Poems of Lưu Diệu Vân, Lưu Mêlan & Nhã Thuyên

Acknowledgments: The Age, Agenda Magazine, Blast, Eureka Street, Heat,
Indiana Review, Island, LiNQ, Mascara, Meridian, Overland, Peril, Southern
Review, Southpaw, Southerly, Ulittara, Westerly; The Best Australian Poems
(Melbourne, Black Inc, 2012), Selected Poems of Yi Sha (Hong Kong,
Milky Way Publishing, 2003), InYour Face (Melbourne, Otherland, 2002).

Poems of Shu Cai,Yi Sha &Yang Xie
Asia Pacific Poetry Series 3

Published by Vagabond Press
PO Box 958 Newtown NSW 2042 Australia
www.vagabondpress.net
First edition, 2013.
Transnational edition, 2014.

English texts © Ouyang Yu, 2012.

Cover image © Xifa Yang, 2010.Charming 6. 92 x 92 cm
Colour ink on Xuan paper. (Courtesy of the artist and Art Atrium, Sydney,
Australia (http://www.xifayang.com/ & http://www.artatrium.com.au).

Designed and typeset by Michael Brennan
in 10/12 Bembo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the
publisher. The information and views set out in this book are those of the
author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-922181-54-1 

Poems of
Shu Cai,Yi Sha
& Yang Xie

Translated from Chinese and introduced by
Ouyang Yu

Vagabond Press|Asia Pacific Poetry Series

Contents

Introduction by OuyangYu .... 8

Shu Cai
Nature .... 17
Armadu .... 18
What Kind of Future?.... 20
Afraid .... 21
Ocean Sea .... 22
Sunday Free .... 23
Between Here and There .... 24
Absurdity .... 25
Hai Zi Forever .... 26
Mother .... 27
15 September, 1990 .... 28
Best Wishes .... 29
Extreme Autumn .... 30
Solitaire .... 31
Forget Yesterday .... 32
Cold but Very Clean ... 33
Madianqiao Bridge .... 34
Peace and Quiet .... 36
Not Even Nihilism Could End It .... 37
Demolition .... 38
Going and Coming .... 40
Leading Waters .... 42
Empty Cups .... 44
On Poetry Translation .... 45

Yi Sha
The Ancient City .... 51
The Battle with the Puppet .... 52

5

Becoming an Apprentice .... 53
Business at a University .... 54
Formation .... 55
I Wrote Again About My Mother’s Departure .... 56
Foreskinned Life .... 58
Lovers’ Island .... 59
My Ancestors ..... 60
My Next Door Neighbour .... 61
The Nobel Prize:An Eternal Word of Thanks .... 62
The Northerly Was Blowing .... 63
Waxing Lyrical with My Motherland .... 64
Notes From an Interview .... 65
The Painter and the Model .... 66
Preface to Modern Chinese Poetry .... 67
Rubbing the Hands .... 68
de Saussure Said .... 69
Self-Criticism .... 70
The Public Exposure .... 71
The Rare Song .... 72
Refusing to be Touched .... 73
Stammering .... 74
The File .... 75
Terracotta Birds .... 76
The Motive .... 78

Yang Xie
A Book Much Worn Down with My Reading .... 81
The Illegal Elements .... 82
Communications .... 83
Something Is Taking Leave .... 84
Rotting .... 86
Detail Disgust .... 87
Nausea and Humour .... 88

6

The Shallow Man .... 90
Son and the Little Snowman .... 92
Poetry .... 93
Executing a word .... 94
The Night Women .... 95
The Car Accident .... 96
A Man Died .... 98
Sex-mad .... 100
The Dubious Old Man .... 101
The Woman Going Upstairs .... 102
Our Complaints .... 104
The Mad Woman Coming Home .... 106
The Pomegranate Skirt and the Pomegranate .... 107
The Honest Poet, the Chaste Woman .... 108
Detail: Reflection .... 109
We All of Us Are Out-and-Out Geniuses ....110

Notes .... 112

7

Lưu Diệu Vân

the spirits of S.D.

there,
people can pay to catch a horse ride through centuries
in just a few hours
thrive on authenticity with one’s flesh and bone
the bible
official language
connects souls of arrivers and departers
four hundred sixty five years of heritage display
no trace of remorseful moss
history embarks on a voyage of silver and gold
pearls and spices of ambition
red-blooded natives
white-blooded settlers
anabolism of religious passage
history commands the sound of awakening bells
instructions for embracing an adaptive reality
shoeshine boys haul the sunrise on their backs
weaving their way through Calle Las Damas
window panes imprint audacious shades of a lost era
relinquished walls of fortresses
the compass’ eyes have yet ceased positioning
ghostly melody of the guitar
imbues tourists with an oblique stream of repentance
the dark-skinned artist
works magic on six metal strings with an extra toe
lulls the listeners to seek origins
to reform war criminals
to explore a new beginning
in the name of love and compassion
and peace, amen

16

the city strengthens its prowess
with Mama Juana
days drag on, dribbling tropical humidity
mountainous sun and immense heat
soak up blueness from the cerulean Larimar
surge into the sea
burdened with vestiges of the past
history moves
luringly
in rhythm
in warm, rushing, rippling caves
hagamos el amor
history procreates nostalgic spirits

17

kitchener

N2G-1A6
city of domestic confinement
queen and king street in a deadlock, resisting any compromise
ladies offer their natural endowment next to AMT machines
for ease of transaction and conduct
German men imbibe pilsner like unfiltered water
credit cards exceed swiping limits, slide off track
yellow skin defendants master indifference
six month house arrest
in a luxurious villa
snow cannot hardened on rooftops
while cellars are forested by scorching 1000 red and blue watts
chocolates in shape of $100 bill outshine the former prime

minister’s portrait
dulling taste buds of justice
the city wraps its misery in classified pages
service: Asian angels for small time devils
career: personal assistant, prior experience not needed, hot

body a must
dating: housewife, loves flings, looking for men over fifty, will

send private pictures
for sale: decade-old sofa with rabbit pee stains—$250
secrets leak through the smudge of Times New Roman font
the city mutely mourns a death this Sunday morning
the sun asphyxiates at will
bed pillows lean toward the righteous path
regrets are consummated
water yearns to be softened

18

the mattress has long been calcified with bodily fluids
dry, skeletal branches protrude into the room
luring clubfooted love from its naked chamber
contrive to make whole broken pieces
the city continues to seek residency without a matrimonial union

19

Lưu Mêlan

A Poem

is the life of many deaths
going through many epochs eras through many dreams in truth
mistakes made while living being born and dying
a poem is a glorious rainbow
piled up with colorful layers of the blood
of demons and angels
of humans and beasts
of males and females
of the meaningless and the meaningful
of approaching extinction
of touching the void
one chews into pieces
one cuts and tears
one’s flesh
into it
invoking
a rape
a surrender
an enlightment?
a poem?
blood of utter exhaustion
saliva of forsaken nights
the wail of no sounds
the tightening of fists
a misery
at that moment a pen a poem a companionship
are at once betrayal
blessing misfortune
and lofty agony.

48

in the night
a poem
is a light
a human body
approaching to ease pain and oblivion
thousands of people
millions of people everywhere
need a voice
erect your own altar
she who holds blood to write
if all you write are
empty words.

49

The Ants

ants build the world from dust
water light
the ants flow
oozing their feet on my ears
and through my hair tonight the ants
run around the sun
and my cerebral cortex spills its sap of time
when I think about ants
I only think of a day
when they devour me the charming
little and hard-working
body-tearing ants
each night
when a dream comes hovering by my door
they have guarded my dream the ants
secrete their acid and noises the ants terrorize and threaten the
ants with their mechanical sounds
build
build
each day
their feet poke through languages and they don’t need uniqueness
in herds, I think of a weak and dreamy ant
its imagination
will be the bait and the queen ants
will circle their nest all day
heaping it up higher and more monumental
just that
everywhere I see their quickness

50

but I already want to slow down and escape
as though being newly born the first time

51

The Grain of Rice

as a child
I always had a golden grain of rice, a giant one
I also had countless other grains
when Dad covered them to sprout
some dropped out
they grew up by themselves
but all eventually died
on the tiled floor
when their own kind from the sludge emerged
they emerged as well
to short reaches
they often smiled at me
and always waved from afar, until I came closer
we told each other those early fateful things
until the sun was blinding outside
those were fairy-tale rice plants
they did not need to grow up
I hid myself in the shell of a rice grain
and walked on
even as gradually the world was burying human lives

52

Nhã Thuyên

at first

where two individuals are burned in a furnace, we hear
murmuring breaths of fire, we hear murmuring breaths of
fire, we hear murmuring breaths of fire, we hear murmuring
breaths of fire, murmuring breaths of fire, murmuring
breaths of fire...

June 2010

78

sadness

in the night, in your tight skin, I sleep, a gaunt and safe
prisoner. I say things in a flutter that you don’t understand,
I wait for a curse, and so quietly, in the night, in your tight
skin, I slip through the cuticle and escape into immense fear.

May 2010

79

the eyes

deep and dark holes, those eyes on my skin, eyes that
reproduce themselves blindly through heredity, they are
looking at you, they are looking for you endlessly, they have
seen you, they see eyes, all of which are opening at the end of
the day when light dimishes its breath like a dying animal in
the midst of a deserted forest full of darkness.

80

the voices

because you’ve borne the dark fate of eyes that are dead, of
fingers that are bitten off by wild animals, of ears that are
blown into by chilling winds, of skins that are shed after a
wound, of hairs that fall off and lie knotted in oblivion, so
I am darkness, traces of a sewing thread, a silence, a waning
breath, a remembrance incessantly thrashing into the
expanding waves of space so that oblivion is dissolved in a
drop of blood that revives words sizzling at the tip of your
tongue.

December 13, 2007

81