Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi Poem Rhyme Scheme

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S. K. Kelen

Thousand Star Hotel, Hanoi Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
	-
Over the road from the three star Galaxy Hotel is our hotel	B
the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street	C
home to many and work place for many more	D
A place where anything can happen	E
and happily usually doesn't	F
People come and go as in an opera	G
playing their respective roles	H
with their own music and destinies	I
a Vietnamese opera where life is mostly	J
happy not opulent for sure and it takes a war	D
or typhoon to introduce epic scale tragedy	J
A lot of people stay all their lives	K
Some are born here some arrive	L
There have been family lines dynasties in this park	M
generation to generation doing what they do	N
making the best of a hard life	O
There's survival love and many arguments	P
it's no paradise living in a park	M
You could call our struggles 'day to day'	N
Too real for opera A better metaphor would be	J
the park as island in a sea of traffic	Q
trading and communicating with other islands	R
and some of us look pretty shipwrecked at times	S
Better still A vital node at street level in the new era	G
open door state sanctioned market economy	J
How many ways is it possible to say the same thing	T
It's just the old park on Phan Dinh Phung Street	N
Old Emperor what's his name built it	N
to graze a flock of golden turtles and the Dragon King	T
rested here while hunting nine tailed foxes	U
Some days the clouds re enact the old stories	I
Almost yesterday the sky lit with the dragon's breath	V
we fired at American phantoms and bombers	W
We were always bamboo now we are also steel	X
	-
II	A
	-
By the time the shadow boxers slow motion	E
sword fighters and tai chi exponents arrive	L
for their early morning workouts	Y
we're awake and busy setting up for the day	N
Crafts people and traders keep the ancestors' way	N
Blacksmith hammers out drive shafts	Z
shoemaker mends Reeboks and plastic clogs	A2
the shoeshine boys polish for a pittance	B2
the tinker adjusts tuners videos CD players	W
and with a few twists of solder	C2
the amplifiers piled on the pavement	N
will be seen to in no time flat	N
The parasol and feather duster vendor	C2
diversified into electric fans years ago	D2
and is looking at new technologies	I
the man whose father fixed wagon wheels his job	E2
is to pump up flat bicycle and motor scooter tyres	I
The traffic still flows like a flooding river	C2
but its song has changed from bicycles and cyclos ringing	T
to blaring car horns engines the smell of sweat to choking fumes	I
that blot out so many of the night stars a great sadness	I
when the stars are all you will ever own	F2
There's a smiling idiot who talks all day into a mobile phone	F2
Progress I read in a paper there's one TV for every nine Vietnamese	I
The Phung Street philosopher's still here	G2
still like a statue sitting straight backed in a teak chair	H2
pointing with a pencil to a page in his book	I2
can answer any question of wisdom East or West	N
parlays Fran ais like a Frenchman	J2
and though astrology's pass he'll tell your future too	N
the children laugh when his thick glasses fog up in the Hanoi stew	N
Enough things remain eternal	K2
	-
III	A
	-
Hanoi by night the park cloaks love's ardour	H2
even in moonlight long shadows wrap sheets of privacy	I
tucking in couples touching steamy nights	I
During the hot season be careful where you step	L2
Daytime there's no time for serious romance	I
Everyone works in the park The Park Committee	I
has ensured that no one need beg and beggars	I
asked politely to move along get slipped a few old notes	I
As everywhere we have our serious cadres	I
with portable loudspeakers to amplify	A
their good intentions no one has time to listen to	N
too busy too busy Marching music	Q
The children spend an hour or so selling postcards	I
maps pirated novels and phrase books then spread	N
their school on park benches the tiny chairs and tables	I
brought out from under a canopy provided by the council	K2
I remember the magic of learning algebra equations	I
put worlds in balance physical and spiritual	K2
running writing made words run like rivers	I
And doing schoolwork in the park made it more serious	I
you had to get on if you wanted out	N
Several of my classmates went on to better things	I
Some stayed Some moved to different parks	I
All of us did our duty for our country	I
These days electric fans keep serious young heads cool	M2
How many parks can boast power points	I
Most of the children who leave the park	M
come back to visit 'humble origins'	I
Sometimes they'll come to me I'm Huan	N2
decorated veteran part time cyclo driver	H2
but my fame rests on being the park's chief barber	H2
and my young apprentices	I
cut hair better than anywhere in the city	I
These days I mostly check the barber stools	I
are lined up straight the mirrors hang	O2
neatly from the wrought iron fence	I
A manager But I'm there when a young genius	I
gets his clippers jammed in a poor customer's ear	H2
I unclip sweet talk and finish the haircut	N
I'll take the pay when that happens	I
The youngster can keep the tip	P2
unless the tip is bigger than the fee	I
say when it's a businessman	J2
or tourist letting their head go for a ride	N
on the wild side then I keep the tip	P2
Today one park prodigy the articulate and beautiful	K2
news reader from VTV my second daughter	H2
Thuy has come home to see me	I
	-
IV	I
	-
Don't ask me where the park's food comes from	Q2
except in hard times the stalls near the old stone walls	I
overflow with the finest and we swap our change	R2
for a good hot meal As well as rice noodles and eels	I
there's beer ice cream and coca cola fruit from all over Vietnam	S2
and for the past week apples and pears from New Zealand	N
Must be the government doing something right	N
or someone high up who came from the park whatever	H2
the dragon king has never forgotten us	I
I'm not crazy I go inside when a bad storm is on the cards	I
and every day wash myself and clothes in a hole in the wall	T2
with a tap and a door called 'public baths' four blocks away	N
I really never could abide to be inside too long	U2
Three months working in a munitions factory	I
was enough I volunteered my way out and the action	E
I saw at the front was outdoors all right down south	V2
fighting invaders fighting cousins	I
where a ghoul let out of a bottle feasted on blood	N
where our battalion well and my wife back in Hanoi	W2
worked on an anti aircraft gun	E
excuse my mentioning the war in this city of love	I
Indoor people might wonder what kind of trick	Q
can make the park people smile so much	X2
your looks of fascinated guilt are touching	T
we're the first to see a rainbow and the stars come out	N
feel the breeze on a dead hot night it's true	N
and it's the best rent in town	Y2
A few years ago I was given a job	E2
as hairdresser in chief over at the Galaxy	I
The clippers were electric there were oils and shampoo	N
tonics and concoctions from New York and Paris	I
crisply cleaned towels not a speck	Z2
of rust not even dust marred the slick scissors	I
hell they gave me a terrible jacket and a room	A3
to sleep but the air conditioning and pastel walls	I
made me feel I was trapped in a dragon's tomb	A3
I quit with a bottle of whisky and went back	B3
to my residence in the thousand star hotel	B
	-
V	I
	-
When real luck calls you must answer the park	M
philosopher quoted some ancient wisdom	Q2
I always thought my next address	I
would be a marble roofed room in the middle of a rice field	N
But the next chapter of my story reads like the denouement	N2
of a Charles Dickens novel the state encouraged us to read	N
the part when the well heeled come to take	C3
the wayward waif home as one of their own	F2
Hence my daughter's assignment I must have mentioned	N
she was brilliant at school and university married well	B
but she made her life in TV I still find television foolish	D3
people taking the parts better played by puppets	I
interrupted by advertisements for things no one can afford	N
but that's where the brave and brilliant go these days	I
Anyway Thuy hit the jackpot two boys in a row	H2
hai con trai hai con trai	H2
The whole park shook my hand for a week	E3
when news of the second boy got around	N
toasted good fortune with beer and snake wine	F3
burned incense and phoney money	I
like it was going out of style	G3
and New Year had arrived six months early	I
Two babies now Thuy's executive husband	N
and his family are too busy modernising	E3
the country to mind children and	N
manage a knick knack shop in the street	N
Her mother bless her can't be there to help out	N
My little girl's taking me home to a life	I
with a comfortable bed shiny bathroom two scooters	I
refrigerator a car the life they advertise	I
to take care of my beautiful grandchildren	E
for whose love I will gladly endure a happy ending	E3
The neighbours wave and I wave goodbye	A
My kit and I fit fine on the back of Thuy's scooter	H2
When we arrive she goes serious and says	I
'I forgot to tell you as well as minding the children	E
and the shop you're expected to tend the ancestors' shrine	F3
on the roof and ' and I'll take the kids for a morning walk	E3
round the park afternoons a cyclo ride and ice creams	I
Tonight I string my hammock on the roof the penthouse suite	N
of the thousand star hotel a step or two closer to heaven	E