Modern Chinese Poetry - Insistent Voices

 

 

Tulips, last days and the ferrying

and bed after bed piled up with seed, nourishes lovers.

Tonight, a piano made of ice plays in time with

the deep thoughts of goldfish

but the dull-witted sea knows only the swell.

Tonight, the wind has more voices

Tonight there is peace and here, no pretence.

Tonight the doors of the church are shut.

Tonight all around us, every bowl stops begging

all the eyes that watched us watch each other now.

We should sing our secrets out behind the clouds

Jesus holds me in your arms tonight.

 

Tonight is the night of our divorce.

 

translated by Zheng Danyi, Shirley Lee and Martin Alexander

 

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More poems from Modern Chinese Poetry - Insistent Voices:

 

Misty Poets

 

北島（1949 - ）Bei Dao - Landscape Above Zero

多多（1951 - ）Duo Duo - Tonight We Sow

舒婷（1952 - ）Shu Ting - A Few Memories

楊煉（1955 - ） Yang Lian - Snow Without Subject (2)

顧城（1956 - 1993）Gu Cheng - One Generation

 

Transition

 

翟永明 (1955 - ) Zhai Yongming  Mother

柏樺（1956 - ）Bai Hua - The Future

 

New Generation

張棗（1962 - 2010）Zhang Zhao - In the Mirror

陳東東 (1962 - ) Chen Dongdong - Wild Temple

鄭單衣 (1963 - ) Zheng Danyi - Phoenix