Month: March 2014

Returning To My Retreat by Ch’en T’uan

/ zdunno03 / 6 Comments

Through the red dust I tramped for ten years
green mountains though were often in my dreams
a purple cord brings fame but can’t compare to sleep
crimson gates are grand but having less is better
how sad to hear swords guarding a feeble lord
how depressing the songs of noisy drunks
I’m taking my old books back to my retreat
to wildflowers and birdsongs and the same old spring

translated by Red Pine

Declaration: for the martyr Yu Luoke by Bei Dao

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Perhaps the last moment is here
I haven’t left a will
Only a pen. . .to my mother
I’m not a hero
In an era without heroes
I just wanted to be a man

The quiet horizon
Separated the ranks of the living from the dead
I had to choose the sky
And would never kneel on the ground
To let executioners look gigantic
So they could block the wind of freedom

Out of starlike bullet holes
A bloody dawn is flowing

from the book The Red Azalea
translated by Fang Dai, Dennis Ding, & Edward Morin

for martyrs everywhere

senseless killing

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

I sit
numb with memory
remembering the innocent dead
of my own country
at Kent State
at Jackson State
during the month of May
in 1970
some while protesting
others while crossing
from one class to another
and my heart breaks again
listening to the protests
reliving our student strike
that closed hundreds of schools
across the nation
and wishing, hoping
my beloved Turkish people
will not let this murder
of a 14 year old boy
who was just going to buy bread
pass
but will unite
in a common cause
to end tyranny
and let this poor boy
Berkin Elvan
rest in peace

Penance by Sherman Alexie

/ zdunno03 / 1 Comment

I remember sun-
days when the man I
call my father made

me shoot free throws, one
for every day of my life
so far. I remember
the sin of imperfect

spin, the ball falling in-
to that moment between
a father and forgive-

ness, between the hands reach-
ing up and everything
they can possibly hold.

from A Dedication by Karin Boye

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I feel your steps in the hall
I feel in every nerve your hurried steps
that go unnoticed otherwise.
A wind of fire sweeps around me.
I feel your steps, your beloved steps,
and my heart aches.

Though you pace far down the hall
the air surges with your steps
and sings like the sea.
I listen, prisoned in gnawing restraint.
My hungry pulse beats to the rhythm of your rhythm,
to the tempo of your gait.

translated by Nadia Christensen

They Feed They Lion by Philip Levine

/ zdunno03 / 3 Comments

Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter,
Out of black bean and wet slate bread,
Out of acids of rage, the candor of tar,
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
They Lion grow.

Out of the gray hills
Of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride,
West Virginia to Kiss My Ass, out of buried aunties,
Mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps,
Out of bones’ need to sharpen and the muscles’ to stretch,
They Lion grow.

Earth is eating trees, fence posts,
Gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones,
“Come home, Come home!” From pig balls,
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness,
From the furred ear and the full jowl come
The repose of the hung belly, from the purpose
They Lion grow.

From the sweet glues of the trotters
Come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower
Of the hams the thorax of caves,
From “Bow Down” come “Rise Up,”
Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels,
The grained arm that pulls the hands,
They Lion grow.

From my five arms and all my hands,
From all my white sins forgiven, they feed,
From my car passing under the stars,
They Lion, from my children inherit,
From the oak turned to a wall, they Lion,
From they sack and they belly opened
And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth
They feed they Lion and he comes.