心想著你

By X. Z. Shao
Some imageries in this poem come from a dream.  

心想著你

關掉床頭燈
躺在色彩斑斕的黑暗中
裹在剛曬過太陽的被窩裡
今夜我會飛翔
從腐朽坍塌的木屋
經過狹窄的小巷
穿過殘垣的拱門
升騰到你起舞的天空
我們牽手齊飛
所有欠缺都被補滿
所有扭曲都變得自然
我們向大地俯衝
大地堆滿了彩球
我們向夕陽飛去
沒入黃昏漫天的翅膀

    Morning, March 14, 2010

The erotic images

X. Z. Shao

The erotic images
of early brave women
with their manufactured innocence
shining through their naked bodies
in various dynamic poses,
survive their anonymous makers
whose amorous eyes,
uncontainable passions or lusts
and skills of their profession
are forever concealed behind
their products of the black and white.
Moralists at the time afraid of
their own dreams being revealed
threw stones at them,
but they played with them
“catch me if you can.”
Their followers have run so wild
the stone-throwers are tired out.
For those who indulged in pleasure,
life is a giant engulfing void
they have to escape from.
In a jungle so huge,
the way out so hopelessly lost,
the humid air making your hairs stick
to your forehead in your endless trek,
can you blame them
for staying put and hunting games
to enjoy themselves around a fire?
Temptation of flesh
was in Buddha’s dream
before His final awakening.
Are you the one to judge?

              2015/4/30

Twenty years has elapsed

By X. Z. Shao

Twenty years has elapsed
since I first taught English
and doodled my first poem.
White hairs on old heads now
back then were black.

Time, you've killed far more than

the worst lunatics in history,
yet, we do not hate.
You quarried youth
out of a beauty’s face,
yet, she bore you no grudge.

With the soft killer by,

acting all around the clock,
we are a toad put in the cool water
on a live stove, trying to get used to
the rising temperature.

The news of suicidal pilot

crashing his plane into the Alp
set my weak nerve on fire.
The passengers on board knew
too well where they were heading for
in a few minutes of a hell of despair.

We are all in that plane,

only the remaining minutes
are expended to the rest our years.
Our hopeless yells may not be so extreme,
but we have many rehearsals in our dreams.
Arise now, escape from your house on fire,
to search for the Garden of Peach Blossoms.
Maybe an opening will lead you there, maybe not.

          2015/4/30

The greatest sin

By X. Z. Shao

The greatest sin

is to have made Eve eat the Apple.
The greatest love
is to urge Eve put an apple back.
But to achieve the later,
a threat of the fire of hell,
a sword barring an access to
the Tree of Life simply don't work.
An ocean of compassion,
most subtle, tireless persuasions
like a breeze’s talks to a tree
have been tried,
without much guarantee of success. 

              2015/4/27

In expectation of you,

By X. Z. Shao

In expectation of you,

willows sprout in spring,
birds converse at dawn,
the pond teems with ripples
stirred up by myriad fishes.

In expectation of you,

lives full of suffering linger,
desolate caverns open to light
the forest on fire looks forwards
to the gathering heavy clouds.

In expectation of you,

words keep coming out,
tunes form out of nowhere,
statuses carved out
with a rare feat stand.

In expectation of you,

disheartened heads rise,
madhouses calm down in order,
the seething gulfs of want
are filled with gold abundant.

But you are not a god or goddess.

You are the soft hands and smiles
and the understanding
and the unwavering love
of a sweet, knowing, caring spirit.

                2015/4/26

My eyes closed

By X. Z. Shao

My eyes closed

in a heavy cloud of mind,
my inner-self
lost in a drowsy light.

I still perceived minor noises,

heard a yelling of a boy,
chirpings of birds
and a roaring of a passenger plane.

There were no reminiscences.

No hurt of an unrequited love
no death of loved ones
cut though you like knives.
No cries for change in a desert.
No ecstasies of being in love
or of births of new lives.

The serene state was neither asleep

nor awake, neither in nor out
neither alive nor dead.
A moment of eternity
with nothing in it.

Until I opened my eyes

and everything seemed
glinting in the light,
after being washed by
a heavy shower.

        2015/4/23

正如我愛Rasa音樂

By X. Z. Shao
A poem of hopeless encounter.

正如我愛Rasa音樂
我只傾聽你心語無聲
我不會把你占為己有  
不會阻止你在世上漂流
獨行者啊
你我不會有共同的居所
不會從清晨暢談到黑夜
這萍水相逢
彼此短暫回眸
你為何不獨自珍藏
你為何要向路人描述我當時的目光
我只覺得你是另一個我
或是我內在神秘的一半
這一屢弦音既荒唐又合乎情理
就算你為我駐足又何妨
我不會誘惑你離開快樂的苦行
據說所有旅人都會聚同一個終點
像印度信徒對神吟唱
起舞在密林中的殿宇裡

        Morning, Feb. 26, 2009

 

  

If my poems had wings

By X. Z. Shao

If my poems had wings
of your music,
yours and mine would intertwine
and echo around the mountains
a story that were ours,
a longing that would flow
a ribbon of a river or clouds.

Scatter me into the air

I don’t want a body
and a tongue of words.
I want your invisible notes
carrying my dusts
to the deepest chamber
of your heart.

Oh, no, dusts are too heavy
I want to be light reaching
wherever your songs fly.
I want to be with you
to fill the morning woods
with the sorrows and ecstasies
from a wanderer’s strings.

        2015/4/25

Two short poems

By X. Z. Shao

A leaf of a king coconut tree

A leaf of a king coconut tree

dropped off from its towering top,
without any sign of warning,
a few feet in front of me
and tumbled like a giant
before it lay silent.


The violent rustling of leaves

The violent rustling of leaves
in a haunted woods
in an impending storm
under an overcast sky
is enough to make your hairs stand,
but the swaying trees,
the running away of the timid,
the heaving of nature,
the seriousness of the lake surface
with waterfowls
making somersaults on it
are a rare scene
for a mind calm and settled.

           2015/4/25

From an opening (A translation)

By X. Z. Shao
This is a translation from my poem pasted below, written Feb. 21-23, 2009. It may be a type of poems I want to write, romantic and hopeless, with texture and flavour, a sorrow and disappointment that pierce and yet heal.

From an opening

I saw the plants in your garden,
mandragoras, mandrakes,
henbanes and poppies.
A puff of fragrance
carried by a breeze
lured me to roam in it.
You shut me out in time
out of compassion
to save me from being perplexed,
but my soul had condensed into the night dews,
dropping lightly on your leaves and petals.
They would smile for a moment  
in the morning sun
and then blend themselves
into your sweet scents.
I had discarded my body
to follow your essence
which put me into such a frenzy trance.   

     Translated, 2015/4/24

從你打開的縫隙

從你打開的縫隙

我看到你種了滿園迷藥
有曼陀羅草、顛茄
天仙子和罌粟
微風使香氣撲鼻
誘我到園中飄遊
你有菩薩心腸把我關在門外
以免我失魂落魄
可我的魂魄已化作夜露附上你的花草
在晨光中一展短暫歡顏
然後消失在你的馨香裡
我已撇下軀殼
追隨你令人癲狂的本質

  Feb. 21—23, 2009

 

  

In the gathering darkness

By X. Z. Shao

In the gathering darkness,

a middle age woman
rummaged a garbage bin
by a lake mirroring
night lights and the moonshine
for discarded plastic bottles
she pressed flat to save space
and put them into
a big black plastic bag
she carried on her back.

She then walked down

a neatly-made ring road
through a little round square
where tourists watched
swans and played by day
toward next garbage bin
in the evening breeze,
with only her obscure shadow
following her to search
for her daily bread.

2015/4/24

Crawling on a page of my book,

By X. Z. Shao

Crawling on a page of my book,
an insect was so tiny,
tinier than a pinpoint
or a needle hole,
I couldn’t make out
its eyes, ears, nose or mouth.
Its moving body must have been
supported by its busy running legs.
Why it existed and came here,
I wasn’t sure.
I guessed it would die soon in hours.
Sometimes, I had patience
to let one go.
Sometimes not,
I dusted the page with my hand
and a trace of a thin yellow line
of its crashed body
dashed on the page.
I wondered some Force
must have been observing me
reading in Its wood
and being puzzled in the same way
as I had been puzzled by the insect.

         2015/4/19

記夢：Early morning, August 9, 2008.

By X. Z. Shao
This is a record of my dream early morning, August 9, 2008. I had been reading The Classic of Poetry believed to be first edited by Confucius himself in different modern editions for over half a year. I was so ensnared by them that the ancient world seemed to be blent with the reality in my mind, so I had a dream which was very long and exhausting. I recorded the segment I remembered below. The name “Zhang Xian” which I yelled desperately in the dream has no match in reality

往昔模糊，火光沖天
你的村落化為廢墟
戰亂使你流落成遊女
你和同伴起舞在街市
在大雨滂沱中
在車馬往來的岔道
在火焰歡笑的郊野

後來，聽說你得了病
你尋找失散的親人
在森林中穿行
把最後的歌舞教給孔雀
不知你帶著怎樣的心情
身上有多少傷口
失落在哪個城邑

沒有人記得起這件往事
只有音樂從我心中莫名升起
我倚著平臺上的欄杆欣賞著瀑布
為夥伴哼起了一支歌
歌聲把我帶到一條夜晚的街道
喧鬧的舞廳沖出一群舞女
我隨即認出她們都是當年熱烈的舞娘

她們旋風般舞來又舞去                                
我得知你早已身患不治之症
你離去時心灰意冷
仿佛這事與我生死攸關
我突然記起你的名字叫張嫻
我曾隱約在心中搜索過她千百次
我猛然撕心裂肺地、哭著喊著、絕望地吼著——
張嫻——張嫻——

       Morning, August 23, 2008

My blog

By X. Z. Shao

My son,

this is my tomb, my house

my palace, my ark,

my dome in the air,

my castle on a mountaintop.

Every year in the Tomb-sweeping Day

no need to seek me

in the desolate hill among the dead.

 

My father has only his name

left in my mind.

His face is blurred

and his tomb is less strong

than marble and brass.

 

When I die,

discard my body as you see fit.

No physical sign of any sorts should be erected.

You may come here once a year

in the day when Chinese honor their dead,

but I am not with them.

Read my poems and I am alive as ever.

No offering of food, paper money, flowers

and rituals of any sorts need to be made,

for why do you treat the living

in the same way as the dead?

 

    2015/4/19

A mosquito

By X. Z. Shao

A mosquito

trapped in the net.
She had my blood
in her belly
and droned like a helicopter,
or had grace
as a pregnant woman.
I usually allow her to go,
for she may have crucial errands
to run just as I have.
It is said only female mosquitoes
need blood
to nourish their eggs.
To perform the same function
I do far wore than she
on a daily basis

     2015/4/19