ZHU YIYE
FIVE POEMS
translated by Liuyu Ivy Chen
GN
Streetlamps mate with the ground
Their children, choking the gutters
Writhe in a shock
Of shrieking light
The blind corner of a wall
Sighs out a warm smell of urine
The children of mankind
Drag their enormous, ugly toys
Crawling out
Road
I saw a seagull
On the beach
Even as I approached
It remained still
An empty body
I walked into the distance
And saw its head
In a transparent blue house
I saw an army of pink babies
In dreams they were
Slaughtering their mothers
I sat on the higher end of a seesaw
And saw my friendly neighbor
Who’s working hard
Cutting up his wife
I hope the road
Does not end
So that I can live
Simultaneously
In many places
I hope conversations
Never start
And never finish
I hope to become
A person without a gender
Without pain
The road rises and droops
A wet forest
Pregnant with crimes
Wooden Shutters
The sea tilts
Receding fast
Dizzying
Sea-wind salts lips
And thins voices
In the bright street
Close your eyes
You’ll still see
Them, the old worn
Wooden shutters
Sucking desperately at
The shade
Inside the windows
Peeking at the Fushun man
And the French girl
Cut to stripes
By the shutters
Trying to make out
Minced steps
Ruffled shirts
Creaky bedstead
Murmurs and moans
Curses and cries
Splashes of ladled water
The pink boulder
With burning grains
An obscured cave
Seeping water
Endless seeping
Of acrid sea-water
And the ship on the sea will be
Eaten by ants
The wooden shutters will be
Eaten by ants
The man and the girl have long been
Eaten by ants
End of Winter
Last winter ended
As we crossed the rainforest
You were pulling me
But we couldn’t outrun the pouring rain
We sat there
Next to each other
With rainwater in our eyes
The forest, disfigured
We talked loudly
About how the strangler figs
Compete for sunlight
Killing their hosts
How the Antiaris toxicaria
Can clot up the blood
Stopping the heart
The small streams on your face
Slowly dried up
We stood
Resuming our secret
Separate explorations
This winter ends by the river
As we ride bicycles
In the setting sun your shadow
Is not always moving in sync
With you
I am too embarrassed
To tell you this secret
Because my nose is running
And my gloves are ripped
Mawlamyine
Noontime sun
Splintering the pupils
Flocks of crows
Break free
Their long curved beaks
Are black sickles
Harvesting violence
Giving orders
Everywhere they look
Is teeming with ants
A black river
With small branches
Gurgling, transporting
Languages and fates
Some flowing into the blood
Some entering the depth of seas
Some falling into the pots
Upon the heads of women
Slanting streets
Upright crowds
Glass teacups glow
And smoke
A teenage boy is walking
Loosely in the sun
He picks up the thin shadow
A crow has dropped on the ground
Throws it in his mouth, chewing
Then he stops in the shade of a tree
To pick grass seeds
From a lamb’s head
12/11/2013
Mawlamyine, Myanmar
author’s note
When the poetic impulse alights, I become blind, a holy grail in human form, a survivor of a lightning strike.
On the road, poetry strikes the traveler at shorter intervals. I’ve never bought souvenirs; these poems are my “refrigerator magnets.” At home, poetry is a universal plane ticket and passport, taking me wherever I want to go, no strings attached, not a single penny required.
I can see a little girl behind Zhu Yiye’s words, gazing at the world laid bare through pairs of paradoxes. Innocence is birthed from violence; love/cruelty, beauty/horror, history/fiction. A transparent blue house of pink babies, a slaughterhouse of mothers. The little girl merely observes, without judgment. It is how life is lived, how the world always is. How one walks on a thin scroll of history like a sheet of snow, leaving a trail to be quietly muffled by the same falling flakes. Also buried is a secret––“my nose is running / and my gloves are ripped.” When the hour turns eerie, “an obscured cave / seeping water / endless seeping / of acrid sea-water” until the world is “eaten by ants.” Sometimes, mundane noises and movements poke through the membrane. Languages and fates “falling into the pots / upon the heads of women,” a teenage boy “stops in the shade of a tree / to pick grass seeds / from a lamb’s head.” Inside a womb, the world has never been born, “leaving my insides to wither / until nothing is left.” It all happens “expressionless / turning inward, alone.”