Poems from ‘A Little Vase of Light Verses’
K Zaw
*
parky & frosty, we miss this & that ..
between pyin oo lwin & us ____________________
there is just a cup of coffee
*
no matter a rill may_________________
_______________s-s-s-stutter in fright
she will land_______________________
________________________at the sea
*
couldn’t choose the way_____________
___________________ couldn’t choose the crew
unable to gauge each other’s temperature
________________________________________________
it’s me who gets hostile at my own values
*
on a yacht in a tempest____________
_______ the compass goes querulous
to find coordinates
*
although days, months and years have gone autumnal
_______________some of your smiles
remain perennial
*
Point A to Point B is __________________
________________________incredibly far
I don’t even want to explain myself________
______________how I managed to climb up
to Point B from Point A &______________
how I crawled back from Point B to Point A
K Zaw (1959) was born to a family of goldsmiths in Myaing Myo, Pakkokku District, in upper Myanmar. At fifteen he entered the Burmese zat world as the front man of a travelling Myanmar traditional performance troupe in Mandalay and came to prominence as Mandalay Thein Zaw. His poems have regularly appeared in Myanmar magazines since the 1980s. He has published eight poetry collections, some of them bilingually in Burmese and English. His book, A Little Vase of Light Verses, translated into English by ko ko thett, was a national bestseller when it was published in Yangon in 2016. K Zaw has retired as a zat performer but remained a prolific poet.