WANG AO
FOUR POEMS
translated by Simon Shieh
The True Song of Chagar Bazar’s Destruction
An evil god sacrificed his son
to belittle the efforts of all my city’s inhabitants, which is to say
The poison river flowing through neighboring fields
trickled into the canal where we wash our rice, which is to say
We who huddled in the city wall’s enclosure
could not tell the difference between sea turtles and absurdity, which is to say
Disheveled girls lay siege to the city,
ruining our mood with their running, which is to say
There are four hundred shamans in the western mountains
turning revelry into an ecological disaster, which is to say
Barbarian armies do not exist—
it was all just sweet talk, which is to say
A rich man hurries to bury his ivory, knowing
that peasants have long been watching from the dark, which is to say
Defeat will not be declared willingly,
for any day now we’ll be on top of the world, which is to say
There are those who fall into the abyss on their way,
brooding over salvation, which is to say that these are our collective last words
Seven Proverbs
The native people make music, like eagles and falcons.
A mandarin duck, its system in disarray, beats Aristotle with a stick.
Quacking endlessly, it shakes its beak
while maces and flamethrowers take turns torturing drones.
As if stung and bitten, the old servants squirm.
Crashing through the tribe’s dikes, the tide never ceases to offend the barbarians.
The barbarians are us, tumbling in
like buoys on the waves, with lanterns and copper pendants—
we turn around only to find that we are still barbarians.
Different Generations Share the Same Tombstone
Where did we go wrong to be taken prisoners by fools?
Those who ask such questions are doomed to be buried with them.
After all these years of performing on stage, why fall here?
Your juggling act is a silence transformed over many years.
It is me they love—those sisters of two hissing snakes.
In through the left eye, out through the right, through the nose then into the ear.
Surrounded by mountains and rivers, gathering breath, hoarding the wind
for the good of future generations—
stuck in the city to become lunch meat
they are even more ruined than we are.
The stars in free fall, the cemetery grass burning—does this mean we’re celebrating?
The butcher and the trader set off fireworks. They’ve won.
My lord’s many-legged envoy has invited us to watch the Divine Comedy.
They come and go as they please, taking our fragmented selves with them.
Ancient Wars and Unbearable Lightness
We are as steady as gods, condemning them to push stones
They rush like waterfalls blowing feathers into the abyss
Our voice, like howling monkeys, urges them to uproot trees and heave bronze cauldrons
They are as mad as locusts swarming to defeat a lush forest
We cannot say who we are, only
That they are a lethal force thwarted by spear and shield
We will be held responsible when the delicate branches of morality naturally break
Their escape route is still yet to be invented, a parachute returning on its own
