by Kate Rogers

“Put an end to your comings and goings.
Never vex him, Old Yan.
Lose your footing and your bones
will be ground to dust.”
—Han Shan

Gate of Hell I

The gate is open in Sheung Wan station,
tear smoke billows from the tunnel
like the clouds of incense in the worship hall
of Yan Wang’s temple. Young protesters
roam past as I climb the hill
to Aberdeen Street—my old neighbourhood.
They are dressed in black
like the Taoist priests in dark robes
that used to circle my block, driving out ghosts,
crashing cymbals
jarring as the jack hammers
cracking floor tiles in the flats
above and below me, renovating
the low rise walk up, so the owner
could double the rent.

Gate of Hell II

The gate is open on Aberdeen Street,
steepest slope in the old colony,
Hong Kong Island. A furnace burns
here, steel belly glowing red as my face
as I climbed the hill in the August heat,
crimson as the face of the paper effigy
of Yan Wang, King of Hell, looming over me on stilts.
The fire consumes offerings: Hell money,
paper likenesses of trainers, watches,
even a paper abacus as I wait
my turn. I am not the only gweipo [i]
choosing to pray here for this city—that angry ghosts
will leave us in peace: a freckled, red-haired
stranger wipes sweat from her forehead.
Is she a teacher, like me?
I throw my wad of Hell bills into the flames,
bow to the paper Yan Wang, step back
for a group of teenagers, their arms full
of paper gas masks,
paper yellow umbrellas.

Gate of Hell III

Half way up Victoria Peak
the wrought iron gates
of Sun Yat Sen’s museum stand open.
Does his ghost prowl Bonham Road
between his century old red brick
alma mater and the museum,
marble columned like the Parthenon—
symbol of demos—the people,
who built it?
Protesters scatter leaflets across
green courtyard tiles like wishes
inscribed with the word for democracy:
民主 man zyu [ii]

Gate of Hell IV

Stone gate posts guard the entrance to Man Mo
temple, devoted to the gods of literature and war
since opium ran this town.
Incense coils hang from the ceiling,
smoke veils the entrance, the scowling demon
door gods. Young protesters wait outside
to offer leaflets to worshippers,
give packets of rice to the elderly
with fans and bottles of water.

Gate of Hell V

The gates to the playground below the temple
never close. A bamboo and plywood stage
framed in red satin and twinkling strings of lights
waits for the Hungry Ghost opera to begin.
It is the tale of the hero who saves his mother from Hell.
The King and his female scribe take their front row seats.
She licks the tip of her calligraphy brush,
ticks off the names of those condemned to prison—
ten years for rioting. Yan Wang
gnaws the finger bone of a protester,
swallows a young woman’s eye ball
(she was careless with it  at a protest).
He grimaces—the eye ball is tart as a kumquat.

Gate of Hell VI

The Gates of Hell show no signs of closing.
How many offerings
will Yan Wang require?
I want to poster the Lennon Walls
with a list of traps for protesters:
stairwells with plunging drops;
scaffolds around shopping malls;
piers where the god of water
may also call your name.

Footnotes:
[i] White female ghost in Cantonese
[ii] http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/dictionary/words/2411/

Kate Rogers‘s poem “John and the Book of Kells recently won First Place in the Trinity College Dublin 2019 Book of Kells Creative Contest, while her poem “The Giraffe-bone Knife Set” was short-listed for the ROOM 2019 Poetry Contest. Her poetry has appeared in Understorey Magazine, World Literature Today, Fieldstone Review, Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century, Algebra of Owls, Twin Cities: An Anthology of Twin Cinema from Singapore and Hong Kong, Juniper, the Guardian, Asia Literary Review, Kyoto Journal, among other places, and in the Montreal International Poetry Prize Anthology (2017). Her poems won second place in the 2019 Big Pond Rumours Contest. Kate’s latest poetry collection is Out of Place (Quattro-Aeolus House, Toronto, 2017).