Smoke covers the moon
Grey ash is the sky
Even the sun grows quiet,
Too frightened to cry.
Nguyen Quynh Huong (Eira Nguyen) is a Vietnamese multidisciplinary art practitioner
Nguyen Quynh Huong (Eira Nguyen) is a Vietnamese language lover and multidisciplinary art practitioner. Falling in love with poetry through her study of American and British Literature, she draws inspiration from Emily Dickinson and William Shakespeare.
Her work often takes the form of storytelling, blending prose, poetry, bilingual wordplay, and performing arts. Beginning her writing journey in 2017, Quynh Huong found her way to poetry in 2022 before expanding into spoken poetry and experimental performance in late 2025. Writing in both Vietnamese and English, with most of her work composed in English, she also engages in bilingual poetry translation, primarily sharing her work through online platforms.
Normalcy
“Rock-a-bye baby
On the treetop”
Let Mother braid your hair
Before we become air.
Distant banging
Nonstop shouting
Olive trees are singing
“Why must there be killing?”
Smoke covers the moon
Grey ash is the sky
Even the sun grows quiet,
Too frightened to cry.
“Hear my whisper,
Don’t ask Mama why,
Sleep through the sirens
Oh, my sweet, sweet child.”
***
Pre-post
I kept trying to define what love was,
Labelling my feelings just to understand
Why and how and which and then
You appeared and now I can
Let go of the need to explain what’s inside
The brain, the heart, and the loves that died
And buried deep, six feet under
The core of the earth where life renders.
***
Requiem/Home
Let me grow drunk on the salt of your tears
When all turns to murk and you’re surrounded by fears
I’ll collect each drop in a glass vessel
To toast with the ghost of Aristotle.
Let me get high on the taste of your smile
The shiny North Star in my self-exile
No place feels like home, only by your side do I feel sane
Jailed in intoxication but free from all chains.
Let me drown and enter a trance
On your fright and terror, the floor where I dance
I’ll find my peace, heaven is your rise
I’ll choose every dawn to die in your eyes.
***
Lost Stars
We’re chunks of memory
And fragments of eternity
Like lost stars, we aimlessly travel
Through space and time, until love unravels.
We carry the hope that the Universe would conspire
To help us achieve what our hearts desire
Yet we long for things that are already gone
We continue to live, but can never move on
We’re made of little things we picked up along the way
Bits of those close to us, of the worst and best days
Of the softness of one’s skin and the lightest kiss
That our lips don’t remember, but they surely miss.
We deny the powerlessness and the internal pain
Arising from dreams broken into pieces, tangled in vain
We pull to a halt and take so deep a breath
Overcome by greatest fears, we long for a sudden death
We’re sinking deep into the shallowest void
Like lost stars, we wander, but in chaos and noise
Aiming for the wonderest land, though all we find is emptiness
Filling our souls and minds, making us rather heartless
We crave a lover’s touch when we stand in the storm’s eye
Knowing it would calm our hearts and chase away all the plights
That has been keeping our heads underwater
Leaving us alone to silently suffer
We’re hungry for the taste of a lover’s skin
A drop of sweat falls down to one’s chin
Tear-wet pillows and hair a tangled mess
Hearts intertwined, dwelling in life’s rawness
We tiptoe through the moment of truth
When love unravels, we’re unable to move
As if struck by lightning, having one foot in the grave
Feeling like nothing but a rat in a maze
***
1405
Cigarettes taste different at midnight,
Filling my lungs with burnt leaves
While I’m staring at pieces of time.
It feels like drifting through a fever dream.
Burnt leaves, that’s what your kisses taste like
The sweetest bitter sweetness twirls on my tongue,
Leaving me grasping for air
Desperately groovy, painfully there.
***
A Sonnet from Artists’ Hill
Glistening rays leave traces on the leaves
Awakened blooms paint all the bluest skies
Silvery smoke swirls in the brightest beams
Stare at the unknown, a heart full of light.
A calming voice pairs with a jolly smile
Need not to hide the rainbow spark from you
Endless words of love turn all sorrow mild
Even the dusk is tender in your hue.
The roughest winds chasen’t your laughter away
Holding the light in your heart so gentle
As if new stars reflected in your face
In your grace, the dawn within me kindle.
So when the dark to steal the sun from sight
Only your soul to turn bare branches green
Never forget you bring the dark its light
To always remember places you’ve been.
Hope rises gently in your golden skies
I rise reborn within your dawning eyes.
________________
