Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh’s Poems

Some best Poems

Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh
Edited by Gjekë Marinaj

ENTER THE WORLD

I do not know whether I am a green bird
with spread wings encrusted jewels
Or a slippery eel standing up with her tail?
Bewilderedly enter the world
Missing your earth passionately.

I held my breath in imagination for hours
To live and overcome the restless of sprouting buds
Broken this silence
By the other silence
Quieter and deeper
Let me know,
are they the same wavelength?
Like when I cry
The river remains breathless for a few seconds.
Regretting for self-murder of water drop on the grass.

On the cold sand beach
Waves are eating the ripening first fruits
Like my eyes have just cried
When trembling saying that
In front of the absolutely pure ground
I will take off this sacred body
Just to become a little flower
Grows on the world’s retina
And the blood from petal of flowers
spill for salvation.

WHEN YOU TOLD ME THAT YOU LOVED ME

The world will lose at least one word, one expression
The night loses the meaning of night
It is the devoted burning of candles
I melt following its wax that lights my toes
And seeing outside darker and darker
A girl hides her face paved with broken bricks
A shadow of lonely soul runs over me scarily
A feeble kitty asks her mom for breastfeeding in the reed
A bouquet of flowers has stopped breathing on my hands
(Please let it breathe on the ground
Rather than being cut across the trunk for romance)
Anyway, I am not as pellucid as a water drop
Do not put me higher than the petals
Somewhere in the forest of faith
Capturing the fellers
Let me reassure myself, let it grow green.

Your kisses sprinkle holy water on the moonlight
I realize me indebted to the clouds not time to light
Love takes a lot of breath in the universe
I just want to be as simple as insects
Love each other with the lyrics as lament
Making all whom not falling in love not to disintegrate
Making darkness not to be thicker behind the bright fire
Let blow out the candles and bury flowers in a water vase!

I wish the world changes nothing when you tell that you love me
So I lean on you and turn into a mint leaf…

LITTLE LA LA

La La has become a small butterfly
The ground is full of flower’s footprints
The colostrum saturates into white dawn
Sweet aroma even on the wings of stork

La La has become a small butterfly
Hug the soft grass with dewdrops
Whether the singing of bird come through earthen windows
In the bell deliriously learning how to cry and laugh

La La has become a small butterfly
Hiding after the curtain of autumn
The winds also become as relatives
I come here! I am here…

The room shrinks into a cradle
Silver-haired midwives sway cradle lightly
The old bed gets fluttered, and me too
The silver moonlight is boiling on the medicine cup

I am a painting colored fully
The fetus’s sound like as ripening fruits lull the tree
The wind roots along the wall and passionately sings
Marvelous rhythm rises up, for a moment:
The stars overlap on the armpit of leaves
Breasts stretch out among the sky
The intestines get connected together endlessly
Dry hearts begin to gurgle
The hands sprout more fingers and hold tight together…

THE DAY WORLD FAR AWAY

I wake up as a clear lake with its corners quiet absolutely
Where do you bring a piece of heaven?
Remaining the breath of passionate star here
Dropping to my hands five star wings.

You shine on me every moment
The dewy rose aroma
The erotic sound of insects
The heaven gates blink their eyes to see each other…

But it is merely an illusion
I am shocked to realize that
The larynx of earth suddenly loses sound
No longer reflecting the shadow of world on my chest
The dry lips as withered flower petals
Blowing out a very big candle every dawn
The bed by cloud stretches out endlessly
Has slipped away from the hugs of octopus
I fell into the white retinal area
My body become invisible
Paralyzed the broadcasting function
The seeds have sown unconsciously
Following me, following me and covering all of my moving spaces

I cannot touch to the extreme quiet in myself
Forget the way to my inner home that locked
I am a guest of earth with my bare hands
Walking alone in a small boat
To somewhere no shore
Floating freely with white lotus soul
The wind covers me by your air.

 

THE GLINT

Such a miraculous tear trace
When you look
As a light rain has just stopped
The first sunbeam lights up my cheeks

Naturally
I borrowed that glint
Lighting the birthday candles
Embroidering the shape of flower
Mirroring myself on the water surface
Greeting the bird, the leaf, the beggar
Soothing even the cheerless wound for long time…

Living beings in universe moves gently
and look at each other affectionately
And clouds
Gathering to transform into many shapes
Thousands of the small world of love.

 

THE MIRACLE

Whist! The bird has just flied to the other branch
The wind blows four seasons among thin fingers

Whist! Dew is pouring into the rain
The dripping rhythm has just to be newborn

Whist! Custard apple opens its eyes on time
The trace of flowers is primordial as at the end of forest

Whist! Listen carefully to the vibrating of ground
Tree roots rise up the ripening resin to bake the sun

Whist! Cloud. Whist! Sand. Whist! Me
Like as the rubric though anyhow to spin round but still a cube.

 

BEAUTY OF THE MOTIONLESS

Sometimes you are silent
So long
In the deepest bottom
Ocean of the non-verbal expressions

You are a dark red coral
Beside a radiant pearl-oyster
Not touch to each other
Silent forever
Not care about the high-up rising of waves
Dipping the body and soul
Into the absolutely pure private space
The bottomless deep layer

Not know also
On the head,
Where the ground opens its mouth
The blue jay
Hidden your language
Underneath her lily-white breast
Then pouring it into the newborn-crystallized snow flower
In the most salience of dawn.

 

THE DRIFTING MUSICAL NOTES

Silver night
Both of ants
Touch to each other on the stretching wire
Such gentle my breath
Beard of ants are vibrating

Who painting
The dark-inked lake surface
Moonlight sparkling on lotus leaf border
Frog sleeps with his one eye
Dewdrops are still on cheeks of a little bird

The rest notes in my mind
Flying down this painting
Five beats, ten beats, numberless of beats…
Nature picture is harmonious as a no-word sutra
I recite my name, my hair, my body…
Dropping my tears on millions
of my living beings that are appearing
We are used to be of each other, in each other,
borrowed each other in many lives
Used to be extremely sorrow and happy
I linked to me into long series
Colors of skin and blood of universe
Incubated in bubbles of time
Have never been born and never been disappeared

I am precisely universe
Universe covers me
I cover universe
Universe not outside me.

 

 

KOWTOWING TO WIND

I still walk on the moon, when my feet are colder and brighter. The faces showing numberless of doorways. They are opening and throwing out all things not mine, into the wind’s mouth. Now my footsteps and mood are no longer announced. Seeing the flower’s branches smiling quietly on my hands. Remembering the cramp this morning, a spasm, a simple pain. Remembering the first drop of blood seeped onto a little leaf, when pricked by a thorn, but no longer panicked. Both of legs still walk and stop together. Toes are blooming as flowers freely. The very clear sky is diving into a very pure stream. I wonder if I am walking or sitting on an underwater moon.

As the night seeps into ground deeper and deeper, I slowly walk to the oxygen-rich garden in early morning. The tree bends its body and hugs me tightly. I hear its strong heartbeats that cracked the dry bark. In the air, the pure white resin flows like as the pure liquefied light. Is it the rare tears in ecstasy? My feet wear a lot of dewdrops and green leaves. Dare not to walk on.

I kowtow for pardon in front of four seasons spring summer autumn winter, in front of twenty-four hours of mindfulness. Because sometimes I am floating outside the boundary of space and time. I breathe in and out deeply. Knowing that the shadow of time is rushing to bury my old face ahead. However, unscathed. In front of wind, many eyes on the body are closing and opening flexibly.

 

 

 

THE LADDER

There is a ladder between reality and dreaming
We slowly go up and down together
This dating place
Your hands are windy
Hugging me so my body as a tree shakes and rustles
Making fire on our lips
Please oscillate as towards swirling ladder pillars
Both of us transform into a small house with autumn leaves
Our eyes are the doorways gently closed
Among halfway of space and time’s fiction
No one finds out, no one knocks our door, or calls our name
Belly of darkness is glowing in warm ash
The flowers are bobbing gracefully behind the curtain
The aroma rises up, the sound purifies
Pieces of color mix into colorless
Rain falls on the leaking roof
Leaves scattered fly the white tree
The small universe we assembled
So joyful and tottering!

Walking out of the last ladder’s step
The confused eyes bewilderedly wide-open
We both let go of the miracle…
To hide ourselves among normal life as strangers,
Your lips as fluttering butterfly’s wings fly away.

 

ABOUT NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

Born in 1991, Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh is poet and literary translator who now lives in Hai Phong City, Vietnam. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Hanoi National Economic University.
She was awarded “The Gold Moon of Alexandrine Prize,” the highest prize given by The Elder Newspaper and Website lucbat.com (co-organizer), under the auspices of Vietnamese Fatherland Front Central Committee and Buddisht Sangha of Vietnam. In addition, she won the Second Prize in a poetry contest awarded by “Văn nghệ quân đội” literary magazine for the years of 2015-2016.
She has translated and published two books, a children’s book titled “The twin dolls to the earth” (Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2016) written by Milutin Đuričković (Serbia) and a poetry collection called “Wings of the darkness” (Publishing House of The Vietnam Writer’s Association, 2018) composed by Raed Aljishi (Saudi Arabia).
Nguyễn Thị Thùy Linh has translated from English into Vietnamese (and published in many Vietnamese newspapers and magazines) numerous international poems authored by Dr. Gjekë Marinaj (Albania – America), Raymond Keen (America), Lars Vargö (Sweden), Rati Saxena (India), Metin Cengiz and Müesser Yeniay (Turkey), Fethi Sassi (Tunisia), Asror Allayarov and Makhfuza Imamova (Uzbekistan), Dimitris P. Kraniotis (Greece), and Raed Aljishi (Saudi Arabia)…