Trilingual Renshi

SEA


1         

Three girls with black hair and black eyes
carrying suitcases on the pier of Piazza San Marco.
I wonder where they come from? Silent, they are
like three seagulls, hard to tell one from the others.
Hey, let us hear your voices!

(Yasuhiro)


2          

Ariel hums a little song, the sea wind carries her tune
to a cafe, where a white-haired man looks up
and sees the three sisters, poplar shadows in his eyes

(Mindy)


3          

A pitch-dark night, even the seagulls are asleep
The children are leaving, dragging along their suitcases
Everyone’s asleep except for the children
From the western pier, a ferry departs secretly
For a year, same departing children, same ferry, same clouds, same sky.

(Hyesoon)


4         

The Noah’s Ark we boarded in our previous lives
now lies rotten on the ocean floor.
After all, it couldn’t get out of the earth…

(Shuntaro)


5         

Each time I write a poem I climb up to the moon, and sit
at the bottom of Tranquility, looking down on my home,
trying to see the red of blood hidden in that cold blue.
It’s the sea that separates us from each other,
the same sea that connects us to each other

(Yasuhiro)


6
               
Tonight the sky is a dark cabin—
we’re awake, our eyes each a new moon
sailing to a Sun Republic

(Mindy)


7          

Perched on a power line, the birds’ wings are wet
Cherry blossoms fall like fi ngernails scratching a door that won’t open
Above the faraway mountain, the drenched sun becomes heavy
Someone made of ocean stands outside the window
That someone can’t be held, so thin like the morning fog

(Hyesoon)   


8         

What kind of software application designed plankton?
The boy lets his mind wander for a moment, his eyes away from the microscope.
He wants to dream about the world without using the word ‘God’.

(Shuntaro)


9          

Words travel—as shadows. Apples sing—
iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes—stir the oceans.
Hurricanes and tsunamis. Then all is quiet, quiet. Ariel sisters
guard their speeches in golden corals. Above the deep water,
words travel again, as fi shes, over the salty waves and seaweed.

(Mindy)


10          

Hokusai’s Suruga Bay gazed upon through the window.
Mouthful of Norimaki at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
Clouds in the heart remember the taste of the tears rolling down on her cheeks…

(Yasuhiro)


11      

The temperature of Neptune, categorized as ‘ice giant’, is
minus 218 degrees Celsius at its cloud tops, and
5,000 degrees at its center. I, with a body temperature of 36.5 degrees,
in a 21-degree room on planet Earth,
as of 16 minutes past 12 o’clock on the 7th of April, am still alive (^^)!

(Shuntaro)


12          

I pour Neptune’s sea on top of my desk
When our fi rst round of poems is fi nished, the lights go out at the cosmos station
I sit in my chair and dip my hands into the pitch-black ocean

(Hyesoon)


RICE


13          

As the ocean spills into the rice fields, a dolphin flies up,
its huge mouth hoarding rice.
It flies—white diffuses the low sky.
It flies—a woman is on the run—she wants to hide the rice (米)
for the children before the sun rises.

(Mindy)


14          

A grain of cooked rice is hanging
from the tip of the beard of Chinese character ‘父(father)’,
like a little god who got lost.

(Yasuhiro)


15          

The scarecrow who kept his dignity of being one-legged
finished his role as a crow chaser,
spending the rest of his life in a museum of ethnology in a foreign place.
He’s got no sky, unlike on the terraced rice-fields.
Three schoolboys are pressing their faces to the glass showcase.

(Shuntaro)


16         

We are the flesh and blood of rice, like the flesh and blood of the stars
How is it that crimson blood fl ows when I’ve only swallowed a single grain of white rice?
Children who’ve departed to a place where they won’t be eating rice anymore shimmer like stars

(Hyesoon)


17          

Rice was scarce. Even the skies closed down.
Tsvetaeva was rejected, again.
She looked thinner than a bird, her eyes sunken...
I wake up startled, and see nine moons above me—
nine goddesses offering nine bowls of rice to her starved orphan...

(Mindy)


18          

A handful of rice in the bowl of a young mendicant priest.
Sunlight falls on fresh leaves.
He walks along a crumbling mud wall.

(Shuntaro)


19          

Never stand still, so my master taught me in a foreign land.
Across the fortress walls, through the peninsula, and over the straits,
the path lies in the very act of walking, he said.
Chewing the distant sweetness carried by grains of rice, I came down from the pass
—the familiar festival band of whistles and drums.

(Yasuhiro)


20          

After the cherry blossom parade has passed by, a paper bowl under the tree eats white petals
It’s been a while since my family of three has eaten rice from bowls set on the manhole-cover-like kitchen table
Above our heads the sky opens its mouth, and beneath our feet the sewer opens its mouth

(Hyesoon)


21         

Manna the food whose name means ‘what is it?’ in Hebrew.
If human beings are such that they feel hungry even with their stomachs full,
that hunger is caused by the question called ‘Manna’,
although the boy, for whom just one rice ball was worth a jewel after the defeat of the war,
found physical hunger more real than spiritual hunger.

(Shuntaro)


22 
        
Mom told me not to blindly believe the history textbooks,
but what about my great grandfather’s diary?
The next few pages are sealed with glue made of boiled rice.

(Yasuhiro)


23         

When I drink water, the water drinks me
When I eat rice, the rice eats me
When I breathe in oxygen, the oxygen eats me
The more I eat the more my body is glued to the ground
The prisoner in a cell mashes rice to make Buddha

(Hyesoon)


24          

Shennong, god of five grains, fertilized mountains with sunlight
from his eyes. He planted rice and died of rice, planted herbs and died of herbs.
My grandma buried him a thousand times and on his body planted an apple tree.

(Mindy)


SUN


25          

The national flag of Japan is called Hinomaru (a sun disk).
A so-called ‘Good Design’ with just a crimson circle on the white background.
It looks so innocent that it might have been conceived of by a child,
but its appearance is deceiving: it’s ominously multicolored, unlike the five colors of the Olympic rings.
I will never ever wave the flag.

(Shuntaro)


26          

It was the day of the festival of the sun at Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco
I said hi in the morning of the winter solstice to Seoul’s night in the summer solstice
The starting line of the 365-day long marathon was teeming with Indians

(Hyesoon)


27          

The singing voices of the wandering Peruvians mix together
with Jingle Bells from the shop front of a confectioner’s.
The man wraps himself in all 5 national newspapers
and lies down in the hollow of the lined-up buildings…he knows
that spot will get the first ray of the morning sun (Asahi).

(Yasuhiro)
     

28         

There is a lion in Latin American jungles that swings its golden hair.
In Spain, Lorca saw a golden sun (日) before he closed his eyes.
He held a stream of light as if holding the string of an ancient peaceful kite.

(Mindy)


29 

How painful the light must be for the owl
How painful the light must be for the bat inside a cave
How painful the light must be for the girl hiding in the attic
Outside, the army of fire marches towards me with its golden mane
How frightened I must be, clutching onto the last morning star

(Hyesoon)


30         

A click, and the rainbow caught on a display loses its color.
“Photography shouldn’t flirt with color, just light and shadow is enough”
declares the silver-haired female photographer to her young assistant.

(Shuntaro)


31
        
When the world was still young
Nüwa gave birth to ten suns, of ten colors and ten genders.
They played around in the air like warlords and feverishly burnt all the fl ying birds.
A boy-girl, a bow and ten arrows in hand, split nine of the suns
into nine oceans and nine volcanic mountains…

(Mindy)


32         

An ant is crawling on a sundial
from day to night, dragging the wing of a butterfly.
A treat for the little ones underground.

(Yasuhiro)


33         

In the sign language classroom a light rings instead of a bell
The light rings at the end of class and also at lunch
A soccer referee runs over and politely makes a foul call
When the referee who was staring at his watch raises the fl ag at the end of the game
the winning and losing teams, the referee and spectators make butterfl ies with theirs hands and
release them into the sunlight

(Hyesoon)


34         

Any scene when viewed through the window pane looks poetic,
reflects the tyrant as he gives the finishing touch to his speech.
On the waves of the sea of people who hate him, the lenses of their glasses glitter.

(Yasuhiro)


35         

With his monocle, my uncle chases a Chinese jar.
I put on two slices of cucumber to chase after him. Through the pin holes of insect bites
I see a sunflower that leads the way, bringing me to the Yangtze River instead—
Qu Yuan had jumped from here… I’ve brought bamboo leaves fi lled with sticky rice.
He stands up, beaming, his left eye Venus, his right eye a lotus.

(Mindy)


36          

Blown by the winds of the era and burned by the ancient lights,
our mandala still resists with poetry against the world’s entropy.
The evening sun here is the morning sun over there Good night and good morning move towards
tomorrow in a spiral.

(Shuntaro)

Trilingual Renshi

Trilingual Renshi

海之卷


1         

三个女孩提着行李箱来到圣马尔谷广场
码头上，三个女孩黑发，黑眼睛
不知来自哪里
她们沉默，像三只海鸥，分不清谁是谁
嘿，让我们听一听你们的声音

(Yasuhiro)


2          

爱丽尔哼起一支曲，海风把声音传送
至咖啡馆，一位白发男子抬头
看见三姐妹，白杨树影在他眼中晃动

(Mindy)


3          

漆黑的夜晚，海鸥在睡眠
孩子们在离开，拖着行李箱
所有人都睡着了，除了孩子们
西边码头，轮渡悄悄离开。一年了
同一只船，孩子们离开，如同样的云，离开同样的天。

(Hyesoon)


4         

前世乘过的诺亚方舟
此刻腐烂在海底
毕竟，它走不出地球

(Shuntaro)


5         

每次写诗我都会爬到月亮上
坐在静谧深处，俯瞰我的家乡
试图看清那隐藏在冷蓝中，血一样的红色
同一个海连接我们
同一个海分离我们

(Yasuhiro)


6
            
今晚，天空是黯淡的船舱——
我们醒着，眼睛是一只只新月
驶向彼此共和的太阳

(Mindy)


7          

鸟栖息在电线上，羽翼潮湿
樱花落下，像指甲抓打那打不开的门
远处山上，湿透的太阳沉重
一个水做的人站在窗外
无法支撑，枯瘦如早晨的雾

(Hyesoon)   


8         

什么样的软件设计出这些浮游生物？
小男孩纳闷了片刻，目光离开显微镜
他想不用“上帝”这个词来幻想世界

(Shuntaro)


9          

文字穿行——如影子。苹果高歌——
iPhone,iPad,iPod,iTunes——掀动海底。
飓风，海啸。然后是寂静，寂静。爱丽儿姐妹们
将语言藏于金色的珊瑚中。深水之上，
文字再次启程，如鱼群，穿行于有咸味的海浪与海草。

(Mindy)


10          

眺望窗外，下面是北斋画过的骏河湾
三万米高处，满嘴海苔寿司
她心中的云铭记着面颊上滚落的泪水味道……

(Yasuhiro)


11
         
海王星被称为“巨冰”行星
在云端，表面温度摄氏零下218
中心温度5000
而在地球上21度常温的房间里，我体温36.5
4月7日12点16分，还活着~

(Shuntaro)


12          

我把海王星的海，泼在书桌上
我们的第一卷诗结束，灯光熄落在宇宙站台
我坐在椅子上，双手蘸进漆黑的海洋

(Hyesoon)


米之卷


13          

海水涌进稻田，一只海豚飞起
巨大的嘴，囤积稻米
它飞起，白色弥漫低矮的天空
它飞起，一个女人在奔跑——她要在太阳升起之前
把米藏好，留给那些孩子们

(Mindy)


14          

一粒煮熟的米饭悬挂在
汉字“父”亲的胡须尖
像一个小神仙走迷了路

(Yasuhiro)


15          

保持单腿尊严的稻草人
完成了赶乌鸦的任务
余生在异国一家民族学博物馆打发
与梯形稻田不同的是，那里没有天空
三个男生把脸贴在玻璃橱窗上看

(Shuntaro)


16         

我们是大米的血肉，如同星辰的血肉
我只吞下一粒白米饭，怎么就有深红的血液在流？
那些离开的孩子们，去了一个没有米的地方，像星星发出微光

(Hyesoon)


17          

大米稀缺。连天空都关闭了。
茨维塔耶娃又一次被拒。
她看上去比一只鸟还瘦，眼窝深陷……
我惊醒，看见头顶有九个月亮，
九个月神端着九碗白米饭，伸向快饿死的孤儿……

(Mindy)


18          

年轻的乞丐神父端着只有十几粒米的碗
阳光落在新鲜的叶子上
他走在摇摇欲坠的土墙上

(Shuntaro)


19          

不要站在原地——身处异国的师傅告诫我。
穿过城墙，走过半岛，越过海峡，
道路就在行走之中，他说。
我咀嚼着米粒带来的遥远甜味，沿着山路往下走
——熟悉的节日乐队，口哨声，鼓点声。

(Yasuhiro)


20          

樱花游行队伍走过之后，一个纸碗在树下吃白色的花瓣
我们一家三口已经很久没有在厨房餐桌上的砂锅里吃饭了
头上，天空开口，脚下，阴沟开口

(Hyesoon)


21         

玛纳，这种食物的名字，希伯来语“这是什么？”
如果人类满脑肥肠还感觉饥饿
饥饿由“这是什么”的问题引起
对这个男孩来说，战败后，一个饭团就是一颗珠宝
他发现身体饥饿比精神饥饿更真实

(Shuntaro)


22 
         
母亲告诉我，别盲目相信历史教科书
那么我曾祖父的日记呢？
下面几页被米饭做的浆糊粘住

(Yasuhiro)


23         

我喝水的时候，水喝我
我吃饭的时候，饭吃我
我呼吸氧气，氧气吃我
我吃得越多，我的身体就越被粘在地上
一个囚犯在牢房里碾米，制作菩萨

(Hyesoon)


24          

神农，五谷大帝，用眼中的阳光
给群山施肥，他种稻子，死于稻子，种草药，死于草药。
我奶奶埋葬他一千次，在他身体上种下一棵苹果树。

(Mindy)


日之卷


25          

日本国旗叫日之丸（太阳盘）
所谓“好设计”，白底红圈
看上去那么无辜，像一个孩子的设想
但外观欺骗，它不吉利的多色不同于奥运会五彩环
而我永远不会摇这面旗帜

(Shuntaro)


26          

这天是库斯科的萨克塞萨瓦曼太阳节
我向首尔的夏至夜晚说一声冬至的早安
365天马拉松长跑的起跑线上站满了印度人

(Hyesoon)


27          

秘鲁流浪者的歌唱声
与糖果店前的叮当铃声，混合在一起
一个流浪汉用五种全国性报纸裹住自己
躺在一排建筑的圣圈里......他知道
清晨第一缕阳光（朝日）会照到那里

(Yasuhiro)
     

28         

一头拉美丛林的狮子站起，摇一头金色的头发。
洛尔迦在西班牙倒下，低头之前看见一个金色的太阳。
他抓住一根光线，仿佛牵住了一只古时候的和平风筝。

(Mindy)


29 
　　
光，猫头鹰看见了一定是多么痛苦
光，洞穴里的蝙蝠看见了一定是多么痛苦
光，躲在阁楼里的小女孩看见了一定是多么痛苦
外面，火向我进军，带着一头金色的鬃毛
我一定是多么恐惧，拽着最后一颗晨星

(Hyesoon)


30         

一个点击，彩虹被显示屏捕捉，失色
“摄影不应该与颜色调情，光和影就足够”
银发女摄影师如是宣告，面向她的年轻助手

(Shuntaro)


31
        
世界年轻时，女娲生下十个太阳
十个太阳十种颜色，十种性别
他们在空中玩耍，如同军阀，他们的狂热烧死了所有的飞鸟
一个女-男孩，手握一把弓，十支箭
把九个太阳射开，分割成九个海洋，九座火山……

(Mindy)


32         

一只蚂蚁在日晷上爬行
从早到晚，拖着一只蝴蝶的翅膀
给地底下的小伙伴们带来一顿盛宴

(Yasuhiro)


33         

在手语教室里，一束光代替了一阵铃声
光在课后和午餐时鸣响
一个足球裁判跑过去，礼貌地判了一次违规
裁判盯着手表，比赛结束，举起旗子
输赢双方，裁判与观众，都打出蝴蝶手势，然后对着阳光松开手

(Hyesoon)


34

从玻璃窗往下看到的景致似乎都有诗意
反照着暴君，他正给讲演稿最后点缀几笔
痛恨他的人海波涛上，眼镜片在闪光

(Yasuhiro)


35         

我叔叔戴着单片眼镜追一只中国坛子，
我戴两片黄瓜追他。从两个被虫咬开的洞
我看见一朵太阳花引路，把我引到长江边——
屈原曾从这里跳下去，我给他带来两千个粽子。
他站起来目光炯炯，左眼金星，右眼荷花。

(Mindy)


36          

本世纪的风吹过，古时候的光烧过
曼陀罗仍旧以诗抗拒世界的无序
此夕阳是彼朝阳，晚安和晨安向明天螺旋移动

(Shuntaro)