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by Henry Wei Leung
TRANSLATION POEM FOR HONG KONG
To mime a more exacting fire
In which I translate the other
Despite I was there I was there too A flag an encounter with silence
A man giving and giving his river of kerosene
To the long road of protest
Why can't I light students on fire In which please translate my cigarette
Beneath armored police on a galleon stage Three men sail into a city of no citizenship
With a megaphone, a gas of tears, and a camcorder Red light blinking at the end of the tunnel
The other way the other telling 《最後通牒》
此致土匪路霸，你們霸佔道路，
非法集會，已有十多天了，嚴重
阻礙全港九市民的正常生活，學
生不能上課，父母不能返工，家
庭收入大減，商店沒有生意，快
要結束營業了，你們的愚蠢佔領
行動，是雙重犯法，天怒人怨，
令到社會與家庭破裂，父母傷心。
現限令你們在十月二十日晚上
十一時十四分之前自行撤退，否
則請你們吃屎尿墨水彈，你們吃
飽了就要回家睡覺吧。
全體愛港的市民，我們一齊合作
每人做十個臭水彈，送給他們作
為晚餐吧，此彈清湯有特效!
臭水彈用屎十尿十墨水，一個橙
的份量，用薄膠袋紮住袋口就成
保家救香港大聯盟
"ULTIMATUM"
Respectfully Dear Brigand Road-Hogs
tyrannically occupying roads, illegally
assembling for over ten days with grave
consequence to the lives of Hong Kong Island/
Kowloon's citizens, students can't go to
school, parents can’t go to work, household
incomes subtracting, store incomes subtracting—
your foolish Occupy campaign is doubly criminal,
spreading discontent ["the sky's rage the people's complaint"] A thousand copies of this white note itting down A dark apartment window in a billboard-lit darkness A protest camp staring at stars dislodged, lit up in wonder One morning I passed a man weeping though his cheeks were dry An insect of iridescent hue trampled in the [ ] of the night before Dm stands for Deemocrycee rupturing society and the home, aggrieving parents.
You must withdraw by 20 October at 11:14pm, "Fourteen" sounds like "certain death" otherwise you’ll be invited to eat shit-urine
ink bombs, of which you can have your fill
and then go home to sleep, okay?
All citizens who love Hong Kong,
let's make ten cloacal bombs as gifts
for their dinner, an especially enriching bomb consommé!
These bombs are a [learned] dark ink
+ shit
+ piss
weight of orange Language is a darkness interpreted made of thin plastic bags tied at the mouth Allied Federation Coalition League of Family Protectors
Hong Kong Saviors [my translation] Tied at the mouth Sweeping MOTHER COUNTRY Your mother rubs her whipping arm.
To punish is to be divine. The Romans used to say: "Amabo te,"
Which means, "I love you." Or: "Please." Encounter this. Limb of a creek longing for water for years—
Deaf ghost wearing weariness like a shield— You bloom in this world to be benign
As a tumor, a scribble on the inner void. Be outer lining, too. Your cry is what makes her whipping arm numb.
You are a fence outlining two homes. Be algebra: where x is holiness, holes,
The cat in the box. Be variable. Be all, and broken. Know: your mother dove into the sea
To never return, hung from a balcony And lived. You face a saved body,
A machinus ex dei, a rewired flesh. Be studious to her death. FATHER EMPIRE You left a sack of quick-concrete
against the tree downstairs.
It didn’t rot like our potatoes,
nor ooze like worming rice.
The rains came; the sack hardened.
The rains went; the sack bled off.
Only concrete remained, stood
like grave shoulders barely upright,
rock without language, immutable
upon the roots. Meanwhile: leaves. Meanwhile: elbows lifting, naked, to the cold. Meanwhile: winged seeds. When I became a man, I found your jacket springing in snow, creamy wool long become esh, outer sheen a shell, abandoned thing of sleeves which didn't fit. I hung it from a branch. Wind filled the hood, and hanged it. Haven't I paid my way? I paid my way without you. wrenched the hands off our clocks, I listened to the tongues still clucking. You only left us with time this time. You proved that ction is a form of worry. You are a form of worry. One of us was always meant to be an ocean: unrequiting, distant, deafening the ear at its chest.
Editors' Note:
These poems are from Henry Wei Leung's latest poetry collection,
Goddess of Democracy: An Occupy Lyric (Omnidawn, 2017).
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