Yi Sha
CHINA DOWN AT THE BOTTOM
Pigtail is meeting his friend at the tent.
“Bao, do you have cigarettes?”
That box of cigarettes was stolen,
just like the type 64 handgun up on the roof.
Bao sits on the bed in the construction tent.
He broke his leg when they ran with the pistol.
Bao wants to sell it
and go to the hospital to get his leg fixed.
Pigtail is all against that.
“Bao, they will take down your head!”
Bao starts to cry,
crying harder and harder: “Look at the state I’m in!”
“I haven’t eaten at all for two days.
You want my leg to stay broken?”
Now Pigtail starts crying.
He’s wiping his face: “Look at this state we’re in!”
Pigtail decides to sell the gun.
He sells the gun to Mr. Dong.
This was the beginning of a big case:
The 12/1/97 murders* in Xi’an.
On such a night everyone thinks of the murders
I think of Pigtail and of Young Bao.
These hopeless kids from the bottom of China,
this people’s poet can’t get them out of his head.
1998-1999
Tr. MW, August 2014
*This serial murder case from the beginning of 1998 was made into a TV series and broad-casted all over China in 1999 and 2000. The police gun mentioned in the poem was lost on December 1st, 1997, and the case was eventually named after that date. The police in Xi’an were pressured to solve the murders before March 31st, 1998, because US-President Clinton was coming to Xi’an in June. See John Pomfret in the Washington Post.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/2000-01/13/086r-011300-idx.html)
伊沙
《中国底层》
辫子应约来到工棚
他说：“小保你有烟抽了？”
那盒烟也是偷来的
和棚顶上一把六四式手枪
小保在床上坐着
他的腿在干这件活儿逃跑时摔断了
小保想卖了那枪
然后去医院把自己的腿接上
辫子坚决不让
“小保，这可是要掉脑袋的！”
小保哭了
越哭越凶：“看我可怜的！”
他说：“我都两天没吃饭了
你忍心让我腿一直断着？”
辫子也哭了
他一抹眼泪：“看咱可怜的！”
辫子决定帮助小保卖枪
经他介绍把枪卖给一个姓董的
以上所述的是震惊全国的
西安12.1枪杀大案的开始
这样的夜晚别人都关心大案
我只关心辫子和小保
这些来自中国底层无望的孩子
让我这人民的诗人受不了
中国大好き 