By Phan Tan Hai
Holding his alms bowl, the monk walks on,
his robe stitched from clouds across the sky;
we send him back to the mountain corner—
how many partings in a single life.
Standing, sitting—all for the people,
his chest still aching from blades once struck;
tears flooding the three realms,
Avalokitesvara embodied in his form.
A time he left, burdened with sorrow,
feet weary along both banks of the Ganges;
turning back, he awakened as Minh Trí,
his hair falling like dust along the road.
— For my friend Nguyen Cong Bang,
later a Theravada monk with the Dharma name Minh Tri.
2025.03.06
Dear God,
I humbly kneeled in front of you.
Please blessed and protected me.
I have lived many years,
Why did I develope this feelings?
To someone who had heart of coals.
I wished I could resolve and remove,
All the emotional pain,
And stick to my single life's plan.
Tomorrow will be another day again,
From sun rises to sun sets.
All I want is to remember how to forget,
That would be the best solution.
Time will pass and heal all wounds.
But how soon, indeed how soon.
There was a saying in one of my language,
To an old husband, young wife was liked heaven.
To an old wife, young husband meant payments.
Amen.
Troi cao co thau,
Cuoi xin nguoi ban phuoc cho doi con.
Qua bao tuoi doi.
Moi gap duoc nguoi minh men yeu.
Thuong nho yeu chieu.
Nho nhung doan truong xot da,
Uoc gi co the to ra,
Dem long nho thuong nguoi dan nuoc la,
Roi thoi gian cung se troi qua
Moi tinh lan dan suot cuot doi ta.
Trot yeu nguoi khong yeu minh
Chi la gay dan cuoc tinh gian do.
Yeu chi cho kho doi ta.
Co le minh pham kiep dao hoa.
Co ngay no se troi qua
De duoc song mot minh thoi tha.
Chong gia vo tre la tien
Chong tre vo gia la tien bo ra
Night after night, images flicker on the tube
Horrific images of ‘the enemy’ dying
Dying ‘Agent-Orange’ deaths
~ Seems America can do no right…
Night after night, images darken the screen
Palestinian women and children
Starving, dying in droves obscene
~ Seems Israel can do no right…
Night after night, viewing the horror of war
Provide no context for what came before
No videos of Communist Vietnam’s brutality
No memory of Israelis burned and butchered, October 7 fatalities…
Watching a steady stream of ‘enemy’ deaths
Viewers become exhausted, out of breath
Gradually they identify with the foe
Cheering on Ho, (Ho, Ho Chi Minh)
Jeering at Bibi and (Genocide) Joe
‘Truth’ is only on the screen, or so it seems
~ History projects a wider beam
after Ho Chi Minh
I
The stone basin holds
still water. The still water
drinks the arid sponge
as rays of pure energy
slake their thirst on
the ebon wings of crows
II
Yangtze flows from widows peak
pooling briefly in the lock
of a tired eye. Dirt
and salt cry brackish tears
before leaping from sallow chin,
like rain from languid boughs
III
Frogs turn dirges beyond
translucent glass, their croaks
fold and crease the air
putting dusk on the shelf.
Aphids eat the pithy stalks
and drown in sudden morning dew.
IV
No callused hand washes
in the same basin twice
V
The kettle boils, pallid
phantoms push through iron
walls. Prescient tea leaves show
time’s current—fish swim
upstream. Two worlds away,
a young girl draws a bath.
VI
Forehead donning liquid rosaries,
each dawn anoints a king anew
Each afternoon, grains of rice
cling to one another, fulfilled.
Ink spills quickly each evening,
the white page laps at pitch waters.
VII
Eleemosynary sunlight burns
through the keyhole, tumblers
click in the lock. The stone basin
is once again filled with still water.
Watch out for that ideology
Bad effects on your psychology
It bleeds into our sociology
‘Til we hate one another’s biology
Let’s make a pact
To get our facts together
Have no ideology
Whatsoever
Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Amin –
Terminating angels of some fantastic machine
Marx and Weber and Keynes and Rand
Raised a fist of thought in hand
But Peter and Paul and the whole Roman Church
Didn’t wanna leave anyone in the lurch
Ho Chi Minh shoved me on a Mekong barge
Meanwhile, the Castros were living large
Let’s make a pact
To get our facts together
Have no ideology
Whatsoever
Apostles, ideologues, acolytes –
Whatever gets you thru the glassy night
The world is your battleground and you must fight
Just watch for the mines under your short sights
Looking at a map and trying figure out the right route through Saigon streets. Foreign maps are hard enough to figure out. A local denizen takes pity on my plight. He tries in broken English to explain how to navigate District 1 and find the brewpub. He doesn’t lose his cool at my opaque facial expressions. He grabs a brown paper bag and begins drawing a map. He has streets and rudimentary drawings of significant landmarks. He uses arrows to show the proper path. He also highlights a few worthwhile sites. The map proved to be a heaven send. Everything was right where it was supposed to be. And through Siracha fingerprints and fish oil stains; it guided me through District 1 for several days.
Ho Chi Minh aside
the Siracha fingerprints
served as a beacon
In gilded hours and yet again
I still hear the same refrain:
"Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh,
Out with the Yanks,
Let the Viet Cong in!"
Ah me! Times change and I am old.
Lest youth's first ardor, e'er grow cold,
Henry the Fifth is what I'll teach.
Boris, Boris, to the breach.
"Mogg, Mogg. Jacob Rees-Mogg!
Let's hear the bark of the British bull-dog."
FOR MY WIFE'S BIRTHDAY 04032017
(For my beloved wife on her birthday 04032017)
I love you more than anything else in my universe
On your birthday, I wish you everything wonderful like the verse
Let's celebrate your life and overcome all of the curse
This is our love and nothing can reverse
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Orlando April 3, 2017
As Arkansas could never be Alaska,
so no-one wants Montana to be Maine.
Could North Dakota claim to be Nebraska?
Can Vachel Lindsay double for Hart Crane?
If Sing Sing isn’t Appalachian Spring,
and Justin Bieber can’t be Frankie Laine,
or William Burroughs isn’t Stephen King,
then Terminator Two’s not Citizen Kane.
If Fifty Shades is not The House of Usher,
and Ginsberg couldn’t write the Wayside Inn,
why should you think that China’s part of Russia,
or Kim Il Sung is also Ho Chi Minh?
Why should they be colluding, callous elves?
Why can’t they be as different as ourselves?
HOPE
I am planting the tree of my best hope
To get back to my own feet of telescope
Are you painting your own microscope
Don't just assume anything about something to cope
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 7, 2017
PEOPLE
Please let it go and love other people
Put ourselves and our soul under the steeple
All of needle is all of devil
Let's focus on how to become a good disciple
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 6, 2017
FLOWER
I am singing the song of flower
To soothe out the mind of the fighter
Everything can be sweet, anything can be bitter
Let's pray for everybody being better
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 5, 2017
VOID
Sometimes the time is just plainly void
Are you pondering about the things destroyed
OH my dear, you are overjoyed
This is the end of the beginning of something paranoid
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 4, 2017
SCIENCE
The month of March is the arch of science
Love is the worst and best defiance
Can you tell me that we are confidence
Let's redefine everything of convenience
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 2, 2017
OIL
I am planting my soul on the soil of oil
To reap the fruit of fury o spoil
Are you thinking about the next phase to toil
Let's go deep down to bring up the sense to coil
Tr?n Minh Hi?n Hien Tran Orlando March 3, 2017
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