• TABLE OF CONTENT
    • the dreaming machine – issue number 16
    • the dreaming machine – issue number 15
    • the dreaming machine – issue number 14
    • the dreaming machine – issue number 13
    • the dreaming machine – issue number 12
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 11
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 10
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 9
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    • The dreaming machine – issue number 6
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 5
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 4
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 3
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 2
    • The dreaming machine – issue number 1
  • THE DREAMING MACHINE
    • The dreaming machine n 16
    • The dreaming machine n 15
    • The dreaming machine n 14
    • The dreaming machine n 13
    • The dreaming machine n 12
    • The dreaming machine n 11
    • The dreaming machine n 10
    • The dreaming machine n 9
    • The dreaming machine n 8
    • The dreaming machine n 7
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  • Poetry
    The God of Submission Loves Gentle Calves and Other Poems –  Yuliya Musakovska

    The God of Submission Loves Gentle Calves and Other Poems – Yuliya Musakovska

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    Hence, the walruses will keep our memories – Poems from Ikaro Valderrama’s Tengri: The Book of Mysteries

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    “When Crimea Was Not a Grief”: Six Poems by Lyudmyla Khersonska, from 21st Century Ukraine

    Of Hunger and Tents: Poems from Gaza by Yousef el-Qedra

    Of Hunger and Tents: Poems from Gaza by Yousef el-Qedra

    Ratko Lalić’s painting, a little Noah’s ark –  Božidar Stanišić  

    The region suddenly turned into a deciduous forest. Poems by Paulami Sengupta

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    A False Dimension: regarding the empty walls – Aritra Sanyal

  • Fiction
    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    The Importance of Being Imperfect – Haroonuzzaman

    THE STATE – Hamim Faruque

    THE STATE – Hamim Faruque

    Tempus Fugit (in D Minor) – Michele Carenini

    Tempus Fugit (in D Minor) – Michele Carenini

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    A Mirage of a Dream – Kazi Rafi

    Prologue to “Maya and the World of the Spirits” – Gaius Tsaamo

    Prologue to “Maya and the World of the Spirits” – Gaius Tsaamo

    RETRIBUTION – Mojaffor Hossain

    RETRIBUTION – Mojaffor Hossain

    A Nation’s Reckoning on a Rickshaw: Photogallery from Bangladesh in turmoil – Melina and Pina Piccolo

    Between Two Lives – Mojaffor Hossain

    A Nation’s Reckoning on a Rickshaw: Photogallery from Bangladesh in turmoil – Melina and Pina Piccolo

    The Amatory Rainy Night – Kazi Rafi

    Chapter 1 of “Come What May”, a detective story set in Gaza, by Ahmed Masoud

    Come What May, chpt. 11 – Ahmed Masoud

  • Non Fiction
    I AM STILL HERE: It’s not a movie, it’s a hymn to democracy – Loretta Emiri

    I AM STILL HERE: It’s not a movie, it’s a hymn to democracy – Loretta Emiri

    Requiem for a Mattanza – Gia Marie Amella

    Requiem for a Mattanza – Gia Marie Amella

    In Defense of T.C. Boyle: Satire in the Era of Psychological Realism – Clark Bouwman

    In Defense of T.C. Boyle: Satire in the Era of Psychological Realism – Clark Bouwman

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    That is the Face – Appadurai Muttulingam

    Langston Hughes: Shakespeare in Harlem – Barry David Horwitz

    Langston Hughes: Shakespeare in Harlem – Barry David Horwitz

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Understanding the Quintessential Divinity: Binding the Two Geographies – Haroonuzzaman

  • Interviews & reviews
    Michelle Reale’s Volta: An Italian-American Reckoning With Race. Necessary turnabouts as  Columbus Day returns amidst Sinners’ vampires – Pina Piccolo

    Michelle Reale’s Volta: An Italian-American Reckoning With Race. Necessary turnabouts as Columbus Day returns amidst Sinners’ vampires – Pina Piccolo

    from The Creative Process: The Future of activism.  Bayo Akomolafe interviewed by Mia Funk and Natalie McCarthy

    from The Creative Process: The Future of activism. Bayo Akomolafe interviewed by Mia Funk and Natalie McCarthy

    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    from The Creative Process: A Life in Writing with T.C. Boyle, interviewed by Mia Funk & Cary Trott

    from The Creative Process: A Life in Writing with T.C. Boyle, interviewed by Mia Funk & Cary Trott

    Living as a painter: Shaun McDowell in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Living as a painter: Shaun McDowell in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

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    • Fiction
    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Area Sacra at Torre di Largo Argentina —or, Calpurnia’s Dream – Laura Hinton

    from The Creative Process: TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE, interviewed by Mia Funk and Melannie Munoz

    from The Creative Process: TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE, interviewed by Mia Funk and Melannie Munoz

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    From The Stony Guests, Part IV: SIRAN BAKIRCI and SAIT B. KARAKAYA – Neil P. Doherty

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Chaos Theory – Michele Carenini

    Of People and Puppets, Kingdoms of Silence, Trauma and Storytelling: Review of “Azad, the rabbit and the wolf – Pina Piccolo

    Of People and Puppets, Kingdoms of Silence, Trauma and Storytelling: Review of “Azad, the rabbit and the wolf – Pina Piccolo

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Poetry is also born from Gesture – Ikaro Valderrama on Gestos de la Poesia, transnational poetry, multimedia and the energy of the Andes

    Poetry is also born from Gesture – Ikaro Valderrama on Gestos de la Poesia, transnational poetry, multimedia and the energy of the Andes

    A loneliness like an endless steppe – Poems from Maria Luisa Vezzali’s collection Home Ghost

    A loneliness like an endless steppe – Poems from Maria Luisa Vezzali’s collection Home Ghost

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Once the veil of artifice falls away: Poems by Haroonuzzaman

  • News
    Memorial Reading Marathon for Julio Monteiro Martins, Dec. 27, zoom live

    Memorial Reading Marathon for Julio Monteiro Martins, Dec. 27, zoom live

    PER/FORMATIVE CITIES

    PER/FORMATIVE CITIES

    HAIR IN THE WIND – Calling on poets to join international project in solidarity with the women of Iran

    HAIR IN THE WIND – Calling on poets to join international project in solidarity with the women of Iran

    THE DREAMING MACHINE ISSUE N. 11 WILL BE OUT ON DEC. 10

    THE DREAMING MACHINE ISSUE N. 11 WILL BE OUT ON DEC. 10

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

  • Home
  • Poetry
    The God of Submission Loves Gentle Calves and Other Poems –  Yuliya Musakovska

    The God of Submission Loves Gentle Calves and Other Poems – Yuliya Musakovska

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    Hence, the walruses will keep our memories – Poems from Ikaro Valderrama’s Tengri: The Book of Mysteries

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    “When Crimea Was Not a Grief”: Six Poems by Lyudmyla Khersonska, from 21st Century Ukraine

    Of Hunger and Tents: Poems from Gaza by Yousef el-Qedra

    Of Hunger and Tents: Poems from Gaza by Yousef el-Qedra

    Ratko Lalić’s painting, a little Noah’s ark –  Božidar Stanišić  

    The region suddenly turned into a deciduous forest. Poems by Paulami Sengupta

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    A False Dimension: regarding the empty walls – Aritra Sanyal

  • Fiction
    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    The Importance of Being Imperfect – Haroonuzzaman

    THE STATE – Hamim Faruque

    THE STATE – Hamim Faruque

    Tempus Fugit (in D Minor) – Michele Carenini

    Tempus Fugit (in D Minor) – Michele Carenini

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    A Mirage of a Dream – Kazi Rafi

    Prologue to “Maya and the World of the Spirits” – Gaius Tsaamo

    Prologue to “Maya and the World of the Spirits” – Gaius Tsaamo

    RETRIBUTION – Mojaffor Hossain

    RETRIBUTION – Mojaffor Hossain

    A Nation’s Reckoning on a Rickshaw: Photogallery from Bangladesh in turmoil – Melina and Pina Piccolo

    Between Two Lives – Mojaffor Hossain

    A Nation’s Reckoning on a Rickshaw: Photogallery from Bangladesh in turmoil – Melina and Pina Piccolo

    The Amatory Rainy Night – Kazi Rafi

    Chapter 1 of “Come What May”, a detective story set in Gaza, by Ahmed Masoud

    Come What May, chpt. 11 – Ahmed Masoud

  • Non Fiction
    I AM STILL HERE: It’s not a movie, it’s a hymn to democracy – Loretta Emiri

    I AM STILL HERE: It’s not a movie, it’s a hymn to democracy – Loretta Emiri

    Requiem for a Mattanza – Gia Marie Amella

    Requiem for a Mattanza – Gia Marie Amella

    In Defense of T.C. Boyle: Satire in the Era of Psychological Realism – Clark Bouwman

    In Defense of T.C. Boyle: Satire in the Era of Psychological Realism – Clark Bouwman

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    That is the Face – Appadurai Muttulingam

    Langston Hughes: Shakespeare in Harlem – Barry David Horwitz

    Langston Hughes: Shakespeare in Harlem – Barry David Horwitz

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Understanding the Quintessential Divinity: Binding the Two Geographies – Haroonuzzaman

  • Interviews & reviews
    Michelle Reale’s Volta: An Italian-American Reckoning With Race. Necessary turnabouts as  Columbus Day returns amidst Sinners’ vampires – Pina Piccolo

    Michelle Reale’s Volta: An Italian-American Reckoning With Race. Necessary turnabouts as Columbus Day returns amidst Sinners’ vampires – Pina Piccolo

    from The Creative Process: The Future of activism.  Bayo Akomolafe interviewed by Mia Funk and Natalie McCarthy

    from The Creative Process: The Future of activism. Bayo Akomolafe interviewed by Mia Funk and Natalie McCarthy

    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    The Spanish Steps, Revisited: A Temporary Exhibition – A conversation with Sheila Pepe

    from The Creative Process: A Life in Writing with T.C. Boyle, interviewed by Mia Funk & Cary Trott

    from The Creative Process: A Life in Writing with T.C. Boyle, interviewed by Mia Funk & Cary Trott

    Living as a painter: Shaun McDowell in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Living as a painter: Shaun McDowell in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

    Calixto Robles and Ancestral Spirits in the Mission – A Conversation on Art, Society and Social Action

  • Out of bounds
    • All
    • Fiction
    • Intersections
    • Interviews and reviews
    • Non fiction
    • Poetry
    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Area Sacra at Torre di Largo Argentina —or, Calpurnia’s Dream – Laura Hinton

    from The Creative Process: TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE, interviewed by Mia Funk and Melannie Munoz

    from The Creative Process: TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE, interviewed by Mia Funk and Melannie Munoz

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    From The Stony Guests, Part IV: SIRAN BAKIRCI and SAIT B. KARAKAYA – Neil P. Doherty

    Eva Bovenzi: The inner world. The artist in conversation with curator Camilla Boemio

    Chaos Theory – Michele Carenini

    Of People and Puppets, Kingdoms of Silence, Trauma and Storytelling: Review of “Azad, the rabbit and the wolf – Pina Piccolo

    Of People and Puppets, Kingdoms of Silence, Trauma and Storytelling: Review of “Azad, the rabbit and the wolf – Pina Piccolo

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Poetry is also born from Gesture – Ikaro Valderrama on Gestos de la Poesia, transnational poetry, multimedia and the energy of the Andes

    Poetry is also born from Gesture – Ikaro Valderrama on Gestos de la Poesia, transnational poetry, multimedia and the energy of the Andes

    A loneliness like an endless steppe – Poems from Maria Luisa Vezzali’s collection Home Ghost

    A loneliness like an endless steppe – Poems from Maria Luisa Vezzali’s collection Home Ghost

    The Creeping of the Spirit of the Times and Other Poems – Pina Piccolo

    Once the veil of artifice falls away: Poems by Haroonuzzaman

  • News
    Memorial Reading Marathon for Julio Monteiro Martins, Dec. 27, zoom live

    Memorial Reading Marathon for Julio Monteiro Martins, Dec. 27, zoom live

    PER/FORMATIVE CITIES

    PER/FORMATIVE CITIES

    HAIR IN THE WIND – Calling on poets to join international project in solidarity with the women of Iran

    HAIR IN THE WIND – Calling on poets to join international project in solidarity with the women of Iran

    THE DREAMING MACHINE ISSUE N. 11 WILL BE OUT ON DEC. 10

    THE DREAMING MACHINE ISSUE N. 11 WILL BE OUT ON DEC. 10

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    RUCKSACK – GLOBAL POETRY PATCHWORK PROJECT

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5:  Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

    REFUGEE TALES July 3-5: Register for a Walk In Solidarity with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Detainees

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Five Poets from the Encyclopedic School of Poetry (Part II)

SUN QIAN, LANGLI TIANYA, XIANG YIXIAN, WANG ZILIANG, HAI SHANG English translation by Yin Xiaoyuan, curated by Lucia Cupertino

November 29, 2019
in Poetry, The dreaming machine n 5
Five Poets from the Encyclopedic School of Poetry (Part II)
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SUN QIAN

The New Rubáiyát

1

These quatrains of a reclusive roamer were not meant for

the coronation of an empire in its afterglow

Like lustre and reflections on a blue-white porcelain vase

peacefully set the winter horizon aglow

 

2

In grasping a brief word you grasp a miracle

When you take it in firm grasp, you get firemarks and commandments

At the labyrinthine crossroads

you spread words to make your garden fragrant

 

3

Like a herd of stones whipped forward

In them the impact of oceanic waves have left traces

There found mellow words their emblematic forms

Like wreckage giving the long-lost sunshine an embrace

 

4

Your songs are brimmed with gloomy spruces

loaded with stones and overgrown with roses fading

Hurricanes whistle through them

abandoning on the escarpment a pieces of eagle-wing

 

5

All ephemerality in your words vanishes swiftly

Tranquility resides nowhere but in the velvety hearts

The autumn moon is a spectacular funeral of flowers’ prime

When plants rested in elegies and rhythmic bars

 

6

Constellations twinkling into oblivion

have seeped through the delta of sorrow

Like wisps of reminiscence clinging on the mind

covered with faint moroseness and taken into tomorrow

 

7

Flags of the husk are waist-deep in ashes

and spattering blood have grown into stone-cold rust

Every strand of blood divaricates into two underground rivers

Similarly smelling of iron, salt and aromatic dust

 

12

Underneath curtains of dusky snowflakes

hibernates the weary city

A bleak soul exploiting inward, cannot resist

radiance of the crystal deep within,melting into nihility

 

13

Uninvited snow comes out of the blue,

An azure vault swirls between tender hands

hands of innocent children

Into serenity flow melodies from celestial bands

 

14

A flash of amazing inspiration

and marvelous fragrance in profusion

A thread of ethereal voice

and semantic contact with revelation

 

19

A sighing breeze has landed from Jerusalem

which hovers in a sky of jasmine flowers

This breeze of eternity from Holy City

has led pilgrims through torturing hours

 

21

Features of the paradise

emerges from a mundane mirror

Sometimes mellifluous and fresh

sometimes murkier and dimmer

 

22

“He tames flames into roses.”

and made water balmy of jasmine and daffodil

He is the yeast of immortality

transient instants that light and heat could barely fill

 

 

Sun Qian is a Hui Islamic poet and freelance writer, born in the 50’s in Bao Ji (“Cradle of bronzeware”), Shaanxi  Province, while having roots in old imperial capital Luo Yang, who has been engaged in poetry writing for 30+ years, in a trident form of writing: a combination of neoclassic poetry, Islamic poetry and artistic poetry, whose poetry anthologies include Book of Spiritual Strength, The New Rubáiyát, The Muslim Poems, The Book of Realms, a collection of his poems and essays Sagittarius Rising and many other literary works. During late years, he has been devoted to Islamic poetry writing, by which to create an Islamic atmosphere in Chinese poetry and to advocate religious divinism in poetry. His works have appeared in Poetry, the Stars, Writers, Ethnic minorities’ Literature, Oriental and Occidental Poetry, One Line(America), The Blue Star(Taiwan), Epoch Poetry(Taiwan), International Chinese literary(Australia), and several other magazines abroad. His works were translated into Japanese, English and Arabian listed in a variety of poetry selections home and abroad.


 

LANGLI TIANYA

Forging

 

At times you are sincere with yourself and recognize that

The disease is part of life. You enjoy to stay sick.

If life is rotten or holed by worms, the genes should be to blame.

 

Seeking to heal himself is an art.

Good cures are on a screen or in a psychiatric hospital?

The personality is instantly simplified, if it is not a matter of schizophrenia.

 

“Your suffering will only serve as a source of inspiration for another.”

A poem is being forged.

 

Similarly, you search for the mystery of the placebo, by making masks by words.

 

Suddenly, feeling your throat very bitter, you catch up the habit of withdrawal.

“Life is ephemeral. Quick, spread your viruses.”

 

O, light.

 

 

 

 

Langji Tianya obtained a Ph.D. degree in Robotics from a French university, and works now for a group company based in France. She takes great interest in poetry and essay writing, and her works have been published in magazines in the past few years. In 2017 she published a collection of poems entitled “The Mystery of Superstring” written in Chinese and French.

 

 

 

 

 


XIANG YIXIAN

 

The Cat and the Wren

 

Partitioned by the French windows

The old killer becomes a law-abiding beast

Plus the changing autumn tints

Hunger reveals the empty beauty of long absence

 

A beam of light is inserted silently

To illumine the hunting blood-shot pupils

The gemstone is more profound, the gold more lifelike

Even the withered bamboo is dyed in sunglow

 

And a good speaker is ignorant, hence dauntless

This is the only means of antagonism

Living in one’s own secure world

Secretly in love with everything: worms or green apples

 

Even the pocket-size panther which is fond of killing

Time tells truth, the birds

Are much braver than us

Wings are quicker than bending for jumping

 

The antagonizing black recluses

Contemptuous a short distance away yet poles apart

The huge garden is put into the cage

Slaughter gradually becomes a game

 

Hence no reason to be afraid

The desperate heart of ambition is changing the situation of winds & clouds

Partitioned by plume and hair, joy and sorrow

The heartbeats are audible but no exchanges

 

Freedom is bending itself, the ornamental bow has been locked deep

The fiery beak and silvery hook sharpen the weapon of words

Come on my dear enemy

A lethal blow is better than lifelong loneliness

 

Xiang Yixian was born in Wanyuan, Sichuan Province in 1963. He now lives in Chengdu, a poet and professor at Sichuan University. His poetic and academic works include “The Poets Beyond the Lakes,” “Music of Tang Poetry,” “My Confucius,” “My Pronunciation,” “Diary of Chinese Official Titles,” “The Chronicle of Chinese Stone Carvings,” and a long historical drama “Legend of Mulan”. His poems have won the Special Prize of the First Chinese Poetry Exploration Contest in “Poetry”, the Tianzhu (Baiwei) Poetry Award, the Natong International Confucianism Award, the “Chengdu Commercial News” Chinese Poet of the Year Award, the First Yang Wanli Poetry Award,and the “Star” Annual Poet Nomination Award, Li Bai Cup Poetry Award. His poetic works are richly anthologized and translated into many foreign languages both at home and abroad. In the 1980s, he and his colleagues successively launched a few freelance poetic magazines such as  “Red Flag”,”Dynasty” and “Xiangwang”.


WANG ZILIANG

 

The Realm of Rage

 

Who witnessed these dramatic changes?

Who could imagine the lava under the seabed

would erupt, and cool down to be the basalt,

like a dark pillowed couch that a tyrant lounges on?

Who could know our seabed rocks

Would slowly deform like ice cream

coated with a thin crust of chocolate, kids’ favorite treat?

And it’s strong enough to support a continent, more than

enough to stage the drama of the rise and fall of an empire?

Through the centuries, who witnessed

the unnoticed shift of the notorious fault

near San Andreas, California,

which has made San Francisco and Los Angeles

turn away from each other?

Who is recording these collisions and crushing, like

a man who just lost his job waving a steel bar to break

anything around him, leaving his weeping wife,

frightened, feeling cold from head to toe?

Who would narrate all these events: The gentle sea rises

to be a horrifying tsunami while a quake is playing a game

on the edge, like an April Fool’s prank that goes too far?

 

We saw reflections of salt grains in the rainy seasons,

But the scourging August can’t stop the sea

from sending a mind-cooling breeze. A man stands for a limit.

On the quiet ocean surface, giant ships get all the attention.

We try not to go too much in depth:

Every mountain ridge is different; the oceanic troughs

are so complex in structure, like our own stomach

filled with bubbling gastric fluid ––

A blind spot in our ego, a delta of conflicts.

Explosions rocked my neighborhood, near the church.

Plumes of black smoke rose over the scene like wrinkles

rising from a massive plate collision.

Tariffs go lower and lower, wheat prices and avian flu go

up and down, a living show of an ocean trench event:

The precise expression of a lost strip cannot explain

the aggravating situation on the earth until it breaks,

sinks, spreads, and eventually comes to

a most violent showdown, a war –– a live volcano,

the end of an endemic: A turmoil through which

a steep rock bed formed. To maintain the delicate status quo,

however, the continuous lift must be suppressed,

though nobody knows where the limit is of the rage.

Would the savage force surface like a delayed action bomb

ticking in a jubilant restaurant in Jerusalem?

Hangzhou, February 11, 2004

 

Wang Ziliang, a contemporary Chinese poet, was born in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province in 1958. Engaged in agriculture, handicraft and high school education successively since 1975, and accepted by Hangzhou University (which was afterwards incorporated into Zhejiang University) in 1977. his career varied from government official, chief-editor of a newspaper and executive of an large-scale enterprise since 1982, and at present professor of School of the Institute of Public Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University. His poetry works began to appear in magazines since 1978, and was invited to the 2nd Youth Poetry Seminar in 1982. He has the following poetry anthologies published: Triangular Prism(1984), A Boat Sailing Alone (1992), Turbulent Boundaries (2004), Tossing the Dice to the Sea(2013),Kangrinboqe(2016), as well as essays and criticisms. Also, his poems are included in An Anthology of Young Poets(1981-1982), 300 Misty Poems and various other poem collections. His was ranked amongst top 100 of the 1st  Award for International Chinese poetry hosted by www.artsbj.com. His won silver award of the 1st Chinese Qu Yuan Poetry Award with Tossing the Dice to the Sea(2013) and was nominated for the 1st China Good Poetry Award with the poem Clocks Store.


 

HAI SHANG

Iron from Two Different Centuries

 

On the Magnificent map of this land surged out the mighty waters
Images of ever-evolving sumptuous raiment since Tang Dynasty, drift forward with the flow of history

Like unfinished manuscripts ruffled by breaths of thunders

A broken bridge stands in amnesia of this Century

A river named WORLD flooded over the scroll of ancient China, thus divaricated hundreds of streams from that spot

Tracks of lightings were similar: always crossing the borders of bloodlines and realms

which initiate transmutations, as the ice-breaker of the ever-lasting stand-off

How they trembled in resonances

on the coordinate plane of this marvelous land! Twisting and turning

A long century beyond another, a devious mile after another

They depicted the heaven and earth

On this land, people drink morality from their mother river

And feed on the intonation of wood types

 

On the boundary of plagues, unknown elements drift or go down in their sleep

When order of the universe falls in the hands of courtiers

On the ancient road appeared the Confucian scholars,

marching on horses, donkeys and mules

Thousands of types, are mirrors of vicissitudes

Iron was born this way, it’s a kind of humanity incubated from metal

which touched the lining of human nature,deeper within. So recluse is the god of birds!

Beyond the great river, flood season came ahead of time this year

During which, people usually stoke their golden wheat

And fondle their women in rustling early-summer dreams

 

Behind their souls, the essences have been devoured by viruses

Overflowed with religions, the land of the Five Buddhas

has witnessed ages of gloom with the reticence of iron

 

With all possible blessings, he dived into meditation of Zen

There is a foggy river for the country to cross, before which

It will need iron as a life-supporting element.

The weight and hardness of an era

when rust was used as a reactant for sulfurization

The history of metallurgy just began…

 

Iron! Once it woke up Ceres

It also condescended to mingle with everything around!

My epic iron!

In the antique breezes that spread all virtues

Only the smell of iron has never changed

(Translated by Yin Xiaoyuan)

 

Hai Shang: Born in November 1952 in Shanghai, Hai Shang is an avant-garde poet, a critic as well as a freelance. He is an expert in rock paintings, and enjoys widespread reputation as “the Folk Thinker”.

Published books include: The Revived Bird, Death, Desertion and an Empty Boat, Scattered Shadows, Manuscripts of Random Thoughts,  Origins of Flora of the Mortal World, A Soul Brimming with Solitude, Mistletoe, Embryonic, and his most famous full-length poem Time, in Its Metaphysical Sense. His latest publication is Star of Amber (Encyclopedic Poetry School’ 10th Anniversary Celebration Series).

 

 

 

 

 

Courtesy of La Macchina Sognante, whci published the poets in two installments curated by Lucia Cupertino, in issue n. 14 and 15. For Part I, go to  TDM issue n. 4

Tags: ChinadiasporaEncyclopedic School of PoetryHai ShangLangli TianyaLucia CupertinoSun QianWang ZiliangXiang YixianYIN XIAOYUAN
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