Zhai Yongming Poems

you must do all you can to stay calm
a plot detail like the act of vomiting
suspends its arc light in mid-air
while I ask for nothing

the body rises and falls wave-like
resisting, it seems, the invasion of the whole world
handing it over to you
a life this rich in danger, a life unwilling to let go
turns a blind eye to the daily slaughter
from which planet does it shift so dreadfully?
liquid does what it wants on dry land, refusing to vanish
what kind of air-current inhales the sky?
such swollen gifts, such a small cosmos
in which sombre forces are stationed
everything vanishing, everything transparent
but my most secret blood is made known to the public
who threatens me?
something everlasting hidden inside my body
more powerful than night in its summary of people?

tear-drops soar in a blistering hot night
vessels lacking any humanity chill the air
death covers me
death cannot withstand the pain that runs through everything
but that face devoid of vitality must not be disturbed
both terrified and spellbound, while the room is turning black
daytime was once a part of me, now it has been taken away
an orange-red light overhead fixes me with its stare
it stares at the most horrible aspect of this world
...

I have a broom
that is to say
I've a colorful life
fresh air and
a path that is my own
I'll ignore neighbor's ridicule
the obstruction of relatives and friends
I have a broom
I've work
I sweep away today's and yesterday's garbage
clear away the filth in the streets
and in people's minds
I put on new work clothes
Looking in the mirror, I now understand
the mildness of my mother's eyes
I'll never again have to cast perplexed looks
into the street
into a corner
at the colors of billboards
neither in the pained wrinkles of my mother's brow
must I dodge fears of my inability
With the blessings written out by my mother' s eyes
I brandish a broom
and move on greeting the morning breeze
behind me, a clean street
...

The woman in the black gown comes carrying the night
her darting, secretive glance exhausts me
suddenly I remember this is the season all fish die
and all roads pass through the traces of birds in flight
Like a corpse, the mountain peak is dragged off in the darkness
the heartbeat of a shrub nearby can be heard faintly
giant birds look down on me from the sky
with human eyes
all winter a consciousness rises and falls, cruel and male
in a savage, unheard-of weather
I've kept an unusual calm throughout
as if blind, and so I see night in the day
a childlike frankness, my finger prints
can provide me no more sorrow
Footsteps! a sound getting older
dreams appear to know something of this, in my own eyes
I saw a block of time that had forgotten to flower
weigh down on the dusk
Fresh moss in their mouths, the meaning they besought
pours knowing smiles back into the breast
the night convulses, or doesn't, like a cough
choked back in the throat, I've already quit this dead-end hole
...

Stand here, just stand
and become one with the twilight spitting blood
take back the stained-black sun for me
as patient as death is this stone
spellbound, suddenly you know the sky is already far-off
at the last moment the stars pull out, until
the night is cast off and I fall silent
All the years are hijacked in an instant
you arrange the movements of the constellations and stars on my face
a silent sneer, as if sustaining a whipping
Endure this stretch of sky, smoother than the human body
more frigid than metal, only I
heard the ticking as dawn was breaking
a matchless moment of joy, a cold mood
as if harboring doubts about the air, one time it was dew
once it was night; up until I brush the evening aside
until I fall silent
Stand here, just stand
facing this cold, detached stone
and suddenly, at this instant, I experience painfully
its unknown divine nature
and during another dark night
indifferently, I become its counterfeit
...

her viewpoint shoots from one end of the bed
to the other to look as your body
makes its way out of
clothes mobile phone shoes

and then there are your fingers
slender outspoken
as if hearing once more
that clash of pelvis and daytime

everyone is neutered
everyone has lost their health
everyone is exposed outside their bodies

bound for a den of suffering
even dressed in armour your acupuncture points
could not be wrapped up at this moment
every inch of your skin could at last
grow lazy offered to the touch
and she will be happy for a time because of it

turn off the light evolution's orgasm says time and again:
what you are prepared to offer up tonight
is not that important to her

(their children will witness
the whole process of birth:
amniotic fluid blood infant
charging out in uproar
no drop of sperm left for choice
no inch of room left for rest)
...

we need our worries to see ghosts
in order to see repeatedly the white human outlines
vanish like mirages at midnight
otherwise, such a commonplace sound
fills the room blowing things repeatedly around
for one person alone to hear vast without limit
in the brain recollection crawls over the crown of the head
spinning its web over things eye-witnessed

each night I feel frightened
faint footsteps in dream
walk unheard of on the stairs
repeatedly in motion for one person alone to suffer
medicine swallowed before sleep
will cut me off from daytime
the tender, considerate lover at my side goes off to sleep
happy, at ease oblivious of the fact that my night spirit
lies outside his cuckoo cloud land

we need our worries to be afraid
in order to discover our checkmates
on day's headstone
otherwise, the letters of the dead
would not repeatedly score direct hits on my heart
and repeatedly give warning of the vigorous arrival
of this fundamental invisible
what it excels in: making its majesty
felt from inside the feelings

each night I wake eyes shut tight
human forms with clouded faces appear repeatedly
the enclosing walls and that wall overhead
coming together in error
continually the head drops from the shoulders of my companion
crying and weeping in panic on my behalf
my next life becoming a burden in his dreams
strange spaces float in the dark
adding weight to my familiar taste

we need our worries to die
in order not to recognize the face of the world even to this day
otherwise our ancestors would repeatedly question us
about that miserable all-concentrating fate
the death of one encompasses the history of everyone
a dream encompasses every possible method of dying

each night I dream at two in the morning
the winding moon wraps me tightly
in its huge tongue so that I cannot get going
I have seen the snake's face human faces
the intact body of the goat
the trace of the crawling spider
no happiness in any of them!
and I know all that from dream
to gentle, considerate hands
will cut me off from night
...

I, a rhapsodist, am full of the charm of the abyss
given fortuitous birth to by you. earth and sky
unite as one, you call me a woman
and strengthen my body

I am as soft as the white-feathered body of the water
carrying me in your hands, I hold this world
dressed in a corporeal mortal-embryo, in sunlight
I am bedazzled, although you find it hard to believe

the gentlest, most understanding of women
I have seen through everything yet wish to shoulder my share
yearning for a winter, an enormous night
heart taken as the world, I want to hold your hand
but before you my pose is one of crushing defeat

when you leave, my pain
vomits my heart from my breast
to murder you with love, whose taboo is this?
the sun rises for the whole of the world! for you alone
I concentrate the most vengeful tenderness on your whole body
from head to toe, I have means of my own

calls for help, can the soul reach out its hands?
as my blood, the ocean is able to lift me up
to the foot of the sunset, does anyone remember me?
but what I remember is much more than this lifetime
...

there are too many places one is powerless to reach, the feet ache, mother, you never
taught me how to catch that ancient sadness in the greedy pink of dawn. my heart is like you only

you are my mother, I am even your blood bleeding out at daybreak
a pool of blood forces you, astonished, to see yourself, you wake me up

to hear the sound of this world, you allow me to be born, you let me form twins
with misfortune, terrible twins of this world. for many years, I have had no recollection of tonight's weeping

the light that made you pregnant came from so far away, so suspicious, standing between life
and death, your eyes possess darkness and how heavy the shadows that penetrate our soles

in your arms, I once laughed as if revealing the answer to a riddle, who is it knows
that you allow me to realize everything virginally, but I remained unmoved

I regard this world as a virgin, but could it be true that my heart-felt laughing at you
did not ignite sufficient summers? didn't it?

I was abandoned in this world, all alone, the rays of the sun enveloped me
did you lose something when, mournfully, you bent down over the world?

time puts me in its mill, and lets me watch myself being pulverized
ah, mother, will you be happy when I finally fall silent?

no one knows how I love you so wide of the mark, this secret
comes from part of you, my eyes gaze at you painfully like two wounds

living for the sake of living, I court destruction to oppose an immemorial love
a stone is forsaken, until it dries like marrow in the wind, this world

has its orphans, exposing all blessings mercilessly, but who understands best?
all those who have stood on their mother's hands will finally die from birth
...

in it:
a man has just finished
his promiscuous game today
he has thrown out half a dozen condoms
he relies on them the way
he relies on his own toys
he relies on them the way
women rely on their high-heeled boots

on the back:
a man in the dark
fondles his old age appreciatively he believes
the tabloid data that ever increasing
sexual potency makes his hair stand erect
and so for the sake of statistics
his only choice is to feel like a young man again

lighting a cigarette
I place the photograph in a drawer
now I continue to manipulate
that naked blue body
his muscles (built recently)
grips tightly that hand which digs into it
his skin (again washed)
casts off the skins east and western within
my spleen and my stomach
sniff at his cheap eau de toilette
my shutter, however, is unwilling
this goes to show: your fade ins and fade outs
have nothing to do with me

at any time he is prepared to pounce
penetrating that piece of glass
to become my thin pancake
...

all crows are black-hearted
I'm feeling timid: they have so many
relatives, the numbers are with them, irresistible

however, we four sisters are indispensable
we are the snare in the black room
slim and graceful, back and forth we pace
looking as if victory were within our grasp
yet I play dirty tricks, I am mean inside
while on the surface maintaining a girl's good temper
walking the same old road to defeat each day

unmarried denizens of the boudoir, we are maidens of a reputable family
smiling resentfully, racking our brains
to give ourselves new airs and graces
young, beautiful, like raging fires
cooking up black and single-minded traps
(those who have crossed borders and schemed meticulously
those with sharpened teeth and bolt upright vision
does that face devoid of undulations belong to the husband of my elder sister?)

at night, I sense
danger lurking in our room
cats and mice wake
we go to sleep, searching in dreams for strange
house numbers, at night
we are ripe, ready to be settled
husbands confounded with wives, and so on and so forth
we four sisters change with each passing day
marriage is still centred on choosing a spouse
the light in the bedroom makes the newlyweds downcast
put it all on the line, I say to myself
home is the place to set out from
...