Tìm bài trả lời thơ

In front of the wailing wall

That is not the wailing wall
In Jerusalem
But in a museum
Poet Mahmoud Darwish
Who wrote nightly the bleeding poems
About his lost hometown

Let’s put our ears on the wall
You will hear
The painful cry
The sorrowful scream
Of the Palestinian
In prison
In their own hometown

Day by day the believers
Come in front of the wailing wall
Of Jerusalem
To ask for a blessing
While I come in front of a wall
In a poet’s museum
To hear the painful cries
Of the soul who lost their Freedom.

Buying swimwear in Palestine

They stepped into a store
Choosing swimwear
The blue swimsuit
With sparking gold fish printed on

They dreamed of swimming in the Dead Sea
Underneath the endless sky
They wanted to turn into fish
To stir up the silent ocean

But the barbed wire fence
Across the road to the beach
And a warning sign
Hand-written
Of the Reaper

The fish on the swimsuit
Were out of breath from their gills
In the sad eyes
Of the women

They came back from the Dead Sea
And swam every night in their dreams
Full of big waves
Groaning the sound of Freedom.

The face of Mother Mary

Someone exclaimed
“Mother Mary appear!”

At a guard station
Israeli girls
With the face of Mother
Wore the soldier uniforms
Bullet-proof vests underneath
Held on tight to the guns

There were no patch of grass to be found
On the endless mountains
In the dark alleyways
Could not find the face of Mother Mary
Looking down at baby Jesus
Only saw the eyes
Of the beautiful girls
Scanning the passports
And visas
And the completely black eye
Of the gun barrel
Looked straight at me

But they were very, very beautiful girls
And behind them, very far away
I saw the men
Smoking cigars
And signing a document.

Dream interpretation

Suddenly a sound in the night
Woke me up
Ramallah at 2 in the morning
I am far away from my home

Was that a gun sound?
Was someone groping in the dark
At the hotel’s reception
And knocked down a glass vase?
Did someone slip on the stairs?
Did someone kick the door?
Was it just a nightmare?

I opened the window to look down on the street
A truck covered in tarp
Ran by
And disappeared into the dark

Right then on the balcony
Of the house across the street
The black dog was still barking
For 100 years.

Written under the Temptation mountain

Rise from ourselves
Mountains of temptation

We are the ones who are lost
Within our own darkness of bodies
An animal with our names
With a self-made resume just like ours
In the file cabinet of the organization
Sometimes are sealed and stamped
And it eats our soul piece by piece
Until our bodies decompose

We were born
And grow a little each day
The mountain of temptation gets taller
We know that
And walk about it
But we still cheer with pleasure
When we let the animal with our names
Eat the pieces of our dead soul

And there, the mountain of temptation
I see the endless line of people
From all over looking for this place
Travelers, tourists
Even priests
And many climb over the mountain
But can’t climb over their own bodies.

The sad song for Murad
Poet Murad Sudani, President of the Palestine Writers’ Association

1.
No need to know the reason
No need to stop and ask why
No need to hear the whispers of threats
No need to think of what would happen next
Only know that I was here
In front of the barbed wire fence
And the gun barrel
And he stepped toward me
Murad!

His footsteps resound on the ground
Underneath the sad clouds
Flowing on the sky above his country’s border
Bringing with them the thunders, the rains
And bringing the cries
Underneath the olive trees along the road
Murad!

2.
The trick is still going on
In the party of the politicians
With the ones who lost their ways
In the tangled history
And the ones who stand outside the darkness
Outside the tears, outside the bloodshed
Screaming their judgement
Murad!


But I was here
I am walking on your country, Murad!
I am listening to the song of your nation, Murad!
I see the olive trees, the palm trees growing
On rocky soil
Murad!

I see the tears
Soak the mountains
I hear the sheep
Burn the sunset with their scream
Murad!

3.
Last night you didn’t sleep
Murad!
Walked on the small street
Going on and on
You walked through the horizon

Last night you prayed
Murad!
Last night you cried
Last night you sang
And I heard the echo
From the mountain wind
The sad history sigh

Last night you kneeled down
Murad!
Your hands opened
One hand filled with words
One hand with blood pouring.

Look up in the sky

Among the deep green of the olive branch
Are guard stations
Bullet-proof vests and machine guns
The gun barrel - a deep black eye
Never closes
Watching the meals
Watching the poems
Watching the prayers
And eve watching the whispers
Of the man and woman
On the bed filled with darkness
That didn’t want to be heard

I use a software to erase
The barbed wire fence
On the picture taken with my cellphone
With a sign
“If you cross, you will be shot”

But when I look up in the sky
I see the reflection of the barbed wire fence
On the white clouds.

Baptism on Jordan River

1.
I splash water from Jordan River
For my own baptism
When I step up from the river bank
I see the road in front of me
The sins’ shadow standing in line to the horizon
Calling me, mesmerizing me
And threatening

2.
Someone told me
“The water is dirty, why would you wash with it?”

No water can wash off the sins
It has to be tears
If tears cannot wash them
We have to wash with our own blood

3.
Many have come
Politicians, intellectuals
Poets, the disables
And murderers
Submerge in the stream
Then have the illusion
That their sins were washed clean

4.
Then there are many
Came to this river
To get baptized
Then come back
To commit sins on another river.

Paradise Lake

The purple-flowering trees
Blooming in Ramallah (*)
Those are not trees
They are the Paradise Lake
Appears on a summer noon

Awake all night
Remember the eyes of Dalal Abu
As blue as Paradise Lake
Looking back as a goodbye
In the sunset
On the street named after Mother Teresa

Dalal Abu, Dalal Abu
Did you come from the horizon
With a smile
Ripe olive-colored lips
Disappearing in the house’s darkness

Dalal Abu, Dalal Abu
Please don’t cry
Alone in the dark
I want you to sing
In the sad sunset

The flower season will be over
Paradise Lake disappear
But Dalal Abu stays
Ripe olive-colored lips
Fill my dreams.

About an old candle stick
(For Ambassador Saadi Salama)

I tried to buy a beautiful old candle stick from an old Palestinian Muslim woman who was selling antiques on the side of Jordan River. But she did not sell it. I asked her why she put it out with the other antiques and she said she brought it so that it would always be by her side. Then I learn that the candle stick is from her son’s house that was destroyed by rockets. Her son died with his wife and child. I held the candle stick for a long time as if I held the bodies and a strange feeling overcame me. She asked me where I came from. I said Vietnam. She let out a light gasp and repeated “Vietnam.” At the end, she told me to take the candle stick home if I wanted to and did not take any money. Sometimes I light a candle with that candle stick.

The light in the eyes of the candle stick’s owner is off
Darkness fills the house of memories
The stories of the suffering mother
Never stop being told

One night, I light up a candle on that old candle stick
Suddenly someone calls me
No, it is a cry
I turn around and see
My shadow on the wall
Is pulling my shirt