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Xi Chuan Answering Venus (45 Fragments) (selection)
translated from the Chinese by Lucas Klein

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        1.
night is the sleep of seven wax moths
dawn is the singing of five mermen
noon is the scratches of three fieldmice
dusk is the shadow of a crow

        2.
a glass of plain water
given to a bird passing by
who gulps

        3.
three hens
pass out
before a microphone

        4.
Nine icy peaks of the Himalayas.
Nine enigmas on my mind.
Nine sages.
Nine goddesses guarding their chastity.

        11.
a scholar in the wilderness
agitated by a stray thought
restrained by a bird

        23.
a bundle of sunlight
beaming down by the hands of
a poor child gleaning for wheat

        24.
who dares say this near-sighted guy won’t be
the inventor of some new method of torture?
who dares say he won’t be the first to taste that torture?

        28. The Revolution of 1911
Steel guns. Cannons. Angel’s barracks.
Enough for those violent types
to choke on

        29. Lüshun Prison
Corridor. Gate all dust. Hand of moonlight
on the southern tip of Liaodong peninsula
one thousand prisoners listening to the tide

        30. Pound
lonely Ezra Pound peels a tangerine
when the moon soundlessly slips through the Atlantic sky
Ezra Pound broods on the whole of humanity

        32.
there is no place on earth with no trace of man
my home
used to have someone else living in it

        33.
when my life is a mess
my watch is particularly precise

        34.
Crows resolve the problems of crows,
I resolve my own problems.

        35.
the lonelier, the more guests to invite
the poorer, the more poems to recite

        36.
a faraway construction site is in turmoil
a thirty-three story building rises from the ground
piling thirty-three stories of darkness into the sky

        41.
Moonlight.
An abandoned movie theatre.
A leopard
waiting for a movie to start

        42.
but nature doesn’t care about being covered in dust
when have you ever heard of
wild animals complaining about too much dust

        43.
a serene field
an unveering railway stretching to the moon
a serene field
a freight train loaded with money speeds toward the moon

        44.
Metal on the moon. Dirt on the moon.
Rocks in the sky. Clouds skimming a dreamscape.
Someone went there, but is back now.

        45.
the morning of a total eclipse of the sun, the city was covered in ash
there was no fire, there was no sound
somebody walked by between me and the sun