{"id":86955,"date":"2019-02-09T14:29:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T14:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=86955 "},"modified":"2019-02-09T14:29:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T14:29:00","slug":"86955-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=86955","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems by Wang Yi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rise Up, Go Call On the Dear Departed<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

 <\/strong><\/p>

Rise up, go call on the dear departed<\/span><\/p>

The rain’s stopped, the rice’s already above your knees<\/span><\/p>

Do you believe the instant a broken bone heals<\/span><\/p>

It’s sturdier than when intact?<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Death is the antonym of creation<\/span><\/p>

In great volumes, books on death<\/span><\/p>

Are awarded Nobel prizes<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Breathing still calmly carries on<\/span><\/p>

Explaining invisible things by way of tangible objects<\/span><\/p>

Or going about it the other way round?<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Rise up, return to a homeland that’s already gone<\/span><\/p>

Do you believe the swaying of trees whips up the wind<\/span><\/p>

And it’s not the wind blowing the trees?<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Is the start buried in the end, or is a<\/span><\/p>

Blurry-faced person incessantly making<\/span><\/p>

Idols after his own image?<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Rise up, go ask forgiveness of a dead man<\/span><\/p>

Winter has passed and this is my purpose on earth<\/span><\/p>

He has died and cannot die again<\/span><\/p>

I have lived and cannot live again<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

                      January 11, 2016, Chengdu<\/span><\/p>

 <\/strong><\/p>

 <\/strong><\/p>

     God of the Moment<\/span><\/strong><\/p>

 <\/p>

God of the moment. Not a part<\/span><\/p>

Of any time. The god here<\/span><\/p>

The god there. The same god<\/span><\/p>

At weddings, at funerals<\/span><\/p>

In dialogue, and on the road being travelled<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

God of the moment. Bearing wounds and worry<\/span><\/p>

Carrying all the perfections of the imperfect<\/span><\/p>

Carrying the scars of history, the odor of dust<\/span><\/p>

The same god. Dropping disasters and<\/span><\/p>

Bestowing blessings. Judging people and pitying people<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

God of the moment. Freeing the heart<\/span><\/p>

Also bending the body. Magnificent<\/span><\/p>

Insignificant, a god of<\/span><\/p>

Christmas and of Good Friday<\/span><\/p>

A god of white people, a god of black people<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Hey, god of the moment. God of<\/span><\/p>

The Party and the people<\/span><\/p>

God of dogs, pigs, and breeders<\/span><\/p>

The god of judges and convicts,<\/span><\/p>

Nuclear bombs and stem cells<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

God of the moment. Of Bethlehem<\/span><\/p>

Guiyang and Chengdu<\/span><\/p>

God of heavenly stems and earthly branches, of Yin and Yang<\/span><\/p>

God of parties of the right and left, of the long-lived and prematurely dead<\/span><\/p>

Of all that breathe, offer praise or rejection<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

             December 20, 2012, A prayer while waiting for the holiday<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

 <\/p>

       In this Age, You Must Write a Poem that Borders on Criminal<\/strong><\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this age, you must write a poem that borders on criminal.<\/span><\/p>

A line of Chinese characters may overthrow a state.<\/span><\/p>

A sonnet may overthrow fourteen states.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

At a secret masquerade, let those who recognize you<\/span><\/p>

Identify you. Those who don’t recognize you do so even less.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this age, you must make leaders fear a poem.<\/span><\/p>

A metaphor is a nuclear bomb.<\/span><\/p>

The singer doesn’t know a page of absurd words are tears of a subjugated nation.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

On the worst days, a massive sea swell strikes.<\/span><\/p>

Death becomes a prisoner, detained by water.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

Who is not related to a political prisoner? Who is not the widow of a ghost?<\/span><\/p>

In this age, when you recite a poem, you become suspect of crime.<\/span><\/p>

If you don’t recite, they’ll recite you.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this age, the blind stammer to themselves.<\/span><\/p>

Holy, holy, holy. The blind ask the deaf, have you seen?<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

In this age, you must write a poem that borders on criminal.<\/span><\/p>

Pay respect to those suspected of this crime.<\/span><\/p>

 <\/p>

June 5, 2015, at night<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>Rise Up, Go Call On the Dear Departed<\/div><div>God of the Moment<\/div><div>In this Age, You Must Write a Poem that Borders on Criminal<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}