Mao Zedong Poem by Xiao Kaiyu

To shave away all the color and style of bureaucratic red tape,
to make the great person of accurate contents
show preference for silvery gray—the color of clouds—and indigo—
the color of sea
—to project a prim appearance
of grand manner. He likes this kind of country.

The badge of the sun is fastened to his forehead,
dangling over a sea of people.
The vast reality, forged steel right out of the cauldron,
builds the hazy square, infinity interlaced with finitude,
around the ramparts and tower
of purple gold, but in fact they are made of clay.

Newspapers cheer the ideal victory,
the tidewater rises lawlessly,
millions of heartfelt hurricanes provoke banners to flutter.
Waves of boat masts lead the seawater to rise,
the sea is only boat hulls and the sea bottom.

He sleeps in a swimming pool filled with ancient texts,
a renovated workshop, looking into the air,
speaking short incomprehensible sentences.
Unfathomable ideas are concealed in stiff reeds of utterance,
The soldier's language comes from an imperceptible battlefield, but who can
understand it?