Poetry
Prose
Reading
What Water Confirms
(Translated by Brian Holton & Agnes Hung-Chong Chan)
1.
sure wind is leaving along itself too
inherit crystal ripples in surnames
autumn carries people who stroll people who jog
and the iron bells hanging all over the November treetops
turn around a street corner warm
like elsewhere’s autumn
all forms of the past lick towards a golden rim
sure along his afternoon
the pitch-black asphalt road ponders this house
a bird’s head rots to expose the skull
“and water flows westward again,
passes the big town, saying…”
written on the book a fall of rain from deep breathing
the blue injected into apples full of the shrill screams of schoolkids
wild geese in slanting flight staying alert for humans
and a man sews up the superfluous parallel lines of his life
a dark green corner in the park
his absurdity or eagerness
sits into the inflammation of a rusting chair
“river, the breath of water…”
written on the book leaves of Chinese plane trees
hands both sallow and wrinkled stick fast to the pavement
both salty and violent a random eddy of flippers in air
staring at the unseen water
last night is beyond a thousand miles away
all night winter is crammed with mornings
desperately flinging away dead fish skewered on withered twigs
on the roof greyish white swim bladders swelling
pressing the trees dim matching the mood of a poem
he is forty-seven also a self-polished flight of smooth stone stairs
beating out going under’s rhythm the garden’s fragmented flesh
indulgently beating time fragments of flesh in a garden
unaware of time except for the collapse in the sound of rain
not remembering destruction except for downstairs
changing into a bloody funnel
an elapsing shore in the body exposes an instant
put it on the kitchen windowsill sure
outside the window a madman is crooking his back a head is banging against it
reed catkins disperse river is torn into strands of cotton
the salt in his heart recognizes this place
2.
two identical books he rewrites
walk in someone else’s dreams
the bamboos of Europe all bloom in one night
words between bamboo leaves gone with the wind at last
street corners spread out Sunday’s rotting-oyster sky
kneading numberless beheaded necks in the flower market
two books a thousand years apart he threads his way
through a season wrapped in feathers
another sleep talk in another self
river endlessly looking back
two sharp crisscross swords polished snow-bright
coldness chanted by the drowned
is compiled into an ecstatic classic
when the bamboos of Europe hear about the first ocean-going stem
pulling an explosive point
they decide they are lost again
lost among the flowers see for the fifth time
crows peck and mash the last apple on the branch
this place will then be different this blackening handle
dangle from the mouth of light years the starlit sky spatter out
the moment of twisting and breaking the moment of extraction from memoirs
when the silk blind can’t conceal
always initiated by the worst possible news on TV
a street corner two black angels practise passing a ball
a small Christmas bell is kicked in through the window
candles explode seagulls scurry in all directions like frightened expats
a judgment day locked in an aeroplane is narrow and absolute
take a sharp turn collide with the reality following close behind
everywhere is borrowed fragrance spilling out after death
everywhere two nipples gently rubbing
a big bunch of roses a gaudy red capstan
another pair of hands twisting clouds at the gap of dreams
in the direction where he never wakes up, where the wind refuses to blow
thousand years
with terrifying slowness, apples fall to the ground
3. An off-theme verse
Graveyard
this quiet has been soaked in water, water slowly penetrating these bodies
water slowly carrying away the last white birch
your tombstones forgotten by the sound of the wind, birds and the new year
this quiet has absorbed enough sunlight, as golden as the marshes
shrubs stir those lips, those tiny little
fruits that look bright red, confessing pure secrets at evening
those hands don’t know why as they melt
field paths that have never listened to footsteps will appear one by one
now your faces are flooded with the colour of a meadow of wild grass
winter has passed, crickets are chirping
still dreaming of a little house inside a fence
there, only a gust of wind, a bird and yesterday have hovered in the air
now the dawn you’ve waited for so long
falls onto your unchanging darkness
the ears that can’t hear any songs are spread out under ground
inconspicuous pale blue flowers are covered by a single fallen leaf
you look up at the sky all the while, no longer afraid of rainstorms —
this quiet, this heart which still ages with every minute, every second
a village with missing road signs, hanging suspended in the muddy night
an eternity where no one comes, no one goes
no sorrow, no clouds. The sound of wind and the birds
flutter anxiously away with yesterday
you know nothing at all, only that the final instant’s smile
is water is the sun is silence.
(1984, written for the graveyard of the young urban intellectuals who were exiled to Heilongjiang)
4.
in Hackney the river is a hidden god
only seen when the autumn floods rise under the streets
glaciers keep grinding in the rebated trench
a woodblock Waterways Classic Annotated 1 bows to the meaning of wandering
this day uniquely, once only, exists
soaked with light
pierced again and again by the fluttering of a water bird
Georgia Victoria Edward Elizabeth
what if it was the Kingdom of Wei or the Tang Dynasty?
a brass fireplace where the ashes of the dead drift
a pair of ivory-white eyeballs gaze after his footsteps
a string of small parks’ names spread like ripples
rings of green by the mouth
a chapel a bell always desperately ringing at the prow
imitating the one on the Whampoa in heavy fog
landforms hold a foundling tight
wrecked cars abandoned at the roadside distance
is dug away like a motor what if
one line of Chinese poetry lets the rain empty a room even more
water dives back to the ancient hearing of the marshes
water probably weary of flowing too
missed it tired too
a red brick wall is like a line running parallel to time
night after night extends then there’s the lonely structure of an individual
let him guess that’s what he wants rudder
dries up and cracks in the wind pearly light thrashes in the sleeping oyster
Hackney is like a short Chinese verse treasuring the moonlight she fears
leaves of a calendar turned over a little plaza with a local accent
holds dirty pigeons to its bosom and breaks into pieces
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1 A major work of geographical writing by Li Daoyuan (d. 527). Its forty chapters trace the various river courses of China, providing a wealth of anecdotal and historical material concerning cities and areas through which the rivers pass.
5.
“with less animals and more ghosts… where rivers hide”
he knows this Roman sarcophagus is empty
names carved in water exhaust archaeology
glass cabinets in museums that fictional constant temperature
even more like excavated scenery
she lets us caress half-naked marble
urgent hands that know nothing of passion
she lets us get drunk and dive into a snow-white fold
the sun sets beyond a wall not yet ruined
when palm trees brush a plucked-out eyeball
the feel of green cold and bright like the blue where peacocks are stationed this border that lovers can’t guard
what’s the use of soldiers we’re collapsing in the northerly wind
like a line on a fresco so fine
it falls under the pressure of colour
listen to what she tells the small golden snake in her bosom
kiss it a kingdom dies behind the body
nothing but a pleasing image
“in the west of Utopia lies the kingdom of Hanging Ferry”
on his mound this soon to dry up spring
looks down at an epic this black dog
picks a weeping willow to piss on
she walks between our chapped kneecaps
our fingers all fall off exhausted already
stab a spear through the belly to the tailbone or dig the river deeper
like those who would be king say
when the fleet burns she’s the only one returning to a dream
green laws lie under white Saxon snow
we pass through fields thinking about her gender on the way
a warm thing that stinks a bit
a pig that lies in the ashes of a fiery pool she stands up
her skirt making noises as if it warns of next time
but who recognises this winter
whose thready voice is rising along the thorny shrubs
hums painted reddish brown by the marshes
we try to get free from the wires that thread through our collarbones
cry out be bounced back again
once she turns around, time vanishes
“what the world abounds in, is water”
with no need for a map he has found
this flowery picnic blanket for
under the armpits of a swan a valley needs no gloomy catalogue
in a distant place brown paper is opened out rectifying
a mushroom’s line of sight
she says anniversary is not
bigger than other duplicated dates
in the Summer Palace a stone boat sails into the flesh-coloured lotuses
exile crumbles with fingers a pistil yearning for the past
this bottle of ours that holds a letter to ourselves
always chases a page of the ocean’s manuscript
she says life erases humans and writing
persists under an illusion
the only instant that stops
is when you’ve loved
for only a short while your tongue is rocked by your mother tongue
ghosts pick out the grain-sized past
in a flash the river dashes like it’s trying to touch that bolt of lightning
migratory birds fly along their low-level start splashing water in all directions
book after book is thrown into space
when she is dug out she laughs more happily
still in her bosom, a string of venomous fangs
6. An off-theme verse
another decade, hudson river
then we turn our backs to the symbols
sit into another river
a dark blue corner of a dark blue room
when hearing is blacker ten years the jetty has leaned whispering against water
in the little park ten years the tender green accordion of trees has played
children charging down the April to April steps
clouds charging down their reflection water now bright now dark
and squirrel’s pulped organs open
a blood-red photo album reality stings even through glass
even a soaked hand couldn’t touch the lined-up days
river a blank textbook hanging from the past window
questioning now only the single remaining page no need to learn vagrancy
weariness tethered to a water bird flying low
the spinning whirlpool exit for all the world’s skyscrapers
flee flee to plastic flowers no need to learn vanishing
Hudson just like a name formed by the sound of the wind
lamplight’s passing glance just like ghost fire hidden in human bodies
switched on just like a notch blown away at will
a rosy notch twilight recorded on the sky
whoever has understood it will live into a poem
unending past events
room in a room filled with water of a decade
corner in a corner painting the dark blue of distance
the way we sit forever turning our backs on the ocean
listening to the waves shatter rubble savagely smashing a decade
telephone lines broken cries for help blindly float through a decade
river the colour of forgetting can’t forget
each day two hands full of crimson steel tumbling straight down
no need to learn burning handful of ash fixed in
tight-shut eyes moon like a scooped-out pip
singing contralto requiem for every river valley
every place that flows away appears each time after dying
banks paved underfoot have been thousands of times removed
a pale fishbone always has another end glowing with phosphorescent light
endurance to slap a lifetime’s final
farewell pushing out tonight again
with the look of a room thrust into the universe
survey how much this sunken ship could further sink
our backs turned to zero drawn as the horizon
how much farther it migrates then crazy blue is blue enough to be black
in a lost accent Hudson pressed against
a bluestone wellhead buried at the gate of an ancient Chinese village
destruction touches its own diameter of one day
one drop gathers snow left for us
with the beauty of survivors and the cruelty of survivors
7. An off-theme verse
Letter
“…the joy of tranquillity” (father’s letter)
water-made windows, one closed as the other opens
water is a letter always thrown farther away
your hand even stretches across the dark to pat your son’s slumber
blood-kin dialect whispers night takes the longest time to be read
eighty years fluttering moths
a fall of rain composes this note from home
long-sighted glasses and vision taken off put down on a table
teacup looks back at the glass of a moment ago
there grandfather roars a boy faces a betraying bed
move one more inch revolution swollen with the bright red-green of kid’s voices
there a blue and white meiping vase, by the wildness it contains
is crushed dad the rhymes of your life
still carry your son’s hearing stuck close to an eleven-year-old wall
they force out a voice unlike yours
weak but denying aloof from the red-armband
affair yellow-green asparagus ferns denying
in the guts of words lies a century swept over by blankness
to be weak as crescent moon or stranger future to be like body temperature
surging into the tip of this pen you send yourself by registered mail
the closer the recipient
writing the more like a blinding leaving of the banquet
oh, gloom fills a quiet corner of the eye
your son’s blood dipping in that smiling drop of yours
letter in reply aims at the grid tape where
the world starts running the heartbeat you give will be in tune with you
the tongue tip you give licks then cancels
the salty taste of mother’s death deaths pile up into half a mortal life
dad there’s no guide in this tunnel your greatest transcendent bliss
is to seal tight an envelope let the voices be stilled like a silkworm
knitting all night its silky cocoon — “all’s well”
8.
he says
this is not a book on geography but a book of memory
the sound of water in this white porcelain bathtub
is remembered by a river valley in distant hills
cold of a thousand years comes from the uppermost reaches
a water-eroded cave finds
that underwater flesh look closer
it’s a blood-red frog
flayed eggs embracing a piece of jade
he steps on the moss and says
this bed drifts against the morning
each child being reborn
crawls back to pass a corridor revises a patch of waterweed
pornographic landscapes collaged on the wall
while leaving along himself he says
whoever goes forward to read the river this tiny thick book
will go backward to read up to his own unfamiliarity
to wring out the lamplight in submarine cities
to sleep on the riverbank full moon angling
to run aground in a pool of 70% solution of flesh and blood
bamboos have blossomed
root going all out to reproduce a shriek of terror
9.
“can’t identify its whereabouts”
it’s a dream
his little baby eels haunt the cave
she has mother’s voice, unrecognizable,
the last box delivered here too light
has hurt hands like time that no longer pretends to smile
on the platform rusted into a lump of dark green
a corpse softly reclines
his finished part bright and beautiful as the flowers
pure sense of sight doesn’t know it’s looked at by someone
her cancer quietly twists to shine led by someone
it’s come to find someone to pass on the news of escape
death is a dream in a dream
once asleep then open up other knowledge
he thinks the hardness of a wooden chair
comes from its transparent interior the corpse fades
and who’s shaking a glass of solution
she loosens her grip and has forgotten all her past lives
his dilution is interrogating this emptied place
this corroded place can water be counted as a kind of left over trace
when the wind blows in dreams intertwine explosion of an alarm clock
equals silence
10.
An off-theme verse
Adagio one: Leipzig, Autumn
your movement has a kind of slowness compared to leaves
yellow shining out from leaves’ palms it’s even slower
but it catches the music in one grip
Hotel Adagio in Leipzig
autumn sleeps past Leipzig
flames of war condense into greetings on the street
school kids with a marching song in their mouths
piss on the empty sculpture pedestal
his tongue tip touches an unfamiliar stone
piano keys are pressed space has invented objects’ distant gaze
waking up is like a lie
only birds say in song
ceiling uses snow-white plaster to multiply a leopard
leaping to the blue nude outside the window
in his mouth sticky taste of beer is making a collage of last night
semen hugely spilling from the fridge overhears a womb’s temperature
your movement has the wind
turn slowly as it pushes planets embedded in music
no shocking news is sudden enough
open the corner door between bathtub and garden
dead fish’s sight chases an apple rotten to its core
open out breakfasts on ten thousand tablecloths
Sunday which organ isn’t a noisy pond of happiness
sky hesitantly writes music
a golden partridge looks down from the eleventh floor balcony
his clouds hang low over the carved flower on a tourist’s head
his coughs start on a journey beyond the railings
a right ear separates lovers’ kisses
jump slowly down
a red light at street corner one more beat later
disbelieve spilled blood is real
(when Leipzig is written about blood spilled from all over the ground)
your movement extends to one of these moments longer than autumn
leaves are smelting the code words on reeds stronger
push him wake up twice with lies
disbelieve all that’s been heard
11.
An off-theme verse
Adagio two: local graveyard, Summer
tinnitus persists
rainstorm overture to the concert tonight
a cicada as big as you is carrying you
sound of a whistle urges sweltering flesh to come out of earth
squirrels jump on gravestones like June electrocuted
another library is stuffed with me
weakness of marble shown all around on recumbent roots
the right ear is like language
falling under the pressure of its own echoes
the world is twice as noisy on the right
only you hear the trumpet-like human organ can’t be shut down
only the right eye reads the green fanning half its face
as black as the suicide note in a lawyer’s hand
inflation of weakness precedes any collapse
calcareous shouting vomits broken swan necks
snow thrown into river valleys too late for editing
who uses mouths to say in a rush
when trees let you pass pieces of purple crystal are cast one by one
sounds of blasting can’t break on the thick fur of roses’ tongues
one half of a bird rots
another half drips with sweat
the orchestra is ghostly as light
all numbers marking memories, by a broken-sided spectacle frame
are added with a minus sign
the void is competing too
a thousand pairs of tiny iron pieces applaud with all their might to start the show
when I endlessly gaze at the curtain call
is it a rainstorm that never blows out of this ear
or definite as the chirps of cicadas that garrison your body
brush bright fall
down tonight is off balance
die in summer the weak is exactly the dazzling
deafness drawing near silted-up hearing on the right
occupies me catch sight in an instant of
an oyster shell under the feet destroying itself like you do
hear all that’s been disbelieved
12.
An off-theme verse
Adagio three: on the train, Spring
slowly revive a honeymoon after death
slowly watch sunlight jump off the body’s train
he pouts his little lips with flower buds
a moving hospital waiting-room scenery is taking a roll call
fresh green casually unbuttons an undergarment
shrubs adjust an aerial
projecting old films in reverse
in spring that waits to be dubbed I
pass through repeatedly like a broken-down
hearing aid
slow rivals in love hang upside down on the fence
a girl’s vulva dazzles the eye one by one
scalpels throw themselves onto my face
birds are nailed to train windows a conductor
dissects countless past events
sky is rocking a glass syringes of the rails
one sickness after another draws me back
to yesterday the dead are drinking brief encounters
flowers fly to prehistory supported by broken stems
starlit sky a golden timetable lets him be as late as he wants
head straight south cast off its own shadow
iron roses pressed between pages pull away from distant hills
a cloud in the pond the whiter it is the more it looks like guts
a roomful of sterilized post-coital lilacs
a nurse sitting in light reflected by the window
turns slightly round plucks reality off a solid gold barb
I don’t want to listen and so I turn deaf
he listens again and again the world is a piece of old furniture
placed in love returned after death
love without flesh
rolls up a draft of distance
a distant place secretes me a series of small explosions
brightly and sweetly
lick onto the focal point
(approaching Leipzig recall that a honeymoon has a topic)
the dead are so slow they attain perfection that best possible gentleness
is carried by the one who jumps off the train
believe all that can’t be heard
13.
clouds are like ten thousand women hurrying in frequent urination
the official blue looks at them unmoved
a sudden snowfall pigeons’ daily classes on instrumental performance
crash behind that string on the roof ridge
a big bunch of tulips arrogant red
and scentless assail the nostrils
Hackney is simply a group of images
seeping more deeply than an address
a pear tree then gives the street corner a white flag of pipe dreams
a pause climbs along the presumed stem
flooding his expired forty-seven years of age
to surrender to living is simply to be operated on
imitate a starfish that meticulously constructs
its own shape and colour
arrange an itinerary into a tight knot under the feet
separately execute movements
clouds change again sky adopts a swarm of scorpions
echoing the necessity of pain
people he meets all his life are as unavoidable as this place
the self he avoids from afar the more amended the more likely it comes to
Hackney when it slowly appears as a disposition
Complete collapse picks him up on his way home
to synchronize with a dry branch of winter jasmine in melted snow
return behind the iris of the eye
delicately ponder the delight of being exhausted
14.
the Aare is young like a baby
her riverside city all in this flesh-made riverbed
change Hutuo Hudson Parramatta broadened
up to Lea thin, narrow and infinite
wildly wish an end to breathing
this reflection of light develops a zero process
this book has never lost a drop of water
sit in front of the desk and hear the waves
help his shore change into a dripping name
allocate to Braille a smooth brownish-yellow forefinger
touch again and again morning ceremonies
metaphysically naked in a cup of green tea
a hand holding the tea passes through the nominal bull’s-eye of life
drink in one gulp the absoluteness of beheaded flowers everywhere
endure the brighter, more unendurable
sunlight that develops into a stylus
time’s secret is this space
poetry guarding human bodies gains more weight
symmetrical aesthetics symmetrical to that one tiny second
which disperses in defeat under the skin
pornographically deny the source and origin
river bottom on paper hollows out the days even more
let him design what is thrown off on the bends
suddenly kindle what dazzles in a grove of peach blossom
alternate blue and white stamens of flesh and blood leaping
the only passion is for mixing up past lives and future ones
as small water birds chirp to expose the cracks
15.
An off-theme verse
Completion
— for R. B.
plumpness of poetry pursues a dead cat’s puffed-up body
passes beneath our windows the steady speed of flood water
drives a small table holding a wine glass against the current
to where this blacked-out city
long ago promised the gale-filled dark
let the scene of gazing after each other be rehearsed in the park
two white eels reciting on bumpy seats
only the sweet name of moonlit mice with rigor mortis is left
eyes tight shut to fly as high as the full moon
on the eighteenth floor an empty seal stamps into flesh
pouring what will be gulped down tonight until intoxication
count which number billboard is taking off from the rivets’ tips
twisted and broken smiles rolling dissolve on the sea
we don’t know which number sea is in which sequence
destiny splashed-ink painting withdraws a life’s phosphorescent footprints
hangs on two walls ten thousand miles apart
16.
An off-theme verse
Lake
— for D. M.
the well died too when my gaze had fallen to the bottom of the well
more broken up, it turned into your
or the lake’s staring at the colourful cobbles tilting down
dark golden grove like a diving school
jump once more touch once more into the inverted reflection
a sheet of deaf shining water
expand the third lung a blackish blue plume drifting down
below the human if an ultimate collapse exists
who puts the moon just opposite a tiny little balcony
whose night slowly strides into his own language
salty taste still on the lips tongue tip has been licking
the wind’s accent I was taken from a nest
and you gently broke the eggshell open
to find the child even looked down inside
even thought there really was a world waiting to be salvaged
like the dentures behind the smirk between teeth
mother tongue is caught in a dilemma
17.
An off-theme verse
Rose
— for Yoyo
to find that petal of ours we must wait for winter evening
the setting sun refines the windows on the other shore into gold
extinguished again the age-old topic of going home
choked to death by terror of itself
we have to ask how far beneath the water that bright red is suffused
how far does twilight limp to kiss an earlobe
swans fly low wing tips touch wing tips on the water’s surface
blood-dripping inverted reflection of armpits
point out that our dreams can’t be farther away
the horizon always has the look of you on a bed
sweet as an assumption I have to adorn my sense of smell
an island is like a glittering floating drop of oil
return whether or not to let a smear of ash seep from the flesh
rolling up the edges as if to say all of a life is too slow
the petal is destroyed needing only a really cooled - down moment
really black quietly integrated into the overlapping flowers of the night sky
18.
An off-theme verse
Chaotic era
— for Zhang Zao
quicksilver hue merges into a vast expanse corrodes into the eyes
the moss-covered wooden table at the lakeside displays
our loneliness detaining end rhymes of snow
ten thousand beaks repeat one kind of white
the factual description of time endless as a picnic
we’re sitting fingers and claws dark green too
digging into deathly silence to be part of the deathly silent moon
write well then write up to the revenge of gloomy life
a family tradition of having cranes so show a fish card
water turns around at the same spot, twisting a small stony bone in its fingers
no turning a big tree half fallen into the lake has four simultaneous seasons
snails are led to crawl by mouldy hearing crawl
the little harbour of the starry sky has a wooden springboard
yet a ship was wrecked tightly rolled-up sail looks as not yet invented
our apparent suffering to be re-invented
to get rid of humans lock into one’s own light and be utterly jubilant
19.
what if early spring is annotating negative aesthetics too
rain and snow alternate rituals
along her dripping wet shape
a foreign land isn’t an exam question
but body temperature is a bird that sweeps past windows isn’t a sob
but passion is
a tiny little apple blossom
curls upward like a sorceress to the branch tip cleaned last year
what if a crow is spying on its own hunger again
what if one spies on a kind of death but wants not to touch skin
only to caress the moonlight hanging down low
Hackney has the shape of an island
in his heart deny the move of ocean
on her body deny that meanings can vanish
20.
“river, like lotus, is pronounced ho”２
“it flows through places under the ground”
about those hims what can he remember
the book about water read it again and still sink
bi-directional river presses up to a person’s blankness
sound of water carves a tiger lily on the table
sound of water is chasing a cloud to scan it
skeletons still rigidly insist on the nature of turning green
how many times spring has been repeated
grass roots handcuff twitches eulogizing in handcuffs
his submission praised as the beauty of middle age
the brief touch of a bamboo cane seagulls’ grey feathers lifted by the wind
footsteps slow down days secretly speed up
to this rapidly flowing afternoon when nothing is written
at the eye sockets a white stone windowsill like the horizon
is being swept far far away
interstellar loneliness of water
fiercely smashes into a human womb like numberless light years
the bit that a tiger lily embraces with golden stripes
the bit that he washes with a whole valley he makes up
island’s end full moon still staying empty for passion
spring night fabricates a faint sweetness
the blind make up city lights in all directions
destroyed by a candle flame that has forever lost its memory
to be kindled into the lilacs like a tugboat towing
non-existing geography
exist wantonly pressed tight into a dead corner
by the two upper reaches of before and after
here Waterways Classic Annotated is drifting itself
when this corner is painted dark blue it invokes a cry from a wild goose
the roll call a thousand years away he’s called and then he appears
a biography overgrown with oysters no writing
writing about rivers finished too when the tiger lily is cut open he touches that flow
no way out but still have to flow
into soundlessness confirm
sheets of moonlight raised when ghosts walk are real
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2 Or we could do this in Latin: Flumen, sicut lilium, ho dicitur.
21.
An off-theme verse
A certain he: water is colourless
every colour is a lie when water
endures one endless time and starts from the opposite shore
starts from a separation
every colour is lifting this rock higher
when breakers chase and moonlight has learned to imagine
a dizzy elevation in stories all night long
we want to shut up but cannot shut our eyes
in pitch-dark sky a big group of jellyfish is stinging the horizon too
pain ardently salvages both images of sitting
my hands only survive for an instant on your body
then they’re injured vocalists sing remember this April
remember an expanse of routed silver-white beyond spread-out vision
a kind of dark purity is inhaled into the lungs
so the body doesn’t fear the direction of a verse’s flow
forever barer compared with a handful of snow or a piece of ice
even barer when two seas splash each other
two overhearing right ears are buried into a drop of eternal water
enduring colourlessness that no one can swim across
beyond the stars immortals go on yearning for a reunion day too
shake an obviously empty glass
when the leaking out of love is being made into a rainbow
22.
An off-theme verse
Another he: green amber
five hundred thousand years include how many instants of being twenty-four
this piece of green is pausing whole life of flowers
hidden under water silver white kept for someone unknown
is carved non-stop into prettier skeletons
green feel only in a hand’s grip five hundred thousand years are like
a ceaseless shiver in our bodies
twenty-four summers secret fragrance hidden in flesh
we’re smelling our own sense of smell that has died once
pattering of raindrops turns stiff in recollection
wet leaves of wutong trees and a window removed
move into your past events my past events
water level rising an inch everyday submerges two names
days without poetry are so good without
happiness ghosts don’t have to regret deeply inhuman coldness
without an injection of sunshine at 4:30pm
we don’t wait for a sober moment, a poisoned moment
without words you know the image of me
dripping off a wound just now
a glimpse volume of green piled in sheets to fill a manuscript
cries of seagulls sounding like slips of the pen stop in
the sky my past events your past events
you and I imagine a road more sparkling only if it hasn’t been walked past
twice walk past two universes that will grow old
pain preserved by a departure is so good
hugged by the green insides of a body
a petal dies once more glinting with silver numberless petals
smelling the same post-mortem spill of fragrance
when we catch up with our own shiver at last
flesh and blood written to fill twenty-four years of age can be forgotten at last
hold fast only five hundred thousand years will qualify as an instant
23.
An off-theme verse
A certain he: leave along oneself
read backward from the end of a book
who can we meet again
from sounds of birds stuck in blue clay and flapping their wings
sure losing something is a kind of beauty too
when my letter arrives even the handwriting has changed
the face of another person you printed on an old photo
ask the bird’s-eye view equipment to remote sense
the crack at a corner of the mouth last night
cut into the flesh as if it’s fake when it’s deep as someone hidden
destructive reality the dark red inside of an oyster shell
who knows if there is that pearl of history
prized your earlobes listening to pearly tears
my tongue tip led by a magnet inside a bird’s head
revels in the sweet force of doomsday
leave along oneself forward breathing moves us far away
backward go upstream along the bloody canal of mother’s labour
last night of many lives the dead
ponder as they stroke that impossible temperature
many hands hide under the skin five rotten fingers
bird songs thoroughly nipped off
thoroughness is an orbit to penetrate a meticulously carved
death this hand still can’t be found
hold a book in both hands read from the end to the end
from the sound of shattering relive how gentle we could be
24.
An off-theme verse
Another he: in the water
cry for yesterday but don’t cry like yesterday
desire and distance twin themes
a person exhibits a still life already drowned at birth
and a river talks to itself exactly like a conversation
when they speak up everyone in the water is crazy
crazy along with the setting sun gilded dice on a crystal turntable
cinerary urn holds a handful of ashes on the horizon at dusk
rubs you with a yesterday that’s just been replaced
persons changed into water the wave that poem
no longer possible not to be obscure
the circle’s centre seals in the stupidity of these years
imagine there’s a transmigration yet in which transmigration am I
in the palm five fish bones that pure white polish faked one by one
under the water watching from far away the ink running all night again
seeping into total lunar eclipse projected by the grammar of lunatics
I go back but which pair of eyes can recognize me
you are vaguely left between white hairs
a reality a past cooked drop by drop but never gone
seawater rewrites quietly the proportion of consanguinity
imagine an end when the end is itself endless
when a scalpel takes one cut-off day to cut off our sex
when the depth of weariness has wearied depth
treat me as an entrance to the sea in the direction of zero
a storm palpitates with pink terror on your dividing line
listen to the zero point start without hearing
25. An off-theme verse
gloaming in some garden
the sea’s horizon invisibly inspects these gaps in the wall
fan’s ivory ribs cast off one by one among the pine needles
smell of sulphur set with peacocks
tiny dead footsteps
again words divide two conversations still further
again more moments extracted from within this moment
birdsong a space of waking at five p.m.
cigarette smoke curling, building up marbles clap their wings
again more origins vanish breathing
left behind poking the soft belly of the sky
again it’s painless a stretch of blue leaking electricity
extinguishing once in being appreciated is as fresh as the first time
the day so big big enough to let broken oars of clouds drift by
we sit among smoke-cured trees
fallen in love long ago with a banished whistle
be darker take tonight away again with thousands of years