S.K.Kelen

Dragon Rising

Red River

Love shimmers on the river
when breeze’s shiver lets the spine know it’s alive
— oh celestial Ha, your name means water
of the rivers, bamboo spirit, one
gold star’s music on a night like this,
peace from the angel sky then
a storm whips off the Eastern Sea,
the rain dissolves balconies
and the flooded streets flow like rivers —
I feel love and cannot help it, the country
Hanoi, most romantic city and river —
everywhere goes a road
older than civilisation, built for battle —
today happy, leads to the bridge above the Red River
where lovers park on motorcycles
hold each other, watch the moon
and boat lights flare on the water,
wish only for true love on cool nights.
A man and a woman and a motorcycle
are one — she hugs him tight
against her as he kick-starts the bike
they ride round the quietening streets
weep all the way back to the river,
gaze together — one golden star gleams, a breeze
shivers love on the moon’s red river.

Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi

I.

Over the road from the three star Galaxy Hotel  is our  hotel,
the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street,
home to many and work place for many more.
A place where anything can happen
and happily usually doesn’t.
People come and go as in an opera,
playing their respective roles
with their own music and destinies —
a Vietnamese opera where life is mostly
happy, not opulent for sure and it takes a war
or typhoon to introduce epic scale tragedy.
A lot of people stay all their lives.
Some are born here, some arrive.
There have been family lines, dynasties in this park
generation to generation doing what they do,
making the best of a hard life.
There’s survival, love and many arguments —
it’s no paradise living in a park.
You could call our struggles ‘day to day’.
Too real for opera. A better metaphor would be
the park as island in a sea of traffic,
trading and communicating with other islands
and some of us look pretty shipwrecked at times.
Better still: A vital node at street level in the new era
open-door state-sanctioned market economy.
How many ways is it possible to say the same thing?
It’s just the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street.
Old Emperor what’s-his-name built it
to graze a flock of golden turtles and the Dragon King
rested here while hunting nine-tailed foxes.
Some days the clouds re-enact the old stories
Almost yesterday the sky lit with the dragon’s breath
we fired at American phantoms and bombers.
We were always bamboo, now we are also steel.


II.

By the time the shadow boxers, slow motion
sword fighters and tai chi exponents arrive
for their early morning workouts
we’re awake and busy, setting up for the day.
Crafts people and traders keep the ancestors’ way.
Blacksmith hammers out drive shafts
shoemaker mends Reeboks and plastic clogs
the shoeshine boys polish for a pittance,
the tinker adjusts tuners, videos, CD-players
and with a few twists of solder
the amplifiers piled on the pavement
will be seen to in no time flat.
The parasol and feather duster vendor
diversified into electric fans years ago
and is looking at new technologies
the man whose father fixed wagon wheels, his job
is to pump up flat bicycle and motor scooter tyres.
The traffic still flows like a flooding river
but its song has changed from bicycles and cyclos ringing
to blaring car horns, engines, the smell of sweat to choking fumes
that blot out so many of the night stars, a great sadness
when the stars are all you will ever own.
There’s a smiling idiot who talks all day into a mobile phone.
Progress! I read in a paper there’s one TV for every nine Vietnamese.
The Phung Street philosopher’s still here,
still like a statue, sitting straight-backed in a teak chair
pointing with a pencil to a page in his book
can answer any question of wisdom East or West,
parlays Français like a Frenchman
and though astrology’s passé, he’ll tell your future too
the children laugh when his thick glasses fog up in the Hanoi stew.
“Enough things remain eternal.”


III.

Hanoi-by-night — the park cloaks love’s ardour
even in moonlight long shadows wrap sheets of privacy
tucking in couples touching steamy nights.
During the hot season be careful where you step!
Daytime there’s no time for serious romance.
Everyone works in the park. The Park Committee
has ensured that no one need beg and beggars,
asked politely to move along, get slipped a few old notes.
As everywhere, we have our serious cadres,
with portable loudspeakers to amplify
their good intentions no one has time to listen to —
too busy, too busy. Marching music!
The children spend an hour or so selling postcards,
maps, pirated novels and phrase books then spread
their school on park benches, the tiny chairs and tables
brought out from under a canopy provided by the council.
I remember the magic of learning algebra — equations
put worlds in balance, physical and spiritual,
running writing made words run like rivers.
And doing schoolwork in the park made it more serious,
you had to get on if you wanted out.
Several of my classmates went on to better things.
Some stayed. Some moved to different parks.
All of us did our duty for our country.
These days electric fans keep serious young heads cool.
(How many parks can boast power points?)
Most of the children who leave the park
come back to visit ‘humble origins’.
Sometimes they’ll come to  me, I’m Huan
decorated veteran, part-time cyclo driver
but my fame rests on being the park’s chief barber
and my young apprentices
cut hair better than anywhere in the city.
These days I mostly check the barber stools
are lined up straight, the mirrors hang
neatly from the wrought iron fence.
A manager! But I’m there when a young genius
gets his clippers jammed in a poor customer’s ear,
I unclip, sweet talk and finish the haircut.
I’ll take the pay when that happens.
The youngster can keep the tip
unless the tip is bigger than the fee
say when it’s a businessman
or tourist letting their head go for a ride
on the wild side — then I keep the tip.
Today one park prodigy, the articulate and beautiful
news reader from VTV-3 my second daughter,
Thuy, has come home to see me.


IV.

Don’t ask me where the park’s food comes from;
except in hard times the stalls near the old stone walls
overflow with the finest and we swap our change
for a good hot meal. As well as rice noodles and eels
there’s beer, ice-cream and coca-cola, fruit from all over Vietnam
and for the past week, apples and pears from New Zealand.
Must be the government doing something right
or someone high up who came from the park, whatever,
the dragon king has never forgotten us.
I’m not crazy, I go inside when a bad storm is on the cards
and every day wash myself and clothes in a hole in the wall
with a tap and a door, called ‘public baths’, four blocks away.
I really never could abide to be inside too long.
Three months working in a munitions factory
was enough — I volunteered my way out and the action
I saw at the front was outdoors all right, down south
fighting invaders, fighting cousins,
where a ghoul let out of a bottle feasted on blood
where our battalion, well — and my wife back in Hanoi
worked on an anti-aircraft gun —
excuse my mentioning the war in this city of love.
Indoor people might wonder what kind of trick
can make the park people smile so much
— your looks of fascinated guilt are touching —
we’re the first to see a rainbow and the stars come out
feel the breeze on a dead hot night it’s true,
and it’s the best rent in town.
A few years ago I was given a job
as hairdresser-in-chief over at the Galaxy.
The clippers were electric, there were oils and shampoo,
tonics and concoctions from New York and Paris,
crisply cleaned towels; not a speck
of rust, not even dust marred the slick scissors —
hell they gave me a terrible jacket and a room
to sleep, but the air conditioning and pastel walls
made me feel I was trapped in a dragon’s tomb.
I quit with a bottle of whisky and went back
to my residence in the thousand star hotel.


V.

“When real luck calls you must answer,” the park
philosopher quoted some ancient wisdom.
I always thought my next address
would be a marble-roofed room in the middle of a rice field.
But the next chapter of my story reads like the denouement
of a Charles Dickens novel the state encouraged us to read,
the part when the well-heeled come to take
the wayward waif home as one of their own.
Hence my daughter’s assignment. I must have mentioned
she was brilliant at school and university, married well
but she made her life in TV — I still find television foolish,
people taking the parts better played by puppets
interrupted by advertisements for things no one can afford
but that’s where the brave and brilliant go these days.
Anyway, Thuy hit the jackpot: two boys in a row
— hai con trai ! hai con trai !
The whole park shook my hand for a week
when news of the second boy got around
toasted good fortune with beer and snake wine
burned incense and phoney money
like it was going out of style
and New Year had arrived six months early.
Two babies now — Thuy’s executive husband
and his family are too busy modernising
the country to mind children and
manage a knick-knack shop in the street.
Her mother, bless her, can’t be there to help out.
My little girl’s taking me home to a life
with a comfortable bed, shiny bathroom, two scooters,
refrigerator, a car — the life they advertise —
to take care of my beautiful grandchildren
for whose love I will gladly endure a happy ending.
The neighbours wave and I wave goodbye.
My kit and I fit fine on the back of Thuy’s scooter.
When we arrive she goes serious and says
‘I forgot to tell you, as well as minding the children
and the shop, you’re expected to tend the ancestors’ shrine
on the roof, and...’ and I’ll take the kids for a morning walk
round the park, afternoons a cyclo ride and ice creams.
Tonight I string my hammock on the roof — the penthouse suite
of the thousand star hotel, a step or two closer to heaven.

Dien Bien Phu

Parachute drop —
I feel the angels’ kisses
the ones we’ll receive
as we march down victory avenue
our glory inscribed in war’s pages
a chapter with the title, Dien Bien Phu.

Words come to mind
to make a paratroopers’ song,
the legionnaires’ marching tune
returning history and pride to France
redemption — Dien Bien Phu —

schoolchildren wave flags
and sing as we march into view
a flurry of medals & the Germans
we never shot we’ll make up for
at Dien Bien Phu.

We’ll lure them in and like baguettes
break those rice farmers apart
their backs broken and then their heart
sunk in the mud of Dien Bien Phu —

Uncle Ho and General Zap
will learn a thing or two
first a lesson in soldiery
second is we came back to stay
at Dien Bien Phu.

Our brave and handsome colonel
promised a month’s leave
in Noumea and the married guys
can go back to France — in Saigon

I’ll array my honey Lotus Blossom
in silk and jewels, stockings from America
and the finest French perfume
when we beat these bastards
making life difficult in Dien Bien Phu.

Chinese Cigarette Lighter

Earth, Sky, Chinese cigarette lighter
what wisdom do you bring?
O Butane ocean — silver corsairs melt,
Cat Ba pirate in a ceramic sea —
you weapon like fortune cookie, slick
piece of manufacturing, tree trembler.
Burn baby, burn. Be comfortable
Be caution and the bar code
Keep all ways of open plume
Astride contact eyes terrible
Keep out of reach of children’d —
interesting advice in practical times
The radio chimes
and the flame when it plumes
makes a torch to the road.

Extreme Orient

A barge adrift the Perfumed River —
reclining beneath a parasol
is the courtesan Tigress waving her fan
— barge floats past village and pagoda,
houses and huts midst bodhi tree
coconut palm, flame flowers
bamboo forest, and flat green
leaves float in the green river
tangle roots and mangrove.
In the morning she bathed in the river.
Her black lacquer fan:
a butterfly’s deep-blue wings
unfold a painting of a courtesan
poised beneath her parasol
keeping the rain off
a barge adrift the Perfumed River.
The woman of the painting on the fan
fanning herself reposing on her divan
rocked by the river’s rice green water,
The farmers move water in the fields,
harvest love songs
to give the famous courtesan
who sees them with affection —
now she has her letters to attend,
the afternoon for reading and to practise English.
The rice rivers rock gently her divan.
Below deck is red silk and velvet bed,
a glass case shelving bottles of shampoo
from every country, freshly folded towels —
calendars signed by football stars
grace the chamber’s walls
and glowing with river’s love
her very odalisqueness —
she can sing the radio love tune
like a goddess, as strong as any warrior
lay serenely the river’s quiet, raindrop plash
the same scene painted on her black lacquer fan
as the fan she is painted on —
a courtesan beneath parasol reclining on a barge
rocked by the gentle river.
She sees pirates from the ocean
come up the river in the eyes of business men —
they sing from the banks of the Perfumed River
she is the one the tigers regard and carp swim after ,
her fan unfolds a silvery painting
of a lady with a fan who from her barge
watches farmers work the land.
It is hot and they toil
all morning — buffalo with moon
horns take a bath in mud — she
watches them from her divan —
the farmers and the buffalo —
she lets fall her fan
and painted on it is the picture,
a woman holding a fan
seated pleasingly on a barge
the rain getting harder on her parasol
and the river starting to flow
attending her letters, she will read in the afternoon
and watch on the land the eternity farmers dream —
her fan like a butterfly spreads its wings
to reveal a courtesan who lets fall her fan —
it keeps going, fan after fan a deep-blue butterfly
unfolding the painted scene — on the river a barge
where, shaded by a parasol is the lady
watching the same lovelorn men
harvest rice songs, the fan opens another
and another — fans within fans until the fan
where, in the picture above the courtesan
and the painted scenery
right up in the sky, an old spirit man
rides the clouds  in a bathtub,
and plays a harp sparking thunderbolts
— a mischievous being powerful in the hands
of a courtesan — twangs the lightning
as he steps cloud to cloud
painted on the next fan up,
all the way up, up through black lacquered fans
one after another opening,
fans growing as they approach the world
of the lady on her barge on the gently rocked divan.
When he meets her the sky blacks out
he is a cruel storm. Pray Mercy
bless us with goddess tears on the Perfumed
River — hold back your blessed typhoon.
The courtesan snaps shut her fan,
swarms of deep-blue butterflies and black moths
are drawn to her  light
the river waves rock gently her divan.
A barge adrift the Perfumed River —
reclining beneath a parasol
is the courtesan Tigress and her fan
— barge floats by village and pagoda,
houses and huts saluted by bodhi tree
coconut palm, flame flowers
bamboo forest, and flat green
leaves float in the green river
tangle roots and mangrove.
In the morning she bathed in the river.

The No-Food Restaurant

I’m Popeye the Sailor
I pay my respects at the no-food cafe
there’s no meat or vegetable
the noodles have been spirited away
and the rice is second-hand,
cold from the previous customers’ bowls.
A boiled carp appears, it tastes like poison
its miserable lips frozen in a slight smile
I place a cigarette butt between them.

Vietnam Circus

Crashing cymbals and sudden lights
bring hush down on the audience
snake lights zig-zag lightning
round the seats and domed roof
— ‘ah’ of delight rises — the audience.
Mirror ball spins wilder and wilder
like one of insanity’s finer moments
Up in the sky a band, all drums, trumpets
and saxophones, swings In the Mood .
Ahem throat clears
hardly a cough,
silence then
spotlight
ringmaster
smiling a billion dong smile
welcomes us all to the show
in Vietnamese —
after ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys
I don’t understand a word
so for me everything’s a surprise —
children are shushed,
the band strikes up
a sombre peasant tune.

A young woman appears in a bathing suit
playing a mournful violin
as she steps on two musclemen’s shoulders,
rises smiling, one hand holding the violin
her other stroking it with the bow
treads on the men’s heads, balances
as they walk apart she does the splits
pirouettes then steps head to head
all the time fiddling a peasant tune,
splits again, the men toss her to each other like a doll
upright, spin her on their hands
she looks uncomfortable but does not miss a note
of that sad tune, smiling, playing the violin

Next, a boy puts down a chair
places his hand on its back with one arm
inverts himself, balancing on his hands.
repeats and adds another chair,
another chair, another — I imagine his smug
smile on the builders of the Tower of Babel —
the column of chairs grows higher and higher
but notice the ringmaster shaking his head
staring at a point half-way up the tower of chairs
that wobble and sway look unrehearsed. . .
it all comes tumbling down. . .
a case of an act “gone horribly wrong”.
The wire holds and the young acrobat swings
back and forth, helpless, helpless.
He’s lowered gently to his feet,
straightens his leotard and takes the bow, snarling.

Three elephants look old, old as planets
entering their last days, baby bald
their squinty eyes are like wise man orangutans’
etched in heads that resemble aliens’ giant brains
(almost pulsating), their trunks are cobras uncoiling
their painted feet would make a manicurist blush
— like all elephants they keep rolling out the metaphors.
They love their trainers, you can tell
by the way they can hardly keep away
and go into their routines
without a word from anyone,
balance
on one leg
on hind legs dance a conga —
two beautiful sequined girls appear
on the stage
on bended knee
two elephants take a girl in loving embrace
hold her between trunk and chunky feet
(the orchestra plays something romantic)
the girls extricate themselves
and just stand there like a test for the audience:
keep your eyes on the elephants if you can.
There’s something about the girls
especially the one waving,
she is so, well, so — no, I’m failing the test
I’m missing the elephants.
In the corner of my eye
I see the elephants impersonate mastodons
big mac trucks crash bumpers
blow trumpets
water pot plants with their trunks
walk on front legs
and with back feet kick a ball round & round in the air
then sit up reading books
sip tea from delicate china cups
I want to watch these clever beasts
but the sun shines too bright in a sequin girl’s eyes.

The music turns military.
Eight jugglers run into the ring
(four boys, four girls)
take their positions, fire iridescent clubs
there are a hundred in the air at any moment
they laugh, swap positions
with a marching dance
and the clubs rain down like ordnance.
Next they fling steel frisbees
the kind that decapitate
if not caught correctly — the band
plays flying saucer music
from The Day The Earth Stood Still.

How does the clown
hide a hundred water pipes in his jacket?
How come sometimes the clowns can throw
an egg twenty metres in the air
catch it on a plate without breaking
and the same egg will smash
for no reason.
How come they never speak
and their legs keep collapsing
as the drums go va-voom?
Does it hurt when they bash
each other?

The trapeze artists are wholesome
in their muscularity, such skill and daring
is every nation’s admiration.
There seems to be a sub-plot,
is something else going on
as they swing and somersault?
A love interest perhaps? — the young girl
flying to and from each boy’s hands
suddenly refuses to soar any more
and drops to the net. She pouts
— maybe it was what the younger
hot-shot said to her mid-air (the whisper
was heard) and he happens to be the boy
who earlier built the crashing tower of chairs.
Are those chairs somehow involved?
They will all return for the final act
to do the wild west number on pretty wild horses.

The performing bears so almost human
are trying to evolve into us
or it’s something to do with reincarnation
one way or the other.
Two of them ride push bikes and big papa bear
is riding a motor scooter while the babies
stagger round with silly looks on their faces.
They’re honeybears, less scary than a big dog
and the baby bear wearing a checked frock elicits oohs
and ahs of ‘isn’t she cute’ in any language
from the crowd as she struggles
to roll on a big rubber ball, her naughty boy
brother drinks from a bottle, mama bear
wants nothing more than to kiss her trainer
— cuter still — until papa bear
tries to run him over with the motor scooter.

Only the monkey-trainer is cruel
he claps his hands as the little guys
appear tied by their necks to bicycles
and ride around in circles.
He ties five monkeys to a treadmill
they almost hang themselves
trying to get off, they stay on
and get whacked with a bamboo stick
for good measure.
Three more monkeys race out
— one is tied to mortar and pestle
— the second to a pump
— the third is given a hoe —
they start working furiously.
The trainer is an angry magician
with an evil laugh he wrings his hands
like death and taxes,
waves a ( ) flag over the madly industrious
monkeys — the crowd roars with laughter
the kind of laughter that can’t be helped
that comes from somewhere shared
the same laughter can bring the mightiest army
to its knees before turning to tears,
the magician throws back his head
and the monkeys pound and pump and hoe
faster and faster and faster —
the trainer waves the flag harder —
more monkeys ride
out in toy taxis, on bikes and cyclos
drive in frantic circles — claps his hands
the monkeys run out of the ring
through the shiny sequin curtains
and wild horses gallop out.

Rolex

Many hot-shot starting out
on the fortune trail give great wristwatch
priority as accoutrement
For the businessman
Rolex is a lotus radiating from the wrist
is buddha of time
it does not pollute the air
unlike a mobile phone that only serves
to make work last longer, fry the mind
and ring at the most embarrassing times
a fine watch is truly classical with manners to match
will never interrupt siesta
time with a sweetheart and all the time
will keep time well
leaving more time to enjoy beer, girls and karaoke —
the Rolex brings these and more
and will let you know it’s time to be home
You can only afford a dormitory bed
but you’ve got the watch —
a key to enter space time
A watch keeps ticking over time
the dearer the watch
the more valuable your time will be
even when you’re out to lunch
the watch quietly informs the world
time is managed well here
and now.

Sapa

We walk for a long time along a clay siding
curve round the mountain above many valleys
of rice green, until we stop to look at a burnt out building
Thang informs us was a monastery built by French monks
in 1922 who, in 1927 departed for more celestial realms
assisted on their way by local people angry
at the treatment given their kids.
The building remained until 1979 when the Chinese
cross the border, blazing and blasting, blow the roof off.
In two weeks they take Sapa very quickly, kill many people
(mostly old), cows and buffalo, burn houses
but when the Vietnam Army arrive the Chinese
soldiers just drop their guns and flee, flee over the hills.
His fingers run in the air like so many rabbits scarpering over
rocks and ravines. Laughing, Thang glees, they just flee.
They just flee...

Red Dzao Village

No guide book describes the ecstasy
brought on by a breeze blowing down terraced fields
of rice green, green full of water — Asia green.
The Dzao people’s rough houses snuggle in the valley.
Dawn to dusk, most of the village
women are in the fields, working for the rice
some are at home making things to sell at the market,
drying, dyeing and weaving hemp, fine embroidering
the young girls hands and feet are blue
from crushing indigo, young boys turn yellow
with spice, they all take turns pumping water
from the well, feeding pigs and chickens
guiding buffalo from field to river
the men search the forest for medicine
tend a few poppies away from official eyes
and come home, melt down old coins
beat the silver into jewellery to sell at the market
they hunt game in the forest, few animals
and birds remain so they must work hard
these days to keep the mountains friendly.
At night, a curtain of black sky falls.
Spirits play and hear rice sing
the way the Red Dzao do.

Books are rare, maybe one or two in the headman’s
house, useful only to the young who have to go to school.
Real writing is left to the shaman who paints Chinese
characters on thin strips of paper the Dzao pin
to the walls and doors of their houses
charm against the curses many worlds throw at a house:
this calligraphy must sometimes shout
to keep evil spirits, burglars away
ward off tigers and bears straying from the cloud world.
In the old days a powerful charm
could take a living tiger by the scruff of the neck
and whisper move on quietly —
the leopards read it once, and never returned.
To disobey the words meant the worst oblivion.

A bottle cannot read or listen
and is untroubled by good magic
no matter how powerful the
characters written on the charm
which, in any case,
cannot recognise a bottle
and save a house from what a bottle can bring.
Once every ten years or so
bottles appear in odd corners
and are rarely noticed and bring a being
whose name is never mentioned
with a voice like spider silk
and all the guile a piper needs
to tempt children away.
Children love to play
with the shiny glass changing colours
listen to silky voice in the bottle say,
‘let me out and see something great’.
Unstopped, the being dazzles
bright baubles the child picks up
attach and tendrils enter
take the blood, all the moisture
a body has, and the powder remaining
of the child passes to its own bottle
that appears in odd corners
of houses, the child’s dreaming
becomes a silky voice, the love of life’s
an appetite to make another into powder.
Thus the Dzao keep few bottles.

At the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

             Uncle Ho was a cool guy, now he’s an ancestor
                                 Ancestors say free   energy
                                       clear spirit pure charisma glow
                                             at peace, relaxed
                                        doing and saying it all
                                             forthe country.
                                                All Vietnam
                                                   fought for freedom
                                                            Ho had
                                                   the charisma
                                                     come by way
                                                          of gentleness
                                                              & ferocity —
                                                                   the two
                                                                  sides — in
                                                                  villages,
                                                                    seaports
                                                                cities maze
                                                                on land’s
                                                                  resilience
                                                                       people
                                                                   who’ve spent
                                                                     millennia
                                                                  working for
                                                                   the rice
                                                                 tough as nails
                                                                       the people
                                                                      are everyone
                                                                   on the planet
                                                                  a map of Peace
                                                            a shot-down bomber,
                                                         soldier, sailor, farmer,
                                                           tinker, office, factory
                                                pamphleteer, dreamer
                                    worker, poet, leader —
                             the aftermath a god
                       protecting young children
                  — men and women, boys and
             girls will build — they love him, still
                 queue for miles feel his glow
                       fighter — waiting, he is the land
                           he is everyone
                                 .

Boat People

Crossing the Postcard Sea, see her rise
Diaphanous being turn and smile —
Hear flute and zither play from the air —
She sings a life’s moments
Happy and sad, here and gone.

Soon there’s only outboard motor song
And endless swish — swish — swish —
The bay’s major topography
Attributed to the Dragon Descending
(Ha Long ) many thousand years ago — crashing, really,
But ‘descent’ befits a dragon’s fall — her head carved the bay,

Salt blood filled the sea, breath  became wandering wind and breeze.
Ten thousand islands grew from flecks of dragon
Are many things — giant turtles — a shoe
Dropped by the Trung Trang King flung up by the sea
— also giant’s mouth, a squid’s eye, and wild caves
A hammer crushing an anvil, serpents coiled upon themselves —

The usual suspects, boatloads of traitors and heroes
Turned to stone — big brown eagles circle out of range —
There must be majesty — goats walk up cliffs upside down
Round the islands’ rough roads motorbikes
Cough a dragon cough — watch the brakes!

Opposite the wharf the Haiphong rocket boat ties up
Mr Lo’s restaurant is where all good fish go to be eaten
And fine fruit fall — a dollar slips far round the diesel slick bay.
Tough and canny people live in Cat Ba’s floating town
Navigate an atoll maze — islanding all their lives
Fishing, smuggling, coming ashore for spare parts

Sometimes at night for snakewine (the sea is their blood,
Dragon in their eyes). Fall in love on the water.
Some get married in port — some get smart
Invest a contraband nestegg and, an ear for the weather
Easily hears an engine’s sigh and chuckle —
With a sailor’s sense of livery the machine shop will succeed.       

Boat and island — two flips of a family.
A suburb on pontoons bobs like corks on the swell.
Curtains blow, a door swings open
Glimpse people talking, cooking, cuddling, sleeping.
The timbers creak, ‘Mind your own business’.
So I watch the boats, thousands of arcane vessels

Sleep in the cruel heat. The day cools down,
Things start to happen. Through a silent gliding
Balsa corsairs smuggle — fishing boats
Set out to conquer the ocean — the faithful
Take off their shoes boarding sea-going temples

Small row boats — bamboo, palm frond twisted into rafts —
Dragon boats yellow and red — diesel-powered junks putt
Putt putting — big eyes gaze from the prows of river boats
Out to sea and children float in basket boats
Above darkest deep — water water everywhere —

Longboats on a captain’s holiday ply between
Schooners, galleons — even a paddle boat
— sweet sea rocking under —
Pearl barge motors by, bedecked by silken courtesans
Spinning goddess smiles — seated astern a wispy mandarin
Dips long fingernail like an ornate rudder
Draws a line through the waves —

The vessel I like best: two old torpedo boats
Bolted together propelled by four big outboards,
Fishing nets hang from the prow’s steel horns
She flies a blood red ensign.
Happy families lots of kids no war, no storms for a while
Wave from the deck — young louts growl chugging by.

Here, everything is made from salvaged things
How spare parts tacked together make a town float
— like sharks on board watchdogs bark ‘no fun, no fun’
Still, there’s nothing quite like messing about in boats.
Night fall, a burst of TV laughter screens
Flare across the lapping water.

Hot alleyways ashore dig a dark corner
The market’s maze pirate boys meet Plain Mr Diem
(a dragon man) he unwraps flashes in the foil
Powder meant to settle the soul — eyes
Pinned to the game. Every cell in the body
Will open a door, say thanks to the trick
Hell straight from the mountains to you, sailor.

Waves anger, rise and slant — clouds fulminate and
Fulminate pure black — waves join clouds
— screaming whistle snaps palm trees
Out of it steps a true dragon son, vapour
Colossus Tommy Typhoon celestial naughty boy

Windows shatter and fly off
A hammer of water begins to
Beat the daylights out of everyone
He likes to whip
Then settle down as a fortnight’s rain
Soak the delta islands away.

Sea peaceful, she rises again
Diaphanous — briny goddess
Smiling on the bay.
Hear the outboard motor song
The water’s swish — swish — swish. —

Haiphong

Haiphong Iron Fortress
able to withstand the aggressors’ bombs
— city of an endless argument
‘You cook the soup!’
‘No, you can cook the soup.’
serious friendliness and beer starts at 6 am
raven-haired hostesses make a heaven
of massage, beer and karaoke —
why people come here
why people go anywhere —
and pilgrimages to collectivised factories
where the people are a many-limbed god.
Food is the thing
movement is everything
the wheel, the dragon here — that night
Do Song stood on the beach, her glowing hair
blown by the breeze into the moon’ eyes
her hand held by the spirit of waves
there is much to remember.

Mekong

Happy Viet Cong and their children
live now on the Mekong Delta — cone hats
smiles — motors’ chug is the river’s heartbeat
and the river here’s deep and wide as the sea.
Restaurateurs sidle up in rowboats
serve bread, soup and endless species
of noodles, tea, coffee, beer and python
the dishes are washed clean in the river.
Dug-out canoes and basket boats wobble
and children hang on to tyres and logs
swim, float on their backs —
anything to be in the water —
more fish here than the Atlantic
and enough snakes to feed China.
You can go ashore to buy something electric
or catch a bus to some place drier
and even there will be waterlogged
rice growing everywhere. The rain slants down
to make things wetter whip up the river
like a rough day in harbour.
There’s no land, no water richer —
moonlight swims with the carp,
the moon’s eye looking out
from every prow.

Ba Vi

The clouds are always there
ringing three peaks
busy with lightning &
thunder grumbling —
the place clouds are born
to water the fields
and forests of Vietnam.

You must be light as air
to receive a tree frog’s blessing
then take the path to the cloud pagoda
at the summit of Ba Vi
where a nun lives to tend the shrine
light incense sticks
and burn the ceremonial money
arrange flowers left by pilgrims
in offering to the clouds.

Quiet time, the forest watches over her
she meditates clouds until night —
sleeps on a cane mat before the sweet altar —
the clouds round Ba Vi swirl through the pagoda
wrap her in glowing vapour
make images of her cloud dreams
and if the clouds dream
they dream of her.

Sunrise, she gathers the flowers
left by day-tripping pilgrims
and throws them to the clouds.