The Flowing Tunic That You Wore

The Flowing Tunic That You Wore 

Thời gian ở Pháp, Nguyên Sa có được nhiều bài thơ hay và nổi tiếng nhờ kết duyên cùng âm nhạc, như: Áo lụa Hà Đông, Tuổi mười ba, Paris có gì lạ không em, Tháng Sáu trời mưa… Tuy nhiên, khi tách khỏi âm nhạc thì thơ Nguyên Sa vẫn là thơ Nguyên Sa không lẫn vào bất cứ giá trị nào khác. Chẳng hạn như bài ông viết về chiếc áo dài, không cần phổ nhạc vẫn có rất nhiều người thuộc lòng: “Có phải em mang trên áo bay/ Hai phần gió thổi, một phần may/ Hay là em gói mây trong áo/ Rồi thở cho làn áo trắng bay”.

The Flowing Tunic That You Wore

The flowing tunic that you wore,
Was it made up of two parts blown by the winds
And one part crafted by the seamstress 
Or did you pack the clouds in the tunic
Then gently exhale so the white dress could fly?

Wissai
Feb. 8, 2012

Extraneous commentary:

S:
The translation is beautiful. Your gift is demonstrated by your ability to translate from one language to another without losing the beauty and feeling within the poem. In fact you probably add a bit of each to the work. The ability you have to do such proves my point. -- the gentleness you keep hidden  so well and so deep within.
W:
Somebody sent me a write-up about the famous poet's early life in France as a philosophy student. He wrote poetry back then. His poems were philosophical and very hard to render into English. The short poem I translated was not known by me. I liked it very much so I showed off by translating it. I am widely awed and respected by my peers for my genius in translating Việt poems into English. My cockiness and arrogance are rested on this ability. The more books I read and the more poems I translated, the more reasons I have in fucking looking at others like the Monkey, the Midget, and the Asshole with disdain and contempt. I don't care for the fucking satori and compassion and understanding and all that shit. Not really. What I've set out to do is to explore the hitherto hidden and unknown parts of myself. 

I was driving home when the lyrics of a certain Viet song came up from the subconscious and bothered me. They reminded me of my innocent, gullible past when romantic feelings were supposed to be sublime.

"I showed up for the date
After walking through winding city streets.
You and I decided to meet
So our loneliness would abate
Oh, how lovely the sensation was
When you placed your hand over mine...."

Last night I saw Agnes in a dream. I was with a bunch of young women. In the dream I was a young man, tall, dark, handsome, brash and filled to the brim with confidence. We were catching a bus back to the convention center when she called me on the cell phone. We exchanged pleasantries that got to nowhere. The dream was a variant of the same repeat, recurrent nightmare of loss and mourning and unattainability. I certainly don't love Agnes or Laura anymore, but occasionally they crop up in my dreams, reminding me of how stupid and naive I was.

What is mood? What is suppression? What is memory? Is flashback nothing but suppressed memory roaring back in a fury? I am treading on the slippery, memory-laden terrain of suppressed homicidal flashes of fury where I recognize my stupid, naive, gullible selves being exploited and played with. I'm hearing the haunting howling of my mind at the edges of insanity. And then lo and behold, somebody is whispering the following words into my ears as Valentine Day is approaching:

"I'm looking for a free yet undisciplined spirit I can roll down hills with on sunny days and solve thorny puzzles with when the skies are cloudy. Can you see the absurd in the serious and the serious in the absurd ? Are you a curious chameleon always working to sharpen your communication skills? Might you be attracted to a sweet-talking, absurdly romantic, and wildly disorganized schizophrenic wiseass who's evolving into a holy warrior, poet and translator? Emotional package is expected, of course, but please make sure yours is organized and well-packed as mine is disorderly and haphazard. Let's create the most unexpected, intriguing, awesome versions of truth and beauty that nobody has ever imagined!"

Somebody read this post and wrote the following observations:

"I read your latest post with perplexing, pulsating, poignant, piquant pleasure. In fact, I devoured your words contained therein with a ferocious appetite. And I am hungering for more. I'm wondering that you must have gone through Hell several times for you to come up with the words that you did. You talked about the haunting howling of your mind at the edges of insanity. I'm very familiar with such howling. I'm not saying I am the soulmate you're searching. Maybe there's one floating around somewhere and you have to dig deep and run far and fly high in locating her. Maybe there is not anybody out there. But even if that person is out there and you run into her, you will never bond with her by stupidly and stubbornly hanging on to a set of specific expectations. She might not even treat you the way you want to be treated. Of course, I'm quite positive you already know this, but hearing it from an astute and objective, albeit obstreperous, observer like me doesn't hurt either. That way perhaps you can recognize and start celebrating the real thing that is me. So, why don't you write me back at iambitchy@gmail.com or if you have musical ears, you can call me at (502) 666-6666."

I promptly sent off into cyberspace a reply missile/missive:

"Hello bitchy:

I have tin ears, so you must make do with words. If you think clever weirdness turned me on, you were wrong. I've had more than my share of idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, and I thus tire of finding them in others. I value, treasure, and cherish gentleness, kindness, and femininity, not bitchiness or butchiness. In fact, I just dumped two women on account of their bitchiness. Two more may be on the way out. I have more than enough clever but bitchy and cheap women. What I want and need is a sweet, submissive, compliant, obedient, and dutiful woman with the right proportion and sharp intellect. If you think you're qualified, please write back, otherwise get lost and stay lost."

Of course, she didn't stay lost. She's an Amazonian.

"Hello sweetie dearie:

Sorry if my playfulness offended your sensibilities. I am far from being bitchy. In fact, I am on this side of Angelic Divide. While my words didn't turn you on, yours did to me. I'm wondering if you care to meet. I'm not saying I'm drop-dead gorgeous or a sexy bombshell, but I can guarantee you that you won't be disappointed with my looks or my intellect. It's you that I worry about. Are you really good-looking and sexy and a charming, captivating interlocutor as you said you were? Not many men can handle me. I dearly hope you can. Call me."

My curiosity got the better of me. So I called the bitch.

-Hello bitchy, this is Roberto.
-Roberto! My goodness! I got you calling me, at last. Ha ha ha!
-Don't be smug so fast. I'm bored out of mind and having nothing to do so I figured a few minutes with you wouldn't hurt.
-Easy now. Be nice. Let's be sweet and civilized. We don't have to fight. Not yet.
-Okay. Tell me about yourself. Give me some David Copperfied, the Charles Dickens way.
- I'm 35, thrice-divorced, no children, lonely, lusty, and lustful. Into yoga, running, reading, and raunchy jokes. Real estate broker. Enough money to live on. Now it's your turn.
-63, married, one son, age 27, homicidal, me, not him. Retired. Been writing nonsense for years. Very poor. Almost broke. But handsome and sexy and great in bed with women under 30.
-You just pulled my leg, right?
-Which leg you talked about?
-About your being married, broke, and great in bed.
-What happened? You were disappointed and scared and excited at the same time?
-Roberto, I wandered into your blog and I got sucked by your words. I haven't felt like this for a long time. Not since high school. I'm not strong or bitchy as I let on.

Her sudden vulnerability floored me. She sounded sincere and forlorn. So I let go my foreplay of flippancy. I changed my tune and my tone of voice. I told her about me, about my likes and dislikes, my obsessions of self-destruction, my loneliness, and my disappointments. She was patient. She didn't inject wisecracks. She just occasionally asked for clarifications. I went on with my almost monologue for about an hour. At the end, she solemnly asked me if I wanted to call her on Skype so I would know how she looked like. I said, why not.

She looked pretty all right. Short hair, no jewels, Hispanic features, dazzling white teeth with a captivating, seductive smile. She gushed praise over my looks and kept saying I looked much younger than my age. Then she went on interrogating me on my marital status and my Weltanschauung. When it was over, I realized we had been talking for over three hours. I sensed that she was falling under my charms so I pushed up the pressure. I told her that I needed to go to bed as I needed to get up early for my daily morning run. That got her wildly excited as she was a runner. She asked me all kinds of questions about my running: how long I was into it, my distance and speed, any injuries, etc...Luckily for me, I used to run in my salad days so I could weave and dance my way through her inquiries. When I was through, I could tell that she was half-way in love with me and quite crazy about whether my statements about the status of my marriage, my wealth, and my sexual prowess had any truthfulness. She kept asking if I was telling her the truth or if I was merely testing her. She demanded that we meet although she lived in Paris, Texas. I told her I was allergic to airplanes. She said that wouldn't be a problem. She would fly to Nevada, my current state of residence. I told her to take it easy as I wasn't going anywhere. The last time a woman flew to see me, she complained about the airfare! Bitchie snorted and retorted that she wasn't that crass and cheap. I said that all my life people had labeled me "cheap", but they didn't really understand me. We went on talking for another hour before I hung up and after telling her that I would call her again in a very near future.

I promptly fell asleep but woke up about four hours later. Since I couldn't go back to sleep, I got up and drove to the gym for my daily swim. As I was swimming back and forth in the pool, my mind turned to not only "bitchie", but various women I had dumped recently. In fact, these women accounted for my current cynical, blasé attitude towards "bitchie", even though after she mellowed and softened and showed her vulnerabilities. Let me tell you something: most, if not all, women that went through my life, were simply fucking no good. If I had my way, many of them would meet their untimely demise. They were that bad to me. Admittedly, I contributed to their cruelty due to my innocence, naïveté, and lack of worldliness. I believe I am now finally too wised up to fall for their games of bullshit and manipulation because I no longer give a fuck if they suffer or not. I now just focus on my own fucking survival and take care of myself. I no longer believe in romance and love. Take the case of a woman I called Nympho. She was utterly immoral and had a mouth of a cesspool. She was vivacious and smart and had nice tits. She thought by showing her tits to me, she would get me all excited and lost my head. I've looked at all kinds of human mammary glands, some were more exciting than others, but at my age, it would take more than tits for me to jump into the sack. It takes a good heart, a beautiful mind, a big bank account, and an old-fashioned nice-looking pussy for me to start having sexual reveries. I used not to be this crass and shallow. I used to take pride on having romantic idealism. But now I realize I was just a naive, stupid, bookish nigger who fancied that he was irresistible to women, without having a slightest idea that it was he who was used and abused. Like the case involving the whore Denise. Of course I didn't know she was a cheap, sick-in-the-head, gambling-addicted whore. I met her at a hair salon. She was cutting my hair and came on pretty strong with me. She spoke French so I thought she had some class and education. She fed me a whole slew of fucking bullshit about herself. She then confessed that she was attracted to me and asked for my phone number. I was too stupid to recognize the bad signs. We went out for about three weeks when I realized that she was a motherfucking, pathological liar and gambler cum cheap whore. I promptly dumped her. As a reaction, she engaged in a vituperative campaign of not much consequence to discredit me with everybody I knew, especially with my High Priestess. Needless to say, she is high on my list of candidates for soul transmigration.

Okay, I confess. In case you don't already know, most of what I wrote so far is a lie. The fun part is for you to discern and guess and conjecture where the truth is. As Ismet Prcic said in "Shards", "our brains are peculiar computers that constantly augment and even edit true events out of our memory when those events do not fit into the narrative that we tell to ourselves everyday." So, I'm following Prcic's advice. I'm a hero of my bullshit. I don't worry about what is true and what is not. That will drive me over the edge. I just write. I write almost everything. Like "bitchie" called me two days after our first conversation. She wanted to know if I was seeing anybody right now. I said that besides my doctor, my dentist, and my car mechanic whom I see occasionally, I'm in an incipient relationship with a Chinese poker dealer. The way we became friends was quite unusual. She screwed up and misdealt the cards, causing me a lot of money. I was annoyed and gave her a piece of my mind. She was in tears but tried to compose herself. She didn't ask her supervisor over to complain. She was sucking it up, but obviously in emotional pain. I didn't apologize to her then. A few days later, I ran into her again and offered my apology. She accepted it and then somehow liked me enough to become my friend. She's teaching me to speak Mandarin. See what I meant when I told you that I was lucky. I just finished viewing the movie about five "bad" people got caught in an elevator. They got on one another's nerves and somehow four got killed, allegedly by the Devil, except for the guy who was remorseful and willing to die at the hands of the Devil for his vehicular manslaughter and not staying at the scene of the accident. The Devil was moved by his heartfelt remorse and spared his life. The point about the movie was that it was not what we had done, but how we took responsibility for our actions. In the past, I did so many bad things and I am now being remorseful and vowing not ever doing them again. I have prayed to a higher power which may mean simply my conscience and asked for forgiveness so I could have peace. I don't necessary believe in a corporeal entity of the Devil and his flip side/counterpart (God). To me, they are merely embodiments of good and evil so humans could relate to more easily. I was sincerely ashamed and remorseful of my boorish behavior toward the Chinese poker dealer. That might have moved her into forgiving me as she recognized that I was deep down not a bad guy. As I'm facing my eventual reckoning, I'm learning to be more at peace with myself and others. Writing these words is a way for me to achieve peace. I recognize this world is populated by assholes and dumb asses and scumbags who either don't understand me or don't give a shit about me. My remaining days on this planet should be spent as far away from these animals as possible.

The time right now is Friday evening. And I feel excruciatingly lonely yet I'm too proud to call anybody, least of all the "bitchie" although I sense she likes to hear from me. It's been exactly one week since she last called me. I suppose she's waiting for me to call her back. She must be figuring the ball is in my court and if I want to play ball with her, I would call her. She doesn't know that I don't know what to do with her. I like her all right, but I'm too jaded to harbor any romantic notions with any woman right now, considering what I've gone through. Let me tell you two more experiences with shrews and then I will keep my mouth shut. In early May of last year, a Thai woman who was of my age, but well-preserved and stylishly dressed and in possession of a sports Mercedes. We met a local hang-out. She flirted with me. We hit it off well. We went back to her townhouse and subsequently enjoyed each other's company in the sack. In the following months we went out for dinners and movies and generally had a good time until she started hitting me for money. I of course was indignant and soon stayed away from her. She later hooked up with a retired millionaire and looked happy for a while until he refused to marry her despite her incessant demands to the effect. I knew all about her sordid little romance with the millionaire because one night she called me up and cried over the phone and told me she was through with him because she was tired of his treating her like an unpaid hooker. She then said she was missing my company and wanted to pick up where we left off. I hemmed and hawed and told her I was still her friend, but I needed time to sort things through because my feelings were still hurt over her going out with Mike, the retired millionaire. Soon after that I was involved with a Laotian millionairess who was five years my senior. She owned various properties in Europe and the U.S. She was the one who approach me, not the other way around. One night I was playing poker at the Bellagio and a Frenchman at the table had some problems communicating in English so I jumped in and assisted him. That impressed her and she complimented in French. We talked in French a few more minutes between poker hands when we were not involved in the game. She then changed her seat and moved to next to me. We hit it off splendidly. She gave me her name and phone numbers. I thought I finally found a woman with whom I could brush up my French. We went out for a few dates. She was on the verge of asking me over to her house when suddenly she turned cold to me. I was pissed and too proud to hound her. I ignored her in return. The last two weeks she has given me the eye, but I've studiously avoided her sideway glances. I guess she didn't know that I was at one time a millionaire myself. I was foolish to squander my wealth in the stock market. Now I live from hand to mouth, but I still have my pride. The funny and sordid little fact was that I used to tell quite a number of my acquaintances and even friends that I used to have a lot of money, but nobody believed me. Some of them even accused me of making the story up. Ironically, one of them was my landlady who then later fell in love with me, but I coldly rejected her advances because of her stupidity and avarice. Besides, I didn't like the way she talked dirty with me. Believe it or not, I don't care for lascivious, dirty-talking women.

As I said, tonight is Friday night. And I'm staying home, unburdening myself via words. The more I write, the angrier I get with all the women in my past who took advantage of my naïveté and kindness. Now I see with blinding clarity I'm much better off to stay by myself and away from all the bitches in this wotld. And if "bitchie" calls me again, I'll tell her so. I have to wean myself from women, don't you think? I really don't wish to see myself a disgrace to my kinsfolk one day for having flipped and done something really stupid. Despite my fervent and fervid wishes and beliefs, I have to buy into a belief that love is nothing but a game and I am simply not a gamesman. Not really. Not by a long shot. Oops, she's on the phone right now. I've to stop writing. I wonder if I will be true to my words in the preceding sentences. You'll find out soon enough.


(to be continued)