To Young Poets
I write down my poems at the same speed as I forget them
caring about you no more, please forgive my death
on life I can teach you nothing,
As to poetry, I consider it as memories
only memories, only memories about memories
copies of the brain, a spider web of words,
the so called reality is but dew shining on it
So as to make poetry lifelike or
to make life more lyrical are equally risky
the former may fall into prose, while the latter
sacrifices to history a few beautiful corpses
(evidence provided at inquiry)
one should have lived but didn’t
one should have gained happiness but had nothing in hands
don’t count on love, lack of sleep,
her black eye socket, makes poetry loose-boned.
develop a lazy habit of body, makes it shamelessly fat.
(poetry is like birds, to do with lightness of bones)
no need to show sympathy to the elders, death will
welcome them. Kiss more and as long as possible
when your lips are fresh and soft
just avoid biting into each other. You must learn to
keep energy for creative night——because
writing is fighting against death, fighting with time
for things that are constantly perishing.
May 15, 1997
Variation of Night Rain
There is nothing unusual about the rain here
It deepens the dark,leaving human activities
Seeming more senseless
Rain seems to be some kids crowding at the window
peeking into the room，rain falling in Venice
An old baker is dozing off by the stove
Where dough is swelling in the fire
and then freezing like lava,
Bone ashes like icing smoothed over the bread
Rain falling in an inaccessible castle
in the outskirt of Rome with tall aspens
pale statues standing inside
looking afar at the knights galloping in the woods overnights
Rain falling on Adriatic Sea and Black Sea
It is beams from the beacon
resembles a wide foot stepping on the roaring waves
Rain falling on the Red Sea, dropping from the hole of roof
into the poverty of a manger
Into the wringing hands of a carpenter
who will make a cross for his son
All rain is but one rain
Is loom of time with only weft yarn
At this moment, rain is my dear window
An opening page remaining still
A eternal gap between the words on the page
Words or blanks listening attentively to each other
Newborn moths surrounding the lamp's desolation
A man listening to the dark outside
It occurs to him that he still loves someone
But can barely remember that person’s name
June 17,2019
A Litany on Christmas Eve
Everything is quiet,
The poppies ravaged by heavy rain in the garden,
The hyacinths trampled by shepherds, the source of all evil,
The capitalism ruining pastoral poetry
Patterns and materials, potential and realization,
Processes and realities, the stars above the frozen harbor,
Tilted cups, frost on the white horse,
The volcano in the bread shining faintly,
Craftsmen hiding knowledge learned from others,
Philosophers grinding lenses, threads that cannot pass through needles,
The torch burning hotter because it's held upside down,
The hermit sitting high on the desert column,
The hermit who's sat so long birds nest in his hair,
The path worn into the library carpet,
The calm despot.
Everything is quiet,
The eagle tower and the black tower, spiral stairs and spires,
The falcons and the wild swans, water the color of mouse fur,
Alexander Park and the Lenin mausoleum opposite,
The flowers at the end of the field and the plow bowing in respect,
The sea's shimmering horizon when the night swimmer surfaces for air,
The road leading to Bethlehem, the snow escaping to Egypt,
The campfire in the white grasslands telling ghost stories,
The crops stretching to the threshold,
The lonely carrots in Akhmatova's plate,
And her rough wool skirt with holes,
The dead and the living of all dynasties,
The rats playing with bone flutes in the attic,
Maupassant and Proust,
The emperor and the clothes assigned by drawing lots.
Everything is quiet,
Each cradle in every dark doorway,
Each mother wiping away tears with damp straw,
The pomegranate rotting in the sky,
The persimmons left by birds leaving on branches,
Part of yourself taking another road,
The human figure that can't be fully erased from architecture,
The white butterfly dancing trapped behind glass,
The sloping roof, the muddy trench, the vodka and the trombone,
The Polish cavalry, the fountain choked with nettles,
The contemplation of inhumanity in the beauty of things
How others spend their inevitable lives,
And curiosity of outcasts that always tends towards excess
Everything is quiet,
Augustine cuddling close with his mother,
Looking out the window at eternal truth,
The things that awaken when humanity is absent,
The wanderers who use poetry to ease their fate,
The borders drawn on desks,
The lines dragged by drowning men,
The trails left by planes in the evening sky,
The dried up relationship between lovers,
The boring decorations in the intellectual's parlor,
The false sweetness, a whole day spent in silence,
Rilke and Valéry feasting gluttonously together,
The motionless blind fish in the river of sorrow,
Obvious thoughts expressed in fantastical language,
The Mirabeau Bridge and the Tintern Abbet, the Washwoman Bridge and the Basket Bridge.
Everything is quiet,
Stars separated from the constant twinkling,
Questions taken as part of the answer,
Various systems, the sequence of will and grace,
Convenient hints and golden apples sewed in the pockets,
At an Asian valley you've never been to,
A radio turned down to the lowest avalanche,
The part of the landscape changed by those who pass by,
Both people and landscapes pretending to know nothing, the honeycomb briquet in mind,
The crickets chirring under the car in the dead of night,
The flat sunset, the bodies without death, the ashes of antelopes,
The newly plastered lattice window in spring rain.
Everything is quiet,
Books, diseases, branches hanging down in December, and you.
December 24, 2022