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--
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
