My Pictures: Hue Art Gallery, Vietnam

I met two Vietnamese
men this morning, visiting China.
They invited me to drink tea
and flexed about philosophy.

One of them told me that
Le Quy Don was the greatest
scholar that Vietnam has produced.

The other one disagreed,
and wanted to tell me about
Tran Duc Thao

“He’s a Marxist and traitor”
Said Le Quy Don’s man.
I just drank some tea and listened.
And thought about literature
not made from literature.

Now some say how can this be?
You cannot speak Vietnamese,
and their English is poor.

So I tell them I keep searching
the streets and wonder about words.
And the next thing is that
everything is still there.
A blast of colour is a silent world.