Six Poems by Yi Sha 伊沙
Translated by Michael M. Day (June 2007)
The Chinese Sense of Reality Comes from an Unimaginably Powerful Actuality
(中国的质感来自虚构不出的强大现实)
The necessary connection’s found
The necessary cash doled out
But the friend’s loan
Is yet to be granted
The reason’s quickly uncovered
The bird sent to the bank manager
Was two hours late
Burning with impatience
He’d taken Viagra
And his golden gun wouldn’t fall
Just bluntly sticking out there
A burning desire
Idly wasting away
Dry wood and a raging flame
Ultimately reduced to a single shot
And a fury
That can only be resolved by revenge
And so nothing was done
“Just because of this?”
“Just because of this!”
The friend’s calm
Makes me ashamed
Of my shock
As a writer
I’m ignorant of reality
And if I write it as it is
Afraid even more ignorant readers
Will shout “beat the fraud”
Portrait of a Scandinavian Poet (一个北欧诗人的画像)
1
His bearing when he sings is that of an Italian
When he drinks he’s physically gone and mentally there like a Russian alky
Yet he’s pure Aryan
An out-and-out Swedish poet
Occasionally—but only occasionally
He’s had notions of moving to
The salary this neighboring land pays writers
Is ten times that of his
2
It’s said he’s the number three poet in
That in his prime
His portrait was everywhere
On the walls of the Metro in
This spring, he came to
And in a rooftop Chinese garden
He issues a warning to Chinese colleagues
“Beware Romanticism”
He says: “I’m a bit pessimistic about Chinese poetry”
But quickly adds: “Two three years ago”
3
The day of recitations at the poetry festival
He spends reclining in a hotel room
Conserving energy as he reverently awaits
The arrival of the rite of a poet’s life
At dusk in a mini-van on its way to the venue
He treats everyone to cocktails
Decocted from strawberry juice and Chinese spirits
Of course he drinks the most
That evening the recital is well received
And that night
His efforts to get us into a bar
Get no response
4
The next day at breakfast
In the notepad of the female group-leader
He draws the lifelike figure of a female nude
We feel immediate relief
So! He wants some of that
After thinking it through all night
A slapdash Chinese poetry critic surmises
“It’s a metaphor—he wants bread”
Later we finally figure it out
He wanted coffee and the companion too
5
I’m arranged to be at an outside venue
Following the leisurely notes of an ancient zither
During my recital in the “Collection Among the Flowers”[1] teahouse
His performance in the audience
Especially catches the eye
He grins like an idiot
His look when not smiling
Also over the top
When he asks for a book of my poetry
I’ve just given away the last copy
6
A well-intentioned older Chinese lady
Notices he doesn’t change shirts during the week
He’ll first go to
Leading to knowing laughs from the men
On that last night
I don’t even have time to say goodbye
He seems like a phantom
As he slips into an outside bar
And I see no more of him
But now I remember
The night we stayed at the
While he hovered
Over a pretty Thai girl flirtatious as a snake
He’d also seemed something of a ghost
Refused a Visa at the
(在美国使馆遭拒签)
The entire morning
A hundred people crowd into a smallish hall
As if crammed into the hold of a border-running boat
Among those languishing in boredom awaiting a visa
A pretty student of ballet
Becomes the greatest beauty spot in the place
Before seeing the consular officer
I’m already a bit hollowed out
As I see among those who’ve received visas
There’re practically no healthy young men
Just the two
An oldster with his wife
And a midget who doesn’t come up to the window
The
Really scared
Now they’re frightened of men
Wah-kao! This bearded official
Who looks more like a Muslim
More of a terrorist
Than me
Without a moment’s hesitation
Resolutely rejects my application
Could this be one orangutan begrudging another
At a glance espying a deep-seated
Ill-will in my eyes
Immigration threats
Exhibit such signs
So, the Tang Dynasty’s Li Bai wants to emigrate to
Don’t you crack fucking international jokes with me
As I stalk off
The pretty student of ballet
Is rejected by a black woman at another window
And she’s really happy like a duckling straining to fly
Leaving the place chirping for joy
Somebody in the line makes the proper determination
“For sure her parents were making her go to
The Melancholy of
（越南的忧郁）
1
Rain strikes plantains
I see no tears fall
Only these wet still-lifes
Left behind
2
Late at night
In a movie by Chen Yingxiong
I discover
A melancholy
Remembering the rain falling
On the screens of the black-and-white films
Deep in my memory
3
In a long poem I once wrote:
“Is war truly romantic
She looks good posing with the gun
As if playing a harp”
Writing
Writing about a Vietnamese beauty
Who saddens me
4
I want to verify the melancholy
Of
Who’s been to
But I just think about it
My friend
Is not melancholic
But the crux of it is he’s
Not a person capable of sensing sorrow
5
Speaking of “south of the clouds”[2]
It’s the frontier of the land of clouds
And beneath the clouds
A great river rushes to the sea
6
Some have taken this as a metaphor
For a moist vagina
The beauty of it is:
This cock that pokes into everything
Suffered a rupture here
And since then this self-important man
Suffers serious sexual dysfunction
Like Ernest Hemingway
7
How could I dare belittle
The men here
Only using their militia to leave so many
Of my compatriots in graves on hillside after hillside[3]
That was entirely down to us
I’m not saying “a righteous army is bound to win”
I want to say: A melancholy man
Is the bravest soldier
8
Rain strikes plantains
I see no tears fall
Only these wet still-lifes
Left behind
The Death of Arafat
（阿拉法特之死）
“I’m fed up with this seeming immortal
who looks like a leper
who as soon as he makes an appearance
is a guarantee of chaos in
Dead, not dead, waiting to die
On the night the definitive news of Arafat’s death
Finally came through from
I thought of an old friend
A few years earlier
On a private occasion
Discussing with me
Views and feelings about this political figure
And the opinions of this friend—
Were without standpoint
Without illumination
Without conscience
Without sympathy
Soulless
Faithless
Heatless
Without lungs
And are remembered by me over ten years later
Only because they were imbued by
A resonance aroused by
A true sense of reality
And the exceptional vibrancy of his language
(as a poet
isn’t this the sort of
language I seek)
The remains of Arafat
Are shipped to his homeland and interred
All I can do is
Dig out these words stockpiled in the brain
And bury them in a flowerpot on my sundeck
Stutterer (结结巴巴)
St- st- stuttering my mouth
A sec- sec- second-class disability
Can’t get teeth into my wh- wh- wildly racing thoughts
Or my legs
You all sl- sl- slobber everyplace
Dispersing a moldy smell
Mm- mm- my lungs
So overworked
I want to br- br- break through
Your in- in- inexplicable
Rhythm
Is in urgent need of a breakthrough
Mm- mm- my
My words
Sp- sp- spit out like a machine gun
Are greatly gratifying
St- st- stuttering my life
Nn- nn- no ghosts in my life
You lo- lo- look at me
A look that says I’ve nothing to say
[1] The oldest extant anthology of classical song lyrics, compiled by the Five Dynasties poet Ouyang Jiong (896-971), a resident of
[2] A reference to the
[3] A reference to the PRC’s 1979 military incursion into northern
