"Listen to me, skull! Under your thin brittle boneplates what black memories haunt you? What do you want? What do you dream of? ... Is it your soul you think of, flickering through frightful nights? ... Skull, I must have been raving mad to smash you with my bare fist. Scarlet blood thickens on my fingers, plagues me to spew these rhymes, and still my teeth want to tear you to pieces! Like a raven I'll swallow even the sucked-out bones to get a fresh taste of the past, a drop from the torrent of months and years."
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Original Language: English
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Original in Vietnamese, and an English translation by Hai-Dang Phan, available at Asymptote.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ch%E1%BA%BF_Lan_Vi%C3%AAn
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Chế Lan Viên
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