Vroom, Vroom Into The Blue Sky (Liang Xiaoming) Poem by Denis Mair

(translated by Denis Mair)

Give the city a pat on the cheek, light the lamp for a late-night assault
Watch history turn yellow on the wall and munch on sorrow
With every meal

Leisure plants my footsoles atop clouds and between them, listens
To sparkling waves sing at my ear, watches birds flap wings
That are wings of young women

From solitude grows wheat, from honor a tuft of sawgrass
In the todays of passing years I once made merry, in the currents to come
I can still make merry

Afterglow at day's end is blown away by wind
Windy dawn gives way to a bright morning

2.
Solitude and I move away to new houses, my weight
Leans on a lone stalk of sugarcane. Suffering
Is a hand of moonlight, sweeping aloof from west to east
Teardrops end their gushing in Antarctica, no face or page bears my glow

Anger cannot release caged reveries, chrysanthemums pale
To the cast of thought, the springtime of my face has leaves whirling down

Parade of clay pots before my eyes, or a scale of chimes
Or the scarf of a reluctant general, or swirl of dust brushed from his robe

I load them in my car trunk every day
I sleep with them under my cover

Across the Pacific if a metal face soars skyward,
Over here my left wrist feels a twinge

Garbage-mouth city of crows, reeling in the sky

I pull my shirt open, for my music
Let it flee elsewhere, drift at its will

At this moment
My front door is open, my side door not closed
Cloud-mist and lightning, wind and sun and moon
All types of precipitation come from behind
Pass straight through my chest

Vroom, vroom into the blue sky