Poems by Ma Yongbo /China

 

Ma Yongbo was born in Yichun, Heilongjiang, in 1964, Ph.D. Since 1986 Ma has publishedover seventy original works and translations.He is an professor in the Faculty of Arts and Literature, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American postmodernist poetry. His studies center around modern poetics, post-modern literature, eco-criticism.

Ma Yongbo

Art and literature department

Nanjing University Of Science & Technology

Xiaolingwei 200#

Nanjing, Jiangsu Province

China 

Ode to Mother: Litany of Fire 

My mother is cold flame

My mother is flame from sea bottom

My mother is flame of pure white lily of the valley 

broken/smashed miner light, my mother is 

flame of clay

My mother lies lower than death

My mother walks an extra length beyond the end

My mother fails to find her own flame

My mother gave birth of me

Like a big flame

Shivers and isolated a branch

My mother crosses the threshing ground of tyrant burning 

My mother is flame of hair 

Flame of clothes, flame of crystal sound of ankles 

Flame of smile with eyes tightly closed 

Flame of bones delicate like birds

Flame of transparent finger nails, skin and fine collar bones

My mother filter down wicker basket like circles 

From hollow of pure silver ring, from wedding carpet of tongue

Filter down holy grail formed by both hands, secret auricle 

Filter down chamber of furnace of black grills

I push her lost grace with my own hands 

In the heavy dark iron carriage    

Into the blazing fire

Watch her sleeves blown full with flames

She is charging holding the shield of her knees

Flames rise puff from every leak between the bones 

Like a furious baby late for birth 

I see my mother climbing in the flames

Steep path, leaving behind countless herself 

My mother is burgundy cello bent and stiff

My mother is canoe of cedar 

is a memoryless young girl, rippling in her forefather’s sky

Early morning of April 14, 2017  

母亲颂：火的连祷

我的母亲是冰冷的火焰

我的母亲是海底的火焰

我的母亲是洁白的铃兰花的火焰

是摔碎的矿灯，我的母亲

是黏土的火焰

我的母亲躺在比死亡更低的地方

我的母亲在终点之外又走出了一段

我的母亲找不到自己的火焰

我的母亲每生下一个我

就像一支大的火焰

又颤抖着分出一支

我的母亲燃烧着穿过暴君的打谷场

我的母亲是头发的火焰

衣服的火焰，清脆的脚踝的火焰

是眼帘紧闭的微笑的火焰

是鸟儿一样轻盈的骨头的火焰

是透明的指甲，皮肤，细小的锁骨的火焰

我的母亲从筐状肋圈中漏下去漏下去

从纯银的戒指的空洞，从舌头的结婚地毯

从双手的圣杯，从秘密的耳廓

漏下去，从她黑格栅的炉膛漏下去

我亲手用沉重黝黑的铁车

把她迷失的优雅送入熊熊众火

我看着她的袖子灌满了火焰

她擎着膝盖的盾牌冲锋

火焰从她每一条骨缝里冒出来

像愤怒的来不及诞生的婴儿

我看见我的母亲在火焰中攀登

陡峭的狭径，把无数个自己一一剥离

我的母亲是暗红色的大提琴变得弯曲而坚硬

我的母亲是香柏木的独木舟

是没有记忆的少女，荡漾在她父辈的天空

20170414凌晨

🌼

Man in red reading

Man in red is reading

Leaves are falling

He lifts his eyes from the book

and looks about blankly

As he reads on

So the leaves will keep falling

Sounded by messy background

Where streets  benches

Houses

Grey or brown

makes slight difference

He is reading all the time

Growing taller and taller

like the mountains

till no leaf is left on the tree

till the first snow begins to fall

but if you pat him on the shoulder now

he will melt 

like the snow

红衣人读书

树叶在落

红衣人在读书

他知道树叶会越来越快

他时而从书页上抬头

茫然四顾

而只要他阅读

树叶就会继续落下

周围凌乱的背景中

就会逐渐呈现出街道、长椅、建筑

用褐色统一起种种微小的差异

他一直在阅读

他像不断长高的山越来越巨大了

他一直读到树叶落光

一直到雪开始落下

而如果这时你拍拍他的肩膀

他就会雪花一样融化

🌼

Father 

Maxianheng马显恒（19290113--19900717）

He who dedicated his life to light

Has now immersed himself in darkness 

With his body heavy like 

A decaying kingdom

I stay by his bed, he

My father, seriously ill

Infusion tube is murmuring 

The passing of father’s life 

Or returning

I’m not sure

I turn to the rain outside

My other family keep starting on the way

But they never arrived

Mother is sitting opposite me

murmuring, or hurrying to open the door

I stare at the bed, at this man

When I was young he was a caring father

As I grow up he became my slating distance

Now he’s turned into one of my children

With a peaceful face, lips moving slightly

Keeping indulging in past dreams

(war time, muddy rainwater in hoof marks

And stone burning inside the body)

Perhaps his own father, another place

I wonder if there is another himself there

Dreaming of this very moment

At night it’s raining heavier 

I’m taking water to father

With a white kettle like a little pigeon

crooning coo，coo

I have to keep crooning

Like a little pigeon. In the rain

Passing those specimens like empty shops

With their insides taken out by rain, showing their teeth 

Showing their teeth, I can find neither my childhood

Nor my father

I’ve to keep crooning

While the raincoat is crouching on my back like a bear

I don’t know where to go

The same rain leaves two generations of us homeless

June 9， 1990