Urban Exodus Poem by Feipeng Shang

Translated by Yiyan HAN(c)
2008-01-22 (last modified 2017-12-11)

Entering the great square
You're at the heart of the city
Which is a booming market of the counterfeits
Fake breasts are everywhere, big and prominent
Men's eyes and hands, and their sincere smiles
Suddenly turn into a spade to sow
And harvest on a concrete floor

This new era is the same as before
And nothing is worth mentioning
On the rootless grass a rootless bottom lies
Once its mask is removed, the pretended emotion
Is sludge. The loose skin, and inelastic thigh and belly
Are formed into a dry well and a money box

People inside the castle are all mad
No one isn't misbehaving nor insomniac
No one isn't complaining nor conspiring
When dusk sets in, violence and murderer occur everywhere
The only flower opens in dust, and she is humiliated
And raped by dirt in the dust

Whoever foresees the end of one's life
Whose life will be more shattered
Whoever seeks truth, the truth will be further away
From whom, and whose destiny will run to tragedy
With long strides and no way out.
If adventuring at the edge of all problems
One might be expelled and treated
As an enemy accused of betraying one's country

All have been commercialised
The thick smoke of commercial wars
Have blackened many hearts used to be freshness
Those corrupted officials think of themselves
As modern day heroes. And their fat bellies walk around
To give speeches, and have stepped on their destined scaffold

In the care and love of older generations
The cradle of modern civilization
Has produced a large number of corrupt officials
And a lot of talents and intellectuals full of servility
O even the outstanding trumpeters
Have become the world singing stars

Young girls have just left the bosom of their mothers
Not yet ready to fly, still immature
Haven't yet opened every petal
And haven't enjoyed the freedom of their youth
But they are forced to be on the trading market
O God, please tell me
For lighting up whom the moon rises

We'll prepare for the worst case scenario
To break through siege in case of penniless
In order to protect a river, and to hold
The last line of defence in our heart
We must make a choice, and if necessary
Sacrifice ourselves

Those prostitutes, without dignity and decency
Have never loved the mother earth
Don't know how to cultivate nor how to weave
Don't know how to wash their clothes by hand
Nor how to bear and bring up kids
They only live in luxury in the bed
O sperm-sucking parasites
We'll dump you, and go to faraway places

Abandon the tumour created with intelligence
Leave the city where no crop and weed can grow
Run away from the monster
That can't be stopped once being launched
When can we destroy the concentration camp
Of crime and prostitution, and the paradise
Of producing deformed foetus and idiots

Is it disgraceful or honourable to sell one's body
This leaves women themselves to answer
Even if they choose to die or commit an offence
Against the dirty world, we must applaud them
We all have a sombre face under the dim sky
And don't dare go out as we must use all the energy
To protect our lives on street and fear
Of being killed by unruly speeding cars

We enjoy pollutants in the man-made pollution
We enjoy being poor while watching other's luxury
We automatically withdraw cash and are forced to spend it
Many of us died from illness as no money to see a doctor
Many of us are scared, depressed and dreadful

We're trees out of ground, and fish out of water
We hopelessly struggle on the death line
All of us are sick, but we've never thought
That our city is even sicker
O mother, may I ask
Who is actually incurable

It worries me that the horseshoe of money
Will tramp on every inch of the mother earth
It worries me that young women's dreams will be shattered
And young men's aspiration can't be realized
But where can I sow my own seeds
How can my own ambition, full and passionate
Find its perfect destination

O in this dye vat, full of sewage and stench
Can I find someone who lets me express my love
I am a piece of leaf that floats always in the air
And can't find a landing place. On April Fool's Day
My greatest lie is to let myself die
So that I can meet you on my funeral day

Do you wear a miniskirt or short top
O the last butterfly in this metropolis
I don't know what dress
Could match your glittering youth
O your fluttering and happy life
Is the only thing I don't want to leave behind
In this ancient tomb-like castle

Before me, a secluded green place was already plundered
By wandering ghosts of thousands years ago
We gasp, and in the cheer of respecting the ancients
We can only gasp, and preserve our youth energy
In order to release the torrent of creation and furiousness

This ancient castle has been a heavy burden on us
For far too long. Why can't we run away
And go back to forest and return to ocean
A nomadic life is our existence
Let's go punting towards endless, embrace
The dawn of hope, and strike the bell of future

Behind a range of mountains, exciting events take place
Ants carry away mountains, the horizon is expanding
And horses run in the bosom of grassland
O only you, snow and cold snap have raided us
The swirling north westerly wind comes
Sings the pain out of our body, awakens spring
And hears the voice and echoes from the outer space

In this new era, lack of the sense of justice
Is a collective moral degeneration
And nourishes all the injustice
Dollars make those shamelessly pursue fool
They're desperate to steal other's wealth
They're ugly as they've become cold-blooded
They're rotten as they've become deceitful
I know I'm using my arms to wrestle against their thighs
And a matchstick to fire at their gun

I beg for a life of freedom and equality
If wanting to live like a decent human being
One must do what one wants to do
And say what one wants to say
It is my hero that treats a king as equal
And rises and falls with the sun and moon

All year round I compete with inhalers
As our common lover is called asthma
In my vein a large doses of aminophylline
Has been dripped, and I have to continually share
The drug with the disease that wants to kill me
As long as live, I'll play violin, compose poetry
And love my own woman. This is my entire happy life

Thunderstorms are a group of true women
They're on the highlands, in tsunami
And in places of no human existence
They're uncontrollably aroused, impatient
Yet won't stop to wait for you. Even if fully ripe
Like peaches, they still won't wait and let you
In between their bosoms seek happiness, warmth and love

When being called
I'm in bed, even though it's daytime, but still feel
The harassment of loneliness and suffering
If not giving me freedom, then let's break up
Love is a campaign for giving freedom to each other
Since we can't do so, let's be separated

Before, the gun of invaders made the body
Of my beautiful home land covered with black and blue
But now US dollars and Euros let officials
Full of arrogance. Being called china
Must my nation be easily breakable
Must she crawl out of one muddy pool into another
Must she walk towards the destined suffering
Is a garden of any use if flowers all decease

No matter where spring rain sounds
Small soft hands will get close to the mother earth
And embrace all the developing seeds
So a true healthy and pure love begins
The class of beggars always want a revolution
To rebuild their homes on the hotbed of capitalism
And then plant flowers, read poems and start painting

We won't think of the ecstatic place
That was a lingering field of battle
Between the conqueror and the conquered
We won't think of the sweet place
That was a tender field of love. A sweet place
Is often full of wounds riddled with scars

If God don't bless us
We couldn't defend ourselves
If a soldier is too kind to fight against evils
What can we expect from him
So let evils continue being evils
So let's wait to be massacred
And turn ourselves into lamb for wolves

So let's go into hiding
To avoid every dusk and dawn
To escape from the murder scene, ads and trash
To run away from newspapers full of lies and nonsense
And devious claws of pseudo-modernization
Let's disappear, vanish and perish into thin air
Let's return to the mother's womb, and go back to darkness

When a tyre blows out
We change the car, from one to the other
We hear the sound of tyre bursting
Like the sound of a bugle. That a tyre blows out
Is a bugle calling under the dark clouds

It's possible the mankind can lose its way
It's possible fish dies while the net is torn apart
Whose hands are clean in this glorious ruin
The strong have swallowed up the weak
Is it true that the truth will stop marching
Is there any reason that evils will live forever
In front of the monster, we tremble with fear
Let's walk on the long happy road of exodus
to survive and find a new humanity