BIOGRAPHY

1

What’s read

pine trees breathe like they grow in a Chinese graveyard
but the wind calmly changes the direction of day
plough　　goes back and forth to the field’s end
green　　a fertile August book
life scattering seeds of the dead

night　　stars moving in a jade well

all of one summer you read a biography
pine tree shadows immersed in the water
chair full of water cut in shallow relief
far away sea still raging alone
birdsong floods the sky　　as if there’s no song
you read as if you’ve read nothing

there’s only　　art that sways and blackens an afternoon

2

what’s being read

when with polite contempt
you curse the scenery　　you become a swan there
the water of the past flows incessantly　　your panic
easily overcomes you still, like bad weather

it’s still the time of stasis
a stone slab in a dim corner of the graveyard
spreads the last face whose cheekbone is stamped by a boot heel

in the rain a red bus drives to its destination
a poem　　written each day to its destination
isn’t you but your madness
no hands　　only an umbrella ordered by the mirror
witnessing a typewriter-revised poet enter into expression
so close that underwear is taken off by biography
a life surrendered to three hours of someone else’s torture

3

What hasn’t been read

to be dreamed is sometimes more dangerous than dreaming
what squirms beneath the skin is a drop of blood, not a word
yesterday’s wounds can’t smell any more
that glaring eccentricity that makes red specimen butterflies
one by one twilights use you to fill blank space
little iron bed rushing around the bedroom with shrill cries
you are transported by your nightmare
like the end of an electric wire　　one
glass tear that cannot weep

readers in another summer are gloomier than you
just the way your writers
kiss you　　your tongue rots and turns green
startle you　　you have no revenge　　no home
yesterday’s patient sawn by the silver teeth of a book
driven from yourself by a cast-iron name
because the sky has turned this page over

4

What’s unread

ants know how to climb the face in the photograph
ants　　walk on wide-open eyes
treading on black or flesh-coloured words

smooth　　wouldn’t even dare shut tight
formic acid turns the afternoon yellow　　diffuses

dead cat’s innards gather flies
hanging from pine trees outside the window birds loudly cry

whoever isn’t reading　　hears
the penpoint of a storm rustling close on the paper
across you　　and the seasons on your face
eyeballs　　like　snow crumbling in an eye socket
counting the ants’ falling feet one by one

all falling into　　　　death’s perfect imagination

5

Blank & Interlude

sunny days always start from the sea
start from continuous white　　start from lies

we always misremember time　　until
pruning a dead garden we pick roses
in sunlight　　red brains and white all overgrown
chasing the disorderly handwriting in a diary

we misremembered　　the salty smells of the sea-wind every day
being bodies without an address
static motionless blue　　dazzles only after memory’s editing

once incinerated　　the life of ashes goes on
prune roses till the garden is transplanted to the sea
flood a moment no-one has lived
with hieroglyphic sensitivity and hieroglyphic indifference

6

What’s read but unread

only death hands down　　snow falling in language
only a mouth is handed down to a wailing mother
as the sky is helpless as a breathing contest
you are made discordant by a cicada
August　　green filled with the swollen dead

only loneliness　　can engrave glass
loneliness doubles when everyone is squeezed into one body
making you grow old without an age
a poem that sleeps in forgetting also sleeps on shadows

only drifting　　makes each of you write someone else
in your own life　　each year in summer
a dead man falls into the green snow on the pine trees
sands of black night dripping again
each drip a daybreak　　repeating experience picked clean