by Rai Mutsu, translated from the Chinese by Zhang Shoujin
1. Overcrowding, Money and Clattering of Worms
The square overgrown with weeds cemented the relics
After the bulldozing and burning
Only a golden monument is left for the world to see
The most venomous curse
Put a lasting spell on the concrete court
That has witnessed the energy of a youthful generation
The oversized suit didn’t fit anymore
Broken pebble stones on the pathways
pinching your see-through socks and stinky leather shoes
alongside the long chairs
studded with the foot calluses and audible spitting
Alas, clothes mom bought for me crowded the wardrobe
I have a home yet I am homeless
Displaced clothes found themselves locked in drawers
Lying there with more wrinkles and melancholy
Mom never asked me if I need to go on blind dates
Or cared about the fact that I by nature like to wear strips sweat shirts
And flip flops
I mindlessly walked to May’s place and asked her out to have a late night bite
Who manipulated her life anyway?
Take-away dishes usually took much time in road-side eateries
The restauranteur at Ming Kee asked if I needed to hurry
May has been fancying me
For long
The restauranteur watched us grow up
We used to take it slowly, feeling no anxiety
Until some day
The dead skin carried by the wind started the plague
May was addressed as Miss May
She started to keep a distance
What was left of the human touch?
I had the last conversation with Uncle Ming
He complained of the soaring rent
That brought his job to a miserable end
He was helpless in the face of real estate development
And couldn’t continue his service for the neighborhood any more
Cooking abalone for VIP guests
Was a desperate step taken to survive
Written on the closed door
Was his note in slim and sturdy strokes
The newly opened scenic area
Gamblers who got screwed in casinos
Carved words like ‘Fuck you this little town’
Onto the unloaded canon
With the muzzle aiming at the brightest golden plaque in the cemetery
The Square was pitch-dark and overgrown with weeds
Flowing venom spread onto the foreheads caged in the city
‘Remembering the dead ancestors is no sin and devils tempt men to do evil’
Who trampled on the hydra and littered around?
Who pushed off the Holy Father away and tried to exile me?
Losing keys to locked up drawers is no divine design
Overly stacked wardrobes are symbolic of the destiny
Stop fantasizing
And leave a note before death
Doubtful of anything that could happen
We have become homeless and hopeless orphans
Love and hope are our last words
Of the swan song- then crack, all is smothered
2. Return to That Revered Day
In the daytime
sardines meant to swim freely but accidentally bumped into a maze of cans
That was overflowing with feats, GDP and guidelines advocating grand narrative of development
The city was intoxicated and caged in these cans and pseudo-opening rhetoric
And suffered incessant hyperplasia
I became brain-numbed to the pain inside
All the talk about stability and harmony
I can’t take it any longer
Deep into the night
The city streets are deserted
The danger lurking in the daytime creeps freely now
I look back with nostalgia
Trying desperately to fill up the emotional void
That took shape in the past
In the light of street lamps
My father’s hands began to warm up
And mother returned home with her pushcart after a cold night
I was cooking in the kitchen
With my little brother awake and strapped on my back
We were impoverished back then
But no one was left behind
This is my city in its demise
And that is the love you can’t understand
Rai Mutsu is a resident Macau author, newspaper columnist and executive editor of Macau Letters—a local literary magazine. He has been awarded with many literary awards, including the Macau Literature Prize multiple times, which includes winners in the genres of the novel, free verse poetry and prose. Among his works are Countdowns of the Igreja de São Domingos and Let the Tranquil West Bay Heal My Depression. He has authored collections of modern poetry, as well as a collection of prose, Fantasized Life in a Ferris Wheel. His columns appear in Accounts of New-Age living—the first five years. His poem May I Ask, My Neighbor has been translated into Portuguese and quoted in the Southern Drama Troupe’s Contos em Viagem—Macau.
Zhang Shoujin is a Lecturer of English at Shanghai International Studies University. He has been educated both in Chinese and Western contexts and has M.A. degrees from SISU and NIE at NTU, Singapore. Shoujin was awarded a Ph. D in Literary Criticism at SISU in 2016. In 2007, he was a visiting scholar at McMaster University in Canada, sponsored by the China Scholarship Council. In 2009, he stayed at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge as a Senior Research Associate sponsored by SISU. Dr. Zhang has a large portfolio of translations covering art, literature and child psychology as well as economics. He has translated World Economy in the 20th Century, Challenge the Parents, Family Reunion—Selected Works by T. S. Eliot, Lion in the Sun—Warrior of Rome and Strokes of Genius—Light and Shadow. He has also published papers on teaching methodology and translation studies as well as of literary criticism.