February

The night is approaching its integrity,
I am drifting in the languages,
The perished musical instruments
Packed with ice.

Who is it at the crack of the day
Singing, water has become bitter,
Flame has lost its blood,
The mountain cat has sped to the stars.
There must be a formula,
When one dreams making can.

In the chilliness of a morning,
One awakened bird
Has come closer to the truth.
Whilst my poems and I
Are sinking down together.

In the book's February:
A certain motions and images.

(translated from poem 二月by Bei Dao)
163

This Day

The wind knows well what love is,
Summer day is glittering in royal colours,
The fishing man, in lone, is surveying
The wound of this earth.
The bell is sounding and bulking up.
The late noon strollers,
Please include into the significance of this age of the year.

Somebody is sitting at the piano,
Somebody is holding a ladder passing by.
Sleepiness has been delayed for a few minutes,
The sun is studying the shadows,
I drink my water from a clear mirror,
Seeing there my target enemies.

The tenor's singing
Agitated the big sea as the vessels do.
At early morning 3 AM I open a can,
Let those fishes shining off their brightness.

(translated by oswald, poem 這一天 by Bei Dao)
162
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Improvisation

I come to this world just for once,
I have a beatiful stay with you,
You and you.
After I leave, I would soon be forgotten.
I am just a piece of music -
Improvised!

Loyalty

Don't switch on the light,
The door of sinister has drawn in the saints,
My hand knows the way well
Like an age-old key,
At the place of your heart,
Turns and opens your fate.

The month of March is outside the door drfiting.

A few sticks of bamboo are swaying,
Somebody is from the underground diving and swimming
The snow storm is over,
The butterflies assemble again.

I follow you like pilgrim,
You follow destiny.

(translated by oswald, poem 忠誠by Bei Dao)
146

New Century

Devotedly go for the glory, gloomy the earth turns,
We, the lights, the cement book
We read, the truth we learn.

Explode the bomb of gold,
Victims we would rather be,
To people the wounds we could show.

The archaeologist may come to know,
The film negative's epoch spirit,
A boy is grabbing it, say No.

It is the history interferes with our flying,
It is the bird hampers our walking,
It is the feet impedes our dreams making.

It is we give birth of us,
It is birth


(translated by oswald, poem 新世紀by Bei Dao)
143
.

A Troublesome Autumn

Sinking deeply into the murky candle,
Searching from the shale of knowledge for samples.
Lines of characters, after mating
Sleep soundly with culture until dawn.

The obstinate wheel, The abstentious snowman.
The finale of the earth;s chess game
Placed aside for years.
A rules evaded boy went across the border's river
To deliver a mail.
That is a poem, or an invitation of death.

(translated by oswald, poem 多事之秋by Bei Dao)
129
.

The Apple and The Pigheaded Stone

The praying ceremonial of the big sea,
A bad weather bends its body.

The pigheaded stone is guarding vainly the month of May,
Resisting the green infectious disease.

The four seaons are taking turns in chopping the big trees,
Clusters of stars are seeking their ways.

The drunkard, by means of his balancing power,
Breaks away in the mid of time.

A bullet runs through the apple,
Life is adopted.

(translated by oswald, poem 蘋果與頑石by Bei Dao)
133
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