Clik here to view.
Flowers
— Vuong Vu “When I speak of flowers, it is to recall that at one time we were young.” —William Carlos Williams When I was a child, I was truly happy, and saw the world as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fresno Poets
— Vuong Vu I find myself walking for hours out into the city. Yesterday, I passed by the house of a poet who died, the tree from which he fell still stood, still stretched heavenward. He lost his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fried Chicken
— Vuong Vu My family arrived in America late November, 1979. Autumn had made way for winter— every leaf fallen, the sky cloudy and raining for days. We were brought to a small house, in the suburbs of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Senility
— Vuong Vu “Senility is not knowing when love goes.” — Virginia De Araujo It seems I’ve slept a century, waking to find my beard fully grown and my head of hair now bald as a stone. Or could it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Seashore
— Vuong Vu “It is always ourselves we find in the sea.” — ee cummings The older I become, the more I amlike the seashore. Most days I wakebefore the sun and lie in waitfor morning light. Salt...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Forget Your Poetry
There are definite benefits to participating in this project. Among the most novel I’ve recently witnessed took place at September’s “Tapestry in Talent” art festival, held in San Jose’s History Park....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Garden
— Vuong Vu A strange place, a gardenso old it seemed to exist outside of time. —Brigit Pegeen Kelly, “Black Swan” The garden was on a mountainside,an orchard that stood above the clouds.The garden...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Cow
— Vuong Vu In league with the light:The magic hour, pre-sunset light,It sets her aglow,Her frame softly haloed,Her song now softly hallowed. — Harry Lafnear, “Ooo” At night driving, you couldn’t...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remains of the Fire
— Vuong Vu It is my old house, the onein which I spent a lovely childhood,that I dream of the most.I am a ghost, then, still wanderingthose rooms. In the summer when I was nine,the hill behind the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mermaid
— Vuong Vu “For a time I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids.” — Sylvia Plath, “Ocean 1212W” When I was a child, my mother told me she was once a mermaid who left the sea and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Encyclopaedia Brittanica
— Vuong Vu One summer I read an entire volume of Encyclopedia Britannica I found in the back of my brother’s car. I read about tetanus and feared for my life, the hours I’d spent rummaging through my...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cha Tôi Ngủ: My Father Sleeps
— Vuong Vu My father sleeps early now. By the first hours of evening, when twilight is ash settling into the garden, he is already sweetly in slumber. He sleep-talks in whispers. The year my father...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Every Ghost Story is a Love Story
— Vuong Vu “What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred...
View ArticleClik here to view.
End Times
— Vuong Vu A man named Thedeus of Judea claimed himself Messiah and the year 44 AD to be the end of time. He was beheaded by Romans soldiers in the desert, and the world did not end. My mother used to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Walking Home on A Winter’ s Night
— Vuong Vu The road is long this winter’s night, I am walking home, my path through dew. Along the road, the fields are covered in frost, And trees stand white as statues, And in the cold hour, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ghost Story
— Vuong Quoc Vu My brother told a ghost story— He came in from the night and woke up the family, he said he had just seen a ghost outside of the city’s cemetery, a woman in a white dress. standing...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sunday Morning
— Vuong Vu The cathedral is the city’s heart of stone, its bell towers sing on Sunday mornings. Vuong Quoc Vu listens to the silence between the echoes of the bells, hoping to hear the voice of God....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flower Bomb
— Vuong Quoc Vu “The bomb / also / is a flower.” — William Carlos Williams, “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower” My brother, come home from war, sits now for hours in the garden. I see now, he says,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Twenty Two
— Vuong Vu Old men from my father’s village still speak of him and the night he led a group of men across a river to their freedom, he, himself, carrying on his shoulder a young man who could not swim....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Love Life of Frogs
— Vuong Vu After the rain, tadpoles were everywhere, in the shallow ponds of footprints, in garden boots and water pails; so it must have been going on for weeks— hidden by the curtain of rain— the...
View Article
