue..."Em" here, the female motif -- the narrator/protagonist/antagonist -- is not a nude female crying alone to her heart (while men...crave for...her body (see my share of Trung Pham's female motif). Now, in my poetry, "EM" the female motif simply dances across life's fatalism, or in "cuoc hy truong" (i.e., on Shakespeare's metaphorical stage).

I thought these three "romanticized" pieces utilizing ancient concepts as symbolism for Vietnam's socio-political dilemmas today may be appropriate for, and readily understood by, Vietnamese readers (if not all, then some, I barely hope), all in the aftermath of the U.S. election -- a system alien still to Vietnam...

QUE SERA SERA...

While I speak of history and socio-politics, poetry is all about the heart and sentiments. I only hope that those Vietnamese readers who like my poetry will join me in the heart...

Here they are, my three pieces of Vietnamese poetry (I promise... love poems, the next time).

(for artwork, I gave you my few minutes' work influenced by cubism. I added lines to the original sketch and color blocks, hence transforming it into another piece which I call "people: dancers the labor mass." All laborers are dancers on the stage of life -- all such sweats and tears to create something beautiful and useful for humanity in exchange for bread and rice (com gao) (see Martha Graham's dances, an American product divorced from traditional ballet. I admire her work; so I also give you Martha Graham, a Nobel nominee).

The colors of fall

 

v/d hoa sen va y nghia cua su thanh cao tuyet voi

 hoa sen la quoc hoa cua VN thi phai?  va la hoa cua Phat.

viec so sanh nguoi voi hoa sen vi the phai la ca mot trong trach cua con nguoi, mot cong trinh cua van hoa.. 

Gan bun ma chang hoi tanh mui bun.

Sen lai cung cap thuc an rat thanh nha~ cho con nguoi:  hat sen!  

La sen la su dum boc cua long nhan ai, goi gem tro.n tam tu, cu~ng tro thanh la goi dung co.m an. 

Cuo^'ng sen:  

Tiec thay chut nghia cu cang...

Dau lia ngo y con vuong to long

ND

HS vo tinh hay co y ve cuong sen rat thang, phai noi la qua' thang o hai bong sen dang truoc? 

Hoa Sen tuong trung cho nguoi quan tu.  Quan tu thang than, khong so set, va khong luon cui.  Lay chu NHAN lam dau. 

Ca doi nguoi co gang di theo nguoi quan tu -- hinh anh hoa sen --  la uoc vong cao lon nhat cua van hoa Khong Manh ma chua chac chung ta da lam duoc, cho du co gang ca mot doi de theo duoi....

tho DNN bilingual poetry VietEng

MINIMAL INSPIRATION, enamels markers and ink pen on paper, N.UND copyright 2018

Như tên một bài hát: Trưng Vương khung cưả muà thu

Đâu đấy muà thu, lịm giưã thời gian

Khung cưả trường xưa giọt nắng hanh vàng

Áo bay bay cuối trời nhung nhớ

Tóc rẽ ngôi trần, tóc chảy mênh mang

Em đứng bên naỳ trông qua đồi hoang

Dường như có gió ở trên ngàn

Môi phù dung đổi màu ly biệt

Những sợi vô hình trắc trở em mang

Em có còn mang dung nhan muà thu

Từ nay giấc mộng vướng sương mù

Trưng Vương thôi hết người  đưa đón

Từ bưã xuân về khóc tháng tư

 Bảy lăm DNN

AO DAI LAC GIUA RUNG THU, N.UND COPYRIGHT 2016,
enamels and water color on paper, with caligraphy in ink pen 

three  poe`mes en prose: Three poems in prose:

CHÀO ĐÔNG SƯƠNG, VỚI MIÊN TRƯỜ̉NG BÙI GIÁNG

Saigon mưa nắng mênh mang

Miên trường Buì Giáng, ngút ngàn Đông Sương

Tiễn nhau ở cuối con đường
Muà Đông đối mặt, miên trường ẩn sau
Trắng nguyên một mái như lau
Cây xanh cũng trắng toát màu tang thương -- dnn
Trắng như tà áo Đông Sương

Hỏi ngay Bùi Giáng, miên trường ở đâu? 

FROM A VIETNAMESE WOMAN: I will see you off on the road of poetry


Yes I will see you off, at the end of such road where future divides and people unite, where winter spreads before our wings and eternal sleep hides behind our back. Yes I will see you off, no regret, no hesitation, no speculation. The road ends and we happily bend. Onto eternity we cough and up the mountains of Sisyphus we laugh, 'cause love is like that cough which cannot be hidden, nec amor nec tussis celatur, and sufferings are like the roar of the Gods' recalcitrance. Hail, and End. To Emily we send our moss and to Hamlet we set him free. Yes I will see you off yet to you I hold on, with spirit so sacred, with memory as disappearance and our arms as tolerance. At the end of such road we toast to Baudelaire and upon his elbows I impress my kiss and collapse upon his hips, and I will see you off for Vietnam's Bui Giang the Guru and his kindred Nguyen Du the fated poet, their six-eight verses that become the country, three hundred years before and a thousand footsteps thereafter all rushed toward the rain of fate, so humid and damp our dreams on ground yet broken, and off we go farewell my hero until the new beginning, where we the crowd or just the two of us alone shall meet...Recommencing.


July 2020 copyrighted n.und






LOTUS AT SUNSET N.UND COPYRIGHT 2020, enamels on paper with digital infusion



FROM ANCIENT VIETNAM TO 2021'S AMERICA:
THE DYING VIETNAMESE POET AND HIS LADY OF DREAM

"Tiếc thay chút nghĩa cũ càng

Dẫ́u lià ngó ý còn vương tơ lòng" 

Tiếc ai ngọc bể tơ chùng
Ngó sen khô gãy, lạnh lùng trăng treo
Có nàng vòì võĩ̉̃ trông theo
Xẻ đôi, thiếu phụ bên đèo vọng phu -- dnn
Vầng trăng nếu xẻ làm tư

Bốn câu tứ tuyệt, thiên thu đợi chờ...

Yes break the jade and cut the Koto strings, let the lotus roots dry out and the half-moon frozen, those symbols of an extinct East all meaningless now in this exiled fate, you and me or a hopeless unison of people abandoned and left to rot in our tomb of memory, once our destination to reach. Reaching where, or go back where, so let's burn it all, the book of rites, 'cause fear has settled in and our souls become our prison. Call out for Nguyen Du the ancient Vietnamese poet, once and for all and ask him where that beautiful lady of the harp was buried in his fossils of a world that's no more. You and me the readers of ancient rhymes that test our time, in America. You and me travellers who end nowhere yet still looking for traces of the broken jade, the harp without a tune, the wilting lotus roots that fail to connect, and the half-moon already lost in Galaxy's confusion. So what's the point then of calling out for Nguyen Du the dying poet and mourning his path of ambassadorship to China in hopes of leveling out the imbalance of power while the Statue of the Warrior’s Awaiting Wife no longer exists, the warrior will never return, and Nguyen Du will forever tear for his lady friend who is the dream, 'cause a lingering silk thread produced by one broken lotus root, flickering in Galaxy's confusion, is never enough to mend and bridge stars that shoot to die. Call me crazy, yet I hold on to that one scintilla of hope: one shooting star that never dies, in America.

July 2020 copyrighted n.und

HUẾ CỦA MẸ TÔI

                     
"Chiều chiều trước bên Văn Lâu…”

Huế của hôm nào, Huế ở đâu?

Một trùng dương cách, mẹ tôi sầu

Còn ai han hỏi, mình răng rứa

O nớ mô rồi, tóc kẹp sau

 

Huế của bao người, lạc những đâu?

Nhắc dòng Hương cũ, mẹ tôi sầu

Tiếng ai hò hát trên sông vắng

Như tiếng linh hồn ke? khóc nhau

 

Huế có quên người Huế thuở xưa

Một lần ly tán, mẹ tôi chờ

Xót xa kẻ ngóng đầu thôn Vỹ

Có trách, xin về khóc với thơ …

Dương Như Nguyện

copyright 1976-1995-2005

 

OUR MOTHER FROM HUE

Oh sister of America who is doing your Marilyn Monroe act in a heated swimming pool in rainy Seattle or snowy Manhattan but who was actually born in Hue, here is what I write on our mother and our birthplace:  "What a great gift to me that my beautiful mother is from Hue. She is the essence of our old and quiet imperial city. Even when Hue was bombarded with gunfires and rockets, filled with wailing sounds of survivors crying their shrieking cries for the dead, perked up with New Year’s celebration, or faded away like funerals at the finale of sunset, in my memory the city always remained stoicly quiet and humble, because quietude and humility were  Hue’s nature. Like my mother’s nature. The city spoke my mother’s soft voice to me, and the city cried its transparent tears to me like my mother cried her silenced sobs to me. Even when Hue was full of young visitors from foreign land, the city remained old like the toothless smile of a native matriarch who had lost trace of her rows of descendants. My mother was like that. She could be quiet like the smallest of sign. At times she was lost and scared and trembled like the spirit of her old suffering Hue. When she spoke, she uttered tiny words in between the shortness of breath. And then she could cry and lament her heart out, like thousands of Hue citizens crying after massacres, just as I am crying for her now. The exact same way, mother and daughter, each bearing Hue in us, isn’t that amazing? Yet, just like stoic Hue, my mother endured. Like a heroine, like history, like places that were thousands of years old on this earth, my mother endured. And her dignity, just the way she sat in her wheelchair, pensively looking at me walking around preparing her breakfast, with her slender hands yarning together on the table where her meal was set, her dignity surpassing all the aristocracy there was in the whole world. Let me remind you, before her death, she could see. But she could not speak. The brain hemorrhage had damaged her throat, her ability to swallow and speak. So she could only speak with her eyes. The pair of eyes that holds thousands of unspoken words. Her brain hemorrhage was like Hue’s two massacres, about a hundred years apart, which silenced its citizens’ ability to express in words, except those wailing cries that its citizens couldn’t help but uttering. The cries they couldn’t forget, so the eyes of Hue shone on pages of history. All those unspoken tales…

"Oh yes, before illness or during illness, our mother was the essence of ancient imperial Hue from head to toe. From here to there. From outside to inside. From close to far. From childhood to adulthood and to old age. From life to death.  Hue was in our mother, and she became Hue. And now I inherit it all. But all I can do is tearing as I type down here in make-believe Vietnam of humid winterless Texas. While you swim up there in cold America’s heated urban waves."

 

GIÃ TỪ TÊN TUỔI KHI CÀNH HOA CHỢT TÍM

 

Đã đến lúc giã từ tên với tuổi

Đ́óng băng luôn ng̣ọn lửa cuả Tiên Rồng

Nhìn chung quanh rác rưởi ngập trời Đông 

Lấp cưả biển tơi bời bao cá chết

 

Đã đến lúc mù loà trong  mắt biếc

Vì tim người đã cạn hết lòng nhân

Trên trời cao…Phật Chuá cũng bâng khuâng

Đặt dấu hỏi: biết bao giờ…giác ngộ

 

Ở đâu đó, đau vùi trong gác trọ

Rổ̀i lê chân xuống phố, gục bên bờ̉  

Ngước mặt nhìn, môi mấp máy bài thơ: 

“Đêm có nắng, và cành hoa chợt tím…”

 

Dương Như Nguyện copyrighted 2017

 

bilingual poetry TÂM SỰ HÒN VỌNG PHU -- HEARTBREAK OF VIETNAM'S AWAITING WIFE

Artwork by Ng.Uyen
original in enamels
digital infusion
copyrighted 2014-2020 

ENGLISH VERSION:

HEARTBREAK OF VIETNAM'S AWAITING WIFE

I don’t just stand here to count time

Like tears, time flows by old towns that no longer shine,

Under midnight stars

Into rivers

Out to such immense sea

I let my tears be…

Over me,

the fogged moon’s no longer free

I don’t just stand here to greet passers-by

My body splits such border line,

My hair the Red River’s silt,

yarned into our homeland’s quilt

The nation’s sword sparkles into green jade

My hair whitens: my cry for the gloom of our fate 

Yet, I don’t just stand here to mourn for nationhood

The story of our first Hung King, now gone for good

‘cause tomorrow, like me, pray to stonify

Breakage of the country: the nocturne of my cry

So I don’t just stand here, on top of this mountain

To shed tears for the Tran emperor, or relive the ancient

If the people miss the glory of the past,

simply burn incense for our tomb, and hope its light will last...

WND copyrighted 2014-May 2020

ABOUT POETS AND POETRY 

my poetry, place of refuge,  not to be touched
as it is beyond reproach
since it is the harvest's last stalk
from a ricefield meant to be mine
my rice: 
my sweat, blood, flesh, bone...my cry...

DNN May 2020 

HON VONG PHU: A JOURNEY OF MUSIC, POETRY, PAINTING AND MEMORY

Wendynicolenn Duong

May 13, 2016 · 

NHO' VE^` HO`N VO.NG PHU -- MY PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO VIETNAMESE COMPOSER OF CHORAL SYMPHONY LE^ THUONG (1914-1996)

Ballad of the Warrior's Wife Ho`n Vo.ng Phu 2 by Le^ Thuong
live performance 2005, Studio Hall,Lamont School of Music, University of Denver
voice and English lyrics/libretto: Uyen Nicole Duong (Nhu Nguyen)
piano accompaniment: Le Tuyen

ENGLISH LYRICS

A hundred years since then have passed
A hundred sounds echoed memory
the wind so far has cast
her soul into eternity

So the legend goes
the tale of her sorrow
Her tears go on to flow
into the sea below

POETRY IN VIETNAMESE: MONOLOGUE OF THE STATUE OF THE AWAITING WIFE

Hi`nh nhu nga`y nay Ho`n Vo.ng Phu kho^ng co`n nu~a, chi? co`n trong tri' tuo?ng cu?a chu'ng ta, nhu~ng nguo`i co`n no'i tie^'ng Vie^.t. To^i vie^t nhu~ng ca^u duo'i da^y cho su. ca^m ni'n cu?a hi`nh a?nh Ho`n Vo.ng Phu, truo'c va^.n me^.nh tang thuong cu?a ca'i go.i la giang son ga^'m vo'c...

Do^`ng dang co' pho^' Ky` Lu`a
Co' na`ng To^ Thi. co' chu`a Tam Thanh

Ne^'u Ho`n Vo.ng Phu no'i duo.c, to^i nghi~ rang nguo`i da`n ba` hoa' da' ne^'u to^`n ta.i vo'i tho`i gian, thi` ba` se~ no'i nhu~ng lo`i na`y :

TÂM SỰ HÒN VỌNG PHU

Tôi chẳng đứng đây để đếm thời gian
Chảy như dòng nước, lệ đôi hàng
Đổ qua phố tịch, sông vào biển
Dưới một trời sao, mây phủ trăng

Tôi chẳng đứng đây để đợi người qua
Thân là quan ải, tóc phù sa
Gươm kiếm long lanh màu thạch bích
Bạc trắng vòng đai, ta khóc ta

Tôi chẳng đứng đây để tế non sông
Đã phôi pha hết chuyện vua Hùng
Nay mai hóa đá người vong quốc
Gãy mất cơ đồ, tượng đứng trông

Tôi chẳng đứng đây, trên đỉnh phù vân
Xót thương hồn phách của vua Trần
Nếu ai có nhớ tình sông núi
Xin thắp cây hương trước mộ phần

UN Dương Như Nguyện
Copyright 2014

PICTORIAL:
1) AN IMAGE OF THE STATUE OF THE AWAITING WIFE, NORTH VIETNAM;

2) HAMILTON HALL, LAMONT SCHOOL OF MUSIC, UNIVERSITY OF DENVER (WHERE PIANIST LE TUYEN AND I SANG HO`N VO.NG PHU -- THE CONCERT WAS HELD FOR THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY AND LOCAL AUDIENCE IN DENVER, COLORADO)

3) HO`N VO.NG PHU THO`I DA.I CU?A CHU'NG TA: Pregnancy, Nguo`i da`n ba` mang thai, artwork by UND copyright 2013 (su. thai nghe'n a^'y co' pha?i chang se la tuong lai va hy vo.ng co`n la.i cu?a co^.i nguo^`n va` da^'t nuo'c????)