Dead Poet's City Poem by Yang Lian

Not only those who have lived can die Those names buried in silence all through life Subscribe to silence in this city you have dismantled An empty street pretends to be a funeral procession Moonlight hard like iron Bones clanking in iron hands What is outside the window is long forgotten little drums beat Each word deleted by you in life returns to delete you Unsparingly deletes savagely deletes World deleted specimens of faces are closer and clearer Eyes deleted eyesight polishes glass edges Carves a paper bird with delicate lines Like the one you saw smashed Crumpled discarded on a rotting manuscript in the corner Your final death is already familiar An old house waiting to shift out dead skeletons