NANJING POETS - FOUR QUARTETS
PRESENTED BY ZHU WEN
The poetry readings by American and Chinese poets in Nanjing, China, June 12-15, 2004
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THE PAST & GRASS LEAVES AND THREE OTHER POEMS
YU XIAO-WEI
Yu Xiao-wei (1961-). A self-made writer, artist and art company supervisor. He spent his childhood in the northern Jiangsu country-side, and then came back to Nanjing, his birth place, with his parents at the age of 18. He began to study painting with his art master since then. In 1985 he began to write poems and [wrote] short stories till 1989. Verse: The Train (2002).
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Now and then
The two persons stand up
And squat down.
What are they doing?
I didn't see them clearly
When I looked at them.
What I see are merely two blurred images
Facing the past.
They used to be men
Or might be women who cut
Or touch grass leaves on the lawn
Or under a huge shadow sometimes.
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THE TRAIN
Like any other train
That train keeps moving forward
In the vast land
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A GROWN-UP
What I'd like to tell my friend
Might be a bike I'll buy,
The merest trifle.
But he is out.
What I meant to tell my friend
Is but a sort of tape.
Liang Er is out.
Xiao Su is too young.
A grown-up means that he might be free
To go out at anytime
Even when he lives in the seventh floor
Or when his mother is preparing
His lunch. Xiao Su is young.
He is too young.
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IT SHOULD BE A COMMON SIGHT
A tall man picks fruit
From a tree
And passes them to a shorty.
Then they eat the fruit
Along the way
When the tree howls
Against the wind.
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BUTTONS AND FOUR OTHER POEMS
ZHU WEN
Zhu Wen (1967-). Born in Quan Zhou, Fujian Province. Graduated from the Dynamics Department of South-East University, Nanjing, 1989. A free lance writer since 1994. Publications: Verse They Cannot but Go back along the River Bank (2002). Selected Short Stories I Love Dollars (1997); Mr. Dama's Manner of Speaking (1998); My Brother's Musical Performances (1998); Whether People Need Sauna or Not (2000). Novel What Is Junk and What Is Love (1999). Movie Rain and Clouds over the Wu Mountain (1995).Recipient: The Best Director Award in the 56th International Film Festival in Venice for his movie Go Home in the Spring Festival(1999); The Special Appraisal Commission Award in the 58th International Film Festival in Venice for his movie Sea Food (2001); Award of The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema in the 54th International Film Festival in Berlin for his movie South of Clouds (2002).
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Her body is rocking at the tips of my fingers
When she unbuttons her clothes at night.
The deeper wound is not healed
Even in the paler moonlight.
I love the pangs that grow out of your joy
As wild as cocci.
It is worth a cast-away at least-
This absurd life! I throw my all
Believing that the boundless body
Is a heaven of fire, and God's old house
That has not been repaired for long. You,
The stubborn, _ tireless love-maker, disturbed him
At last. But his damned forgiveness
Shines farther than the moonlight tonight.
The blue fire is wriggling in the buttons deliberately,
I throw my all including this poem without a single line left.
Ode to the Winter
The season is nothingness
With the bright sunshine and gentle breeze.
This season is merely a metaphor
Of another season.
And my death is like
Your eternal love.
What a crazy farmer needs
Is only to cultivate land,
One year here, and
Another year there.
One year in this world, and
Another year in paradise.
Look, his own land has lain wasted
For a long time.
Busy all his life,
The farmer is nothingness.
This farmer is merely a metaphor
Of another farmer.
And my love is like a grave
That is flying toward you.
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A DEDICATORY POEM
I dedicate myself to you with my hardest and softest part,
And to you with my holiest and ugliest part,
Giving and taking, exhausted, out of alertness.
A heart tends to grow in dust like a corm,
Every drop of blood is crying, eager to bloom like a flower,
The humble plant, luxurious flower,
And the monsoon of our fate.
Slow, slow as silver utensils and ice,
Nothing quicker than the slowness.
Wait and wait till it becomes golden,
And till it boils.
The white night in the patient's eyes with high fever,
His shameful tears are welling up with a rising sun.
With the cold, fever, scene, and emotion,
I dedicate my whole life to you in my suddenly complete knowingness.
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THE TRAIN
What a beautiful trip!
When he woke up he had arrived
At his hometown, an ancient city
Fresh with its new residents
His travel fatigue has left in his dream
While his love in dream stays in his heart.
He stands firm on the ground
Lest he should wake up again.
One might like the train
And the life in the train
When he has learned how to take
Sleeping pills.
His wife, full of tears,
Is standing on the platform
Like an abandoned railway carriage
With its paint peeling off.
She is waiting in one direction.
The night train rushes into
His wife's valley.
She feels it-
Oh, the train, train.
"Don't, please, darling,
For the sake of your health!
You'd better take a sleeping pill,
And one more."
No, what a beautiful trip!
Oh, the train, train.
Flying a Kite with Mr.Yang
A white kite
Is like a bubble
Floating slowly over the sea.
With a pipe in his mouth
He, the old big fish,
Had just done his gall bladder surgery
It is good.
Do nothing but enjoy your life.
With a mere cough he made,
Thank God, a group of small fish
Would swim into his stomach
One after another to fill up
His hunger from all directions.
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TOUCH AND THREE OTHER POEMS
HAN DONG
Han Dong (1961-). Graduated from the Philosophy Department of Shandong University, in 1982. A free lance writer. In 1980s, he edited Them, an influential underground literary journal. In 1990s, he and Zhu Wen launched a rupture movement to challenge the literary order maintained by the mainstream. In 2000 he joined the Rubber Literary Internet, and now is preparing to establish his own literary internet. Publications: Verse The Lucky Tiger (1988); Papa Is Looking at Me from the Sky (2002). Short Stories Our Bodies (1996); In the West Sky (1997); My Plato (2000). Novel Taking Root (2003). Others Cross Run (selected poems and essays,1997); The Dynamics of Love (essays,1998).
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Without any love making
We slept together for a whole night,
Merely touching each other
For about 30 times at least?
I'm familiar with your night-suit
Which I touched from time to time.
Really, it feels sexier than your skin.
My sexual desire aroused slowly, and then
Was quenched in the course of touching.
Oh, the naked love,
Nobody comprehends its warmth.
The night-suit separated us like a shadow.
On the big bed
Its sheet pursed up gradually.
Then I ironed it out
With my warm hands.
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THE MOON
Tonight the moon looks bigger
Out of the window,
In the sky,
Over the roof.
You're very tall
But not taller than my pane of window.
You're very big
And bright with golden skin.
We've known each other
For a long time.
Is that you?
The one who is looking at me
Does not utter a word
With his hands at his back
As if he hid his wings.
But you're staying in the sky
Without flapping your wings.
Flying overhead
With a kind of sound and light,
You watch me from above silently
No matter whether I lie down awake or asleep.
It is as if there were snow flakes
That scorched me at first, and then
Covered and buried me at last.
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ABOUT THE BIG WILD GOOSE PAGODA
How much do we know about
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda?
People come from afar
To climb it like a hero.
Some of them have come here
For a second time
Or for more.
All came to climb it like a hero.
And then they stepped down
And disappeared in the streets
So quickly. But some one
Just jumped from the top
To the ground like a hero,
A contemporary hero.
A red flower shot up
From the ground at once.
How much do we know about
The Big Wild Goose Pagoda?
We climb it for a sight-seeing
And then step down.
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A MARCH
I don't want to be a man anymore
Nor to be busy
Nor to think any longer
Nor to understand
What needs to be understood
Nor to divert
I don't want to grasp
The force that pulls and pushes me
All of a sudden
I fell into nothingness
There was something
That clustered round me
And passed me quickly
I've cast all away
Letting them free
Later on
Something rushed in
As if there appeared a pit
That needs to be filled up
So that people could walk on it
While they sing a march
Both those things
That love or do not love me
And other things
That love or do not love me
Get together
"Let time fly…"
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THE LAST DAY OF APRIL AND FIVE OTHER POEMS
CHU CHEN
-TRANSLATED BY ZHANG ZIQING
Chu Chen(1969-). Graduated from Nanjing University in 1995. A publisher. Editor of Ruptures, a series of poetry (2000, 2004). He began his literary career in 1997. Selected Nouvelles: The Limited Social Intercourse (1999).
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There is no Spring for me
In this city where my Spring
Has not met me yet.
There is not any friend for me
In this city where my friends
Came some time ago.
There are only strangers
I've got acquainted with
In this city where they came
With their shadows
And disappeared near me.
I breathe the unclean air
Of this city, and it breathes mine.
You could hardly find me
When night begins to fall
In this city.
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ODD NUMBER
We can not be companions any more
Including our bodies.
Darling, let me leave
Your body and breath
On this quiet night.
I'll leave them but not you.
You're sleeping so peacefully
As if you were another person.
I'm going, but not to your dream.
I'll leave you, and wish
I'd walk away in my dream.
Remember: as before,
I'll sleep in my own bed
And you in your own.
Your dream is not parallel
To my life, and I won't live
In the reality you could see.
Let me leave your way of life
But not you personally, okay?
My original self you're familiar with
Will have left this body of mine
When you see it again. And
I wish you'd lose the chance
To see me anymore,
When you think about something
That I'd tell you.
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FRIENDS EVERYWHERE
There is a group of people in the bar
With their caps in chairs
Air is sitting in their beer vapor
And clamor. My breath and I
Are sitting near them
Trees are sitting across the street
And glass on the window
More and more open-mouthed beer bottles
On the tables. And unconsciously
Some of them began to establish
A relationship with me.
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SOMETIMES (1)
When I walked in the street alone
I trembled because of cold wind
I said to the wind
"You would not have blown on me
If I had stayed at home."
Why didn't I stay at home?
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SOMETIMES (2)
You sat in my room
You and your afternoon sat
In my afternoon
I had no afternoon
I slept for the whole afternoon
Quite a few people who have slept with me
Are not my friends
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A WARNING TO MY OWN INSOMNIA
The bedroom woke up earlier than us, and the dust and light in the room corner as well as I and my breath woke up earlier than the bedroom, but the earliest bird was the morning outside the window. It is about one o'clock in the afternoon, which is earlier than any morning of mine. Please don't wake up the one who is sleeping soundly or awake in his dream.