Poem
Liu Waitong
TO THE REPUBLIC
Leaving the country three thousand li behind, you nevertheless take form in the cold clouds,your stern sixty-year-old face
slate-grey like the void.
Your battlefield does not exist, a glacier of cavalry
enters the dreams of exiles; your exiles do not exist,
there is only a flash of fire that cannot be delivered suddenly beneath the Qilian Mountains;
those who are imprisoned for you do not exist, prison too is purely fabrication;
the children dead of soft knives do not exist, the ruins are already grayed;
even the corpse wrapped in the red flag does not exist, the north and south have lost their east and west.
You are too young and too old, inhaling and exhaling your own smoke.
Where do you dump your cigarette butts? Where do you discharge these tens of thousands of hectares of ash and rain?
You walk from Hetian to Linfen, from Taizhou to Fuqing, the mighty South China Sea
remains how many nautical miles away? You often say: the first step of a long march of ten thousand miles,
how many children fall at the first step? My step hesitates at
Haishenwai, Almaty, and Liangshan, the wind moves the borders;
sixty years ago someone compared himself to a flag in the wind, in a game of chess with a thing that does not exist.
The buffalo die in the midst of glorious radiance; your history does not exist.
The scenery is like a forgotten cleaver; your achievements and mistakes do not exist
you invented for yourself a cool and shady soul;
one point three billion real bodies on a non-existent net make non-existent love,
immediacy, this passion, also ceases to exist;
you canceled the sublime understanding of raging Guangdong and Guangxi, the frigid northeast,
you canceled the courage in your left hand and heart in your right, penis and womb.
© Translation: 2013, Venus Lau & Robin Peckham
[1] Line 5: This line borrows from and alters the closing line from “Rainstorm of Four November,” a patriotic poem by southern Song dynasty poet Lu You; though written after his retirement to Shaoxing, it recounts a scene of military engagement with invaders in the north.
[2] Line 6: The Qilian Mountains are part of the Kulun Range in Qinghai and Gansu provinces, often appearing in classical literature as the Southern Mountains along the Silk Road.
[3] Line 12: Hetian or Hotan is a Uyghur town in Xinjiang; Linfen, located in Shanxi province, is known as one of the most polluted cities in the world; Taizhou, located in Jiangsu, is the hometown of Hu Jintao; Fuqing, in coastal Fujian, is a major source of Chinese international immigration.
[4] Line 15: Haishenwai is a traditional name for Vladivostok, Russia’s major Pacific Ocean port, used in parallel with the current Pinyin official name; Almaty is the commercial center of Kazakhstan, though no longer the capital; Liangshan is an area of Sichuan province with a large population of the Yi minority.
AAN DE REPUBLIEK
Bij het verlaten van het land van drieduizend mijl, krijg je vorm in de koude wolken,je serieuze gezicht van zestig jaar
metaalgrijs als een leegte.
Je strijdveld bestaat niet, ijzeren paarden, bevroren rivieren
dromen van bannelingen; die bannelingen van jou bestaan niet
alleen onverslaanbare vlammen verdwijnen ineens onder het Qilian-gebergte;
de mensen die voor jou in de gevangenis zitten bestaan niet, de cel zelf is ook pure fantasie;
kinderen die doodgestoken zijn door zachte messen bestaan niet, de ruïnes zijn grauw en verlaten;
zelfs het lijk gewikkeld in de rode vlag bestaat niet, zuid en noord hebben oost en west verloren.
Je bent te jong en ook te oud, je ademt en blaast je eigen rook.
Waar gooi je de peuken weg? Waar loos je die tonnen as en regen?
Je loopt van Hetian naar Linfen, van Taizhou naar Fuqing, de eindeloze Zuidchinese zee
hoeveel zeemijlen moeten we nog lopen? Vaak zeg je: het is de eerste stap van een reis van
tienduizend mijl,
hoeveel kinderen vallen bij de eerste stap? Mijn voetstappen blijven aarzelend steken in
Vladivostok, Almaty en Liangshan, de grenzen zijn met de wind verschoven;
zestig jaar geleden vergeleek iemand zich met een vlag in de wind, schakend met dingen die niet
bestaan.
Wilde ossen sterven in de grandioze glorie; je geschiedenis bestaat niet langer,
het uitzicht is als een vergeten hakmes; je successen en falen bestaan niet
je hebt zelf een schaduwrijke ziel verzonnen
1.3 miljard ware lichamen op een niet-bestaand net bedrijven de niet-bestaande liefde,
spoedig houdt ook de hartstocht op met bestaan;
je annuleerde mijn begrip van het razende Kanton en Guangxi, het kille noordoosten,
je annuleerde jouw linkerhandige moed, rechterhandige hart, penis, baarmoeder.
© Vertaling: 2013, Audrey Heijns
致共和國
去國三千里，你仍然在寒雲中成形，你的六十歲嚴厲面容
鐵灰如虛空。
你的戰場是不存在的，鐵馬冰河
入了流人夢；你的流人是不存在的，
只有無法投遞的火閃忽於祁連山下；
為你坐牢的人是不存在的，牢房也純屬虛構；
死于軟刀子的孩子是不存在的，廢墟已經蒼蒼；
甚至紅旗包裹的屍體也是不存在的，南北已失西東。
你太年輕也太老，自己吞吐自己的煙霧。
你在哪里倒你的煙頭呢？你在哪里排放這幾萬公頃煙灰雨？
你從和田走到臨汾，從泰州走到福清，浩浩南海
還有多少海裏要走？你常說：萬里長征第一步，
多少孩子在第一步摔倒？我的腳步徘徊在
符拉迪沃斯托克、阿拉木圖和涼山，風移動著邊界；
六十年前有人比喻自己為風旗，與不存在的事體博弈。
光輝燦爛中野牛們死了；你的歷史是不存在的
風光如遺忘之砍刀；你的功過是不存在的
你為自己發明了一個陰涼的靈魂；
真實的十三億肉體在烏有網上與烏有做愛，
迅即這激情也化為烏有；
你取消了我的高山流水熾烈兩廣凜冽東北，
你取消了你的左手肝膽右手心臟陽具子宮。
© 2013, Liu Waitong
Poems
Poems of Liu Waitong
Close
TO THE REPUBLIC
Leaving the country three thousand li behind, you nevertheless take form in the cold clouds,your stern sixty-year-old face
slate-grey like the void.
Your battlefield does not exist, a glacier of cavalry
enters the dreams of exiles; your exiles do not exist,
there is only a flash of fire that cannot be delivered suddenly beneath the Qilian Mountains;
those who are imprisoned for you do not exist, prison too is purely fabrication;
the children dead of soft knives do not exist, the ruins are already grayed;
even the corpse wrapped in the red flag does not exist, the north and south have lost their east and west.
You are too young and too old, inhaling and exhaling your own smoke.
Where do you dump your cigarette butts? Where do you discharge these tens of thousands of hectares of ash and rain?
You walk from Hetian to Linfen, from Taizhou to Fuqing, the mighty South China Sea
remains how many nautical miles away? You often say: the first step of a long march of ten thousand miles,
how many children fall at the first step? My step hesitates at
Haishenwai, Almaty, and Liangshan, the wind moves the borders;
sixty years ago someone compared himself to a flag in the wind, in a game of chess with a thing that does not exist.
The buffalo die in the midst of glorious radiance; your history does not exist.
The scenery is like a forgotten cleaver; your achievements and mistakes do not exist
you invented for yourself a cool and shady soul;
one point three billion real bodies on a non-existent net make non-existent love,
immediacy, this passion, also ceases to exist;
you canceled the sublime understanding of raging Guangdong and Guangxi, the frigid northeast,
you canceled the courage in your left hand and heart in your right, penis and womb.
© 2013, Venus Lau & Robin Peckham
TO THE REPUBLIC
Leaving the country three thousand li behind, you nevertheless take form in the cold clouds,your stern sixty-year-old face
slate-grey like the void.
Your battlefield does not exist, a glacier of cavalry
enters the dreams of exiles; your exiles do not exist,
there is only a flash of fire that cannot be delivered suddenly beneath the Qilian Mountains;
those who are imprisoned for you do not exist, prison too is purely fabrication;
the children dead of soft knives do not exist, the ruins are already grayed;
even the corpse wrapped in the red flag does not exist, the north and south have lost their east and west.
You are too young and too old, inhaling and exhaling your own smoke.
Where do you dump your cigarette butts? Where do you discharge these tens of thousands of hectares of ash and rain?
You walk from Hetian to Linfen, from Taizhou to Fuqing, the mighty South China Sea
remains how many nautical miles away? You often say: the first step of a long march of ten thousand miles,
how many children fall at the first step? My step hesitates at
Haishenwai, Almaty, and Liangshan, the wind moves the borders;
sixty years ago someone compared himself to a flag in the wind, in a game of chess with a thing that does not exist.
The buffalo die in the midst of glorious radiance; your history does not exist.
The scenery is like a forgotten cleaver; your achievements and mistakes do not exist
you invented for yourself a cool and shady soul;
one point three billion real bodies on a non-existent net make non-existent love,
immediacy, this passion, also ceases to exist;
you canceled the sublime understanding of raging Guangdong and Guangxi, the frigid northeast,
you canceled the courage in your left hand and heart in your right, penis and womb.
© 2013, Venus Lau & Robin Peckham
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