blue threads to the soul: Collected Poems of Linh Dinh

744 Pages·03.304 MB·English

by  linh dinh

BLUE THREADS TO THE SOUL
COLLECTED POEMS OF LINH DINH
TABLE OF CONTENTS

From All Around What Empties Out
From American Tatts
From Jam Alerts
From Blood and Soap
From Borderless Bodies
From Some Kind of Cheese Orgy
A Mere Rica
Uncollected

Tahseen Alkhateeb Interviews Linh Dinh
Walt Whitman, Mass Media and Jewish Power
From All Around What
Empties Out
I. Drunkard Boxing
Laced Farina

Who touched your hair?
A rifle butt to the side of the head.

Who kissed you on the forehead?
Three knocks on the door at midnight.

Who put his fingers in your mouth?
It is like fireworks. One is thrown in the air.

Who unbuttoned your tunic?
Unbutton your tunic.

Who touched your breasts?
It is a crime to conceive.

Who rested his head on your belly?
One is undressed by the whizzing bullets.

Who played with your sex?
To be lying here in this ditch.
Hygiene

Discordant music shall be punishable by death.
Here are the actual cases:
A man who wears dots with stripes;
A woman who paints bad pictures,
And whose teeth haven't been cleaned
In about twenty years;
Disciples of this religion and that.
Children, as prescribed, shall be cooked and eaten,
And confusing books shall be banished from the library.
The new planes shall fly over the new stadium.
Many bombs will be dropped during halftime.
Letter to My Bed

Disheveled bed, sentimental sponge, love of my life,
Witness to all my horrors, my Valdez spills, my crimes,
Black-faced farces, commedia dell'arte--par-deux and solo,
Hopped-up rants, weepy pleas, morning conversations,
Do not spill our confidential beans to enemy intelligence.
They have surrounded us on all sides tonight, bed,
And tomorrow night, and the night after tomorrow night.
You are the leaky boat on the South China Sea fleeing
Ho Chi Minh City. You are the wide gurney of my nightly dearth.
Slow Tribe

They are the usual three:
One, who fantasizes about my death;
One, who craves my sex;
And one, who claims to be restless.
They come, singly, at odd intervals, unannounced,
Bearing exaggerated miens and inexpensive gifts:
Plastic flowers, slurs, bits of lint, left-over food.
They pick fights among themselves whenever they meet,
Or else they fuck on my bed, forgetting where they are.
I never ask them to leave although I despise
Each one of them. They are my kin:
I, too, fantasize, claim to be restless, crave my own sex.
Traditional Vietnamese Architecture

A house with no doors. One enters by climbing through a
window. Any window. Break glass if necessary. An entry should
always be illicit. Unobstructed entrances are not worth passing
through.

Ceilings are painted with upside-down bookcases, tables, beds
and sleeping animals, etc., to resemble floors. Floors are fitted
with bare light bulbs.

On a pedestal in the center of the room is a symbolic toilet,
slightly bigger than standard size and sculpted from papier-
mache. There are no real toilets anywhere in the house.

On a long shelf too high to be reached is an array of "lost"
items: nail clippings from childhood, love letters, first kisses...

At the end of a long, steeply sloping corridor is a large mirror,
so that "one could admire oneself at a great distance, then see
oneself staggering forward, gaining momentum with each
step."
Motate

General emission from all orifices.
Blink left eye, then right eye,
Then left eye, then right eye.
With index finger, jab at right temple,
Then wheeze quietly as the bullet enters.
Touch all forbidden zones simultaneously:
The crooked teeth, the singed eyelashes,
The crushed fibula ...
Insert one's penis into one's vagina.
Assume the drunk position, the Chinese position,
The eunuch position.
Throw a javelin out the window.