The Northern Station Comments

I feel I'm a crowd of people.

On the overpass at the old Northern Station, in my body

some people start to discuss and argue, a cacophony.

I'm smoking, considering the ruins of a train station,

I want to shout, there's a burning in my throat.


I feel I'm a crowd of people.

Walking on an abandoned track, kicking the curling rust of ties,

O, it's unbearably crowded inside me, as if some people are getting on a train,

some off. A train is coming toward me,

another goes whistling out of my body.


I feel I'm a crowd of people.

I walk into a spacious room, pass over a railing,

at the ticket-check of bygone days, suddenly, within me

a void. O, in this waiting room there are no travelers,

what's standing or seated is all dim shadow.


I feel I'm a crowd of people.

In a nearby alley, at a cigarette stall, beside a phone box,

they come out like pearls of sweat. They squat, jump,

block things up in front of me. They wear watches, brocade shirts,

carry weighty trunks as if they're balloons.


I feel I'm a crowd of people.

While eating noodles in a noodle shop they are before me

sitting around the table. Their angular or square faces, laughing loudly, they have a

a bit of an accountant's

false respectability. But I'm extremely hungry. Humming an old movie tune,

they step into my bowl.


I feel I'm a crowd of people.

But they've gathered into a heap of fears. I get on a public bus,

the bus rocks. Enter a bar, the power goes out. So I must walk

to Hongkou, the waterfront, the square, go home in a round about way.

I sense there's another pair of feet in mine
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