January 7, 2007 (Nguyen Dinh Sinh / Translated by Van Minh) - About twenty years ago, after graduating from the provincial Teacher’s Training College, I went straight to Na Bon, one of the remote mountainous villages of the Thai Den (Black Thai) minority people at the foot of the Ngam Kha Pass, to open a primary class for local kids.

I step out into the night, a lone and solitary figure.
Will you not hunt with me as you have so many times before?
Energy flows through the city tonight.
And I'll stand in the shadows while you reach for the stars.

Will you not take me with you as you have so many times before?
As you have done so many times before.
But I haven't the time to wait for you now.

For the hunger burns deep within me and it demands release.
I am a slave to its power, a lover to its kiss.

Like a circle in the sand, my life is a cycle.
Birth, life, love, death, rebirth, life... love.

Oh, but how much sweeter it is the second time around.
But can I do it?
To slip from one man's arms to another's.

I am surely not made for such casual affairs.
Yet how can I deny what I feel, what I've felt you feel.

There's nothing casual in human emotion.
How can I deny the passion ripping through me, straight from my soul, when your lips claim mine.

I tried the day
And it betrayed me,
So I retreated once more
Into the Night;
Wrapped in soft folds
Of velvet numbness.
Time is nothing to the Dark;
It only has meaning for the Light.
Time is a consequence of
Those who seek to control
The presence of light;
Darkness doesn't care.

Greyvamp
March 2, 2002

this illusion-
disastrous
this face-
just a mask
these eyes-
only windows
into my desolate,
dispirited soul.

Raevynn
March 31, 2002