Bia Hoi
And it must be about the same time each night, perched
on the little red plastic stools, too small for hairy western legs,
around yellow plastic tables, sipping bia, watching the road
jam-up when a few cars try to navigate the old-quarters tributary
of winding motorbike-runs. And people everywhere. But we
in our oasis, sipping bia beneath the tree. And the booksellers
with travel books hung around their necks on shelves. And
the women in conical hats who cook foul smelling dried-squid
on hot coals beside our feet. And when the traffic dies down
and the bia goes down and the streets unwind and stretch out their tired
feet beneath plastic yellow tables all over the quarter, you can hear
the young singer, coming slowly along the road with his guitar,
one young boy carrying the amp, one carrying an upturned Conical hat. And
you find change. And the sound is ghostly. And you can’t even remember the
inanities of home. And even the chattering of the Hanoians with their toothpicks
and bad teeth and crooked smiles stops. And the echoing sound is a kind of soul.
Chris Guidon is a poet and short story writer from Kidderminster in the west-midlands. Chris continues to “sift through the murky silt of memory and of emotion for one shining moment of truth” with his stark, taught and mercilessly introspective lines.