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Selected Poems of Chen Li
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New Poems
(1999-2008)
Books of His Poems
On His Works Home
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Selected Poems of Chen Li
[8]
New Poems
(1999-2008)
•In the Corners of Our Lives •Aria on the Coast •Kubla Khan
•Foil Carton •Photo of Egyptian Scenery in the Dream of a Fire Department Captain
•Butterfly-Mad •Little Deaths •The Tongue •On the Train, Tied Up in Two Knots
•Night Song •Autuma Sonata •A Cappella •On the Island—based on Yami myths
•Poem
Gained in Dream at a Hotel in Winter
•Typhoons
Many poems inhabit
the corners of our lives
Perhaps they didn't apply to the housing authority for residence permits
Or obtain house numbers from the district office or police sub-station
Coming out of the alley you run smack into a jogging candidate
jogging as he makes a call from his cellular phone
His embarrassed smile makes you think of the old doctor who polishes
His young wife's red sports car outside their house every evening
They turn out to be two sections in a long poem
One object might be
aware of another but that doesn't mean they interact
Some float up to become images showing affection for other images
Sound and smell usually seduce first, in secret they communicate
Colors are the little sisters of shyness—they have to stay inside
And decorate the house with pretty curtains, sheets, bathrobes and napkins
Waiting for their men—their masters—to get home and turn on the
Lights. A poem is like a home, a sweet burden
Sheltering love and lust, sorrow and sadness, enduring the worthy and unworthy.
They don't have to go to the
clinic for stitches or condoms
Although they do have their own moral principles and family planning
Being well matched in social and economic status doesn't necessarily
make for the best marriage
Water and milk will mix; fire and water can also fornicate
Hegel eats plain-cooked chicken, black-headed flies debate over
Whether or not a white horse is a horse. Gentle violence
Ear-splitting silence
Incestuous love is the privilege of poetry
Some choose to
inhabit the dark shadow of metaphor or the forest of symbols
Some are sanguine and optimistic like spiders of sunlight climbing everywhere. Some
Prefer hardships outdoors, theoretical talks, untamed coitus, others are like gossamer,
Invisible to the eye, spread over the brain, divided into numerous small suites for rent,
Frequently switching on the loom of dream or the subconscious
It is said that many poems are locked in the room of habit. You close the door
Looking for a good line, you search high and low,
taking great pains to call out, even ride a computer donkey
Drive a mouse, pounding the keys, you search. You open your window
To the vast universe, and behold, there they are:
Irises after the rain. A flock of gulls
Out of school on their way home. The ocean's
Slanting waves
The microwave boiling a dish of tomato and beancurd
You want to add
some peas. You go to the market and see
Cancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancan
Cancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancan
Cancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancan
Casually you take a can and find what you've been racking
your brains for—its very existence due to its very absence:
Cancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancan
Cancancancancancancancan cancancancancancancancan
Cancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancancan
A persimmon alone
at the register. You say
Marvelous, a persimmon alone at the register
A line of words becomes a family
Immigrated from Japan or from among the quatrains of the High Tang
inevitably you wonder
But really you couldn't care less. You couldn't care less if they'll
All fit into a small shopping bag
(2000)
Translated by John J. S. Balcom
Aria on the Coast
At that time our
memories of the ocean were as plentiful as the grains of sand on the beach.
Walking down
the dike along the southern coast, we became ants and it took a long long long
long time to get to the sea.
What a spacious beach, you said. You saw the coast surrounding, with a beautiful
dream-like curve, the small
town where you grew up. You were merely a child of the size of an ant, and how
sweet the beach of cube sugar
and crude sugar was! That blue ocean was definitely a blue cake, but you were
not sure of its flavor or
ingredients, because every day it rolled out different shades of blue and
different looks. God's cookbook
was bigger than the ocean, and the number of its recipes for cakes was larger
than that of the sand on the
beach. Those whitened waves were, of course, God's saliva. Every day you longed
to move some back home
stealthily, but you weren't able to, because such sweetness was too heavy a
burden. Leave it there on the coast,
you said— the cake permanently mouth-watering to God, to human beings, and to
you, who were as tiny as an ant.
(2000)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
In Xanadu, Kubla
Khan decreed
a giant mobile palace be constructed.
"I don't want fixed things.
I am tired of
those regular rooms, of concubines who use the same perfume,
give the same moaning after standard procedures
though there are thousands of them..."
Picking and calculating carefully, his
Italian counselor, good at business administration,
arranged and combined those concubines into teams of six, three, or five;
three nights at a time, in different directions, in different formations,
they served their emperor by turns.
Fine wine, opium, honey, leather whips,
globes, vibrators, the Bible, sex-appealing underwear.
"I'll ceaselessly move,
ceaselessly feel excited, ceaselessly conquer,
ceaselessly reach the orgasm..."
But this is not a
question of math,
not a question of military affairs, not even a question of medicine.
"This is a question of philosophy."
Outside the palace, the ignored Persian
traveler said,
"Time is the
best aphrodisiac
that fosters changes."
(2000)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
drink me
drink my blood
drink my milk
drink the saliva from my mouth
drink the juices of my body
drink the fluids of my love
drink my spasms my convulsions
drink my infidelity
before the
use-by date expires
(for date of manufacture, see bottom of casket)
(2000)
Translated by
Simon Patton
Photo of
Egyptian Scenery in the Dream of
a Fire Department Captain
fire
firefirefire
firefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
firefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefirefire
(2000)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
here she comes
in my direction
looking like a butterfly, without hesitation
she sits down directly in front of the lectern
in her hair, a bright-colored
hair clip: butterfly on butterfly
in the past
twenty years, in this junior high
by the sea, how many butterflies have I seen
shaped like human beings, like butterflies
carrying youth, carrying dreams, flut-
tering into my classroom?
Oh, Lolita
one autumn day
before noon, the sunlight
so warm, a dazzling Yellow
flew in through the window and circled
between the distracted teacher and
a 13-year-old girl concentrating on her schoolwork
suddenly, she
was up on her feet
trying to hide from that scissory shimmering color-
shape, a butterfly terrified of
other butterflies: she, startled by
them; me, perplexed by their beauty
(2001)
Translated by Simon
Patton
Little Deaths
—based on Jiri Kylian's dance title
Under the wind's
quilt, each day
little deaths
Under the
quilt's waves, you and I
brandish a sword of nothingness
A sword stabs
into the body
to kill you, kill me
A sword stabs
into the heart
to kill time, to utterly kill time
Where the tip of the sword points, little
orgasms belong to the quilt
Where the flashing sword passes, little
triumphant shouts and sobs
Little deaths make us
gradually accustomed to the humble triviality of living
Little conquests and surrenders
where neither enemy nor allied troops are on time's plain
Killers and instigators to the other
Assassins and pilgrims to the other
In the lifelong, indolent process of living,
process of dying, indolently
Inverting the sword handle into a pendulum, each day
little vibrations, little deaths
(2002)
Translated by Arthur
Sze
I left a segment of my tongue in
her pencil box. Consequently, every time she opened it to write a letter to her
new lover, she would hear my mumbling words, which were like a line of
scribbles, chafing among commas with
the movement of her newly sharpened pencil.
Then she would stop writing, not knowing it was my voice. She
thought that I, who had never spoken to her since we last met, had kept silent for good. She
wrote another line,
finding the Chinese character
(love), which consisted of so many strokes, was carelessly written. She
handily picked up my tongue. Mistaking it for an eraser, she rubbed it forcefully on the
paper, leaving a
considerable drop of blood on the spot where the character
disappeared.
(2002)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
On the Train, Tied Up in Two Knots
On
the Train, Tied Up in "Two Knots," the conductor announces: "Due to an influx of
wildflowers and
shamelessly invasive verdure on the tracks ahead, we will be temporarily
delayed. In the interest of
safety, all passengers must remain on the train." A group of bow-tied Rotarians
bound for their annual
convention who were sitting in the first car exchange anxious glances until a
blue butterfly flutters in
through a bathroom ventilation window and lures the black "butterfly" perched on
the Adam's apple of
group leader Wang in seat No. 5, whereupon all the Rotarians flee from the train
as if they had just been
granted a general pardon. Next we come to the vacationing stock analysts in Car
No. 2, gripping their
laptops, which they are keying as they converse on their cellular phones. Then
we arrive at the straightlaced
structuralist in Car No. 3, followed by his pet elephant, rhino,
pre-ovulating eel, and laboratory maze mouse.
Finally, we come to Ah-Gim, the widow sitting in the last seat of the last car,
who had had her tubes tied
some twenty years ago but has since lost her only son; she scurries off as if
she"s only just been awakened,
which leaves just the tongue-tied conductor muttering into his radiophone: "On
the...train...tied up...in...
'Two Knots'... we've...just been...robbed...of everything...by the...sights and...sounds
of...spring..."
(2002)
Translated by Steve
Bradbury
By the
mailbox on the street corner
I stop my car, turn off the engine, and doze for a while.
In front are glimmering traffic lights;
the sea we know well is at a short distance.
I doze on the street waiting for my daughter
to walk out of the piano room of the college after her lesson.
When I left home, my VCR was recording
Mahler's Song of the Night. The laborious
long day will be rewound and repeated tomorrow.
Several mosquitoes fly into the car
biting an exhausted human body in the dark :
the mosquitoes of Hualien biting this native
of Hualien is like the tide biting at the beach
leaving temporary marks.
Like music streaming through the sky
and disappearing soon after, we cannot tell
which part is Mahler's, and which part
the plow song, which part is this life
of ours, and which the afterlife of others.
The sea we are familiar with is a giant package
which is packed with our dreams, with
music boxes scattered on the beach like shells
and repeatedly delivers itself at the same spot.
The mailer's address is the receiver's.
My body, stamped by mosquitoes,
is a package in a package, hidden in the car
box and awaiting the sea wind not far away
to blow it into the mailbox on the street corner.
(2002)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
It's getting cold.
Wearing one more garment,
you feel too hot; taking one off,
you feel too cold. So it is with two lovers
living together for too many years.
To love or not to love
doesn't seem right.
The house is less crowded;
There is as much furniture and music.
the heart is none the smaller.
You have nothing to hide
or defend, except the right-of-way
in the night over the path to dreams.
In the mirror still hangs the red trunks
you wear on the summer beach.
What is found on the slope may
be the medicine mine, not the gold mine.
Something is yet
to be excavated, or prospected,
such as ethics, the transparent vest
woven and patched again
and again (to wear or
not to wear doesn't seem right),
such as understanding, the coal
used as fuel or pigment:
to be spread in the darker night
to turn darkness into light.
(2003)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
Behind the vast
ocean bluish songs of whales
Midnight troops review someone on the cliff
amazed at God's wonder
Running hand of lightning love e-mail with no address
to reply to
Tablecloths of the blind birds' chirps downloaded
after the rainstorm
Pomegranates of memories neon sopranos bursting in the dark
Scents of fleeing arias on noses of clowns with broken
tongues
Caressing ripples naked wind tangoing with early
spring of the pond
Purple stars shaped verse given to humans by the
merciful universe
(2004)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
On the Island
—based on Yami myths
1
The island is by the sea, and the sea by the island
Our island is a tiny, motionless ship
Tsunami turned the ship into a cradle
The waves dashed toward the mountaintop, splitting the giant rock
Out of the rock I popped
I am man, I am Tau
I am a man
Tsunami turned the ship into a cradle
The waves tumbled over reefs, splitting bamboo woods
Out of the bamboo I popped
I am man, I am Tau
I am a man
We were the first two on board
We were men having no women to love and
loved by no women
We rested on the ship, slept on the ship
On the knees we twined our exceedingly long penises
We gently swung our knees, sleeping foot to foot
Our knees touched comfortably, getting all the itchier with every touch
We scratched each other thoughtfully
With each scratch came a greater itch
until a man burst out of my right knee
(oh Tau, a man)
until a woman burst out of my left knee
(oh Tau, a man)
They are the Taus
Fulfillment of love between two men
2
The island is by the sea, and the sea by the island
Our island is a tiny, motionless ship
But Mama, our sky is so low
Our deck is so high
That fire ball, with wide open eyes
is hanging above our heads, burning hot
Please ask the next-door Uncle Giant to stretch his arms and legs
kicking the ground down, and upholding the sky
I will use my fish-spearing lance
to shoot blind one eye of the two-eyed fire ball, thus dividing it
into two: the half hanging in the sky will be
the sun, and the other half left to the night to accompany us in sleep
will be the moon
Behold, the moon is risen
So gentle is it, like
a bashful lily
From the depth of the evening sky, my lance slowly drops back
The fish I speared yesterday clings to the sky
becoming a milky way
Translator's note:
The Yami (also called the Tau)
tribe are aboriginal people of Taiwan living on the Orchid Island,
which lies to
the southeast of the island of Taiwan.
"Tau" means "man" in the Yami language.
(2004)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
Poem Gained in Dream at a Hotel in Winter
The white
hotel took me in on a winter night
just as an aluminum pot accepts a grain of rice,
washing its body with sufficient hot water,
until it becomes a self-contented grain in the pot of rice.
Someone (God maybe?) slightly opened the cover
of the pot. I felt the good smell of rice brimming
over the dream, and I saw in my dream a poem
forming, written on the wall of the white hotel, or on me. It
was obviously not a modern eight-line or four-line verse
with meters and rhymes (I wondered how come a tiny
rice grain could contain so many characters).
It was a poem that had never been written before,
a brand-new poem without any device of rhyme
or metrics. The imagery in the poem was vivid
and charming; not only was it very musical but it
gave forth sweet taste and smell from time to time.
It was about love, about solitude, about
time, and beauty (oh, it was virtually
a great and perfect poem one could
expect only in dream). I dared not
believe that was my own work—
so original, so wonderful. I thought
it was written by some fellow poet more talented
than I since Li Po and Tu Fu. I was
reluctant to write it down at first purely
out of my jealousy. I left it suspended in
my dream. As I savored it and surmised its
technique and capacity, I grew embittered
secretly. How I wish this poem had never
been written. When I suddenly realized I was
the author of my own dream and that the poem
might have been written by me, and got anxious
to memorize it, the pot cover of the dream had been
completely lifted. I remembered not very clearly
the atmosphere and ideas about it; as regards
the concrete text, there was not a single word
I could recall. I was a waking grain
of rice, naked, chilly, in the bed of
the white hotel, feeling a kind of pure
blankness, empty fullness: just like
that poem in the dream, gained and then lost.
(2004)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
Typhoons, huge
bags
kind-hearted spirits air-drop to mankind,
tossing to us
leaflets with various colors,
messages with mixed flavors.
So close to heaven,
they know God never forgets
to give mankind tests.
They strive to get us a day off
for us to be free from everything,
for them to guess what may be in the test
and to help us review all the lessons.
The whole night they repeatedly point out
the main points to us, who stay up,
by pounding on the house, by shaking the windows
in a dramatic tone.
They even pull up the street trees by the roots, scatter
signs, cut off electric power,
leaving marks everywhere as warnings
to teach us not to fall into God's traps.
They don't even let slip a few scores.
With leaking traces like dotted lines
they add notes on the wall for us.
They want us to remember what was learned in childhood:
overflowed embankments,
drowned tables and beds,
to remember the junior high companion gone suddenly
while playing in the water on a glorious summer afternoon,
to remember, later on,
sleepless nights
due to ecstasy of love,
to remember, later on,
sleepless nights
due to agony of love.
Overnight
they take stock for us, calculating
what we have had and lost,
which mistakes were made time after time and should never be repeated,
which blessings are sure to be grasped and should never be ignored.
Over and over again, God
gives us tests.
Friendly balloons,
spirits'
soap bubbles,
blowing gently, blowing hard:
learning passports distributed here and there,
advertisements of life.
(2008)
Translated by Chang Fen-ling
Books of Poems by Chen Li
In Front of the Temple
Animal Lullaby
Rainstorm
Traveling in the Family
Microcosmos
The Edge of the Island
The Cat at
the Mirror
New Poems
Introduction to Chen Li's Poetry
by Chang Fen-ling
