Today I tried to remember some faces.
I saw Katia, mischievous elf from Espoo.
Who showed me my soul.

And Susan from Fenyang.
Who wanted to love me.
And smiled with the trees.
A spirit so beautiful and bright.

Faces and more remembered.
A love softly glowing.
Now slipping away at the edge.

They come with cries of lamentations
and cautious sunlight.
And words clinking with every step.

Overslept and tired.
An early start
17 hours a day.
Broken with slashes of sound.
7.43 million Motorbikes in
** Chi Minh City.

The street flowers dying,
no air to breath.
And miles to go before you sleep.
The grass consenting to the dollar,
packs up and leaves the city.

Returning, resuming,
threading your way between
the grey faces.
And the men looking for
someone special today.

The hurt and wounded
pass by quickly.
No soothing hand to pacify
the restless all dark nights.
Some suffer so much.

Sometimes strange things happen.
In the afternoon mostly, after lunch and rest.

Today in was the morning.
A communist asked me

" Did I know the difference between Chinese communism and Vietnamese communism"?

To be honest..I did not.

This is the first time I had been asked this question.
A new experience.
I sensed a passion, a desire for me to answer.
We ascend from time-to-time.
So I said

" The characterization of the struggle"

I put effort into this.
Attention and love.
Was the communist satisfied?
I don't know

But we all learn to do necessary things.

Sleepy now
Too many hours
walking the streets
of Hanoi.

I would rather a life of poetry.
Thank bashing about
these humid days
without a breeze.

It began around 11pm, the dog barking.
A locked in bark, a left alone bark.
It sounded like pain breaking,
for no reason.

After a while,
I wanted to tell the dog to ‘shut-up’
But then…I changed my mind
I wanted to ask the dog
‘What it knew about pain’?
But the time was not right.
And maybe,
there was no escape.

Tracts of land
inhabited by people
A flower, a hero
or revolution.
To define a country is easy.
A pulse of a nation
** Chi Minh.
Defeat of the French,
the Americans.
But what about the prisons?

French prisons
American prisons
Vietnamese prisons.
15 years in Con Dao
6 years in the Hanoi Hilton.
Voices that still echo to this day.

And now the pen,
to free the corridors of our minds.
Diaries, letters
kept close
Inside a cold place.

Now they tell the world
that doors are closed.
And freedom is there.

We move on.

Why do people become angry?
Sadness, a sense of injustice…
Who knows.
An air hostess is angry with a passenger.

Anger is an energy.
The air hostess cries,
But still wants to get her point across.
I guess that is why people become angry.