Geh möglichst wenig aus untertags,
lange stehen unter der Sonne
macht dich am Hinterkopf schwarz.
Auch möglichst nicht dort wohnen, wo es warm ist,
die Lust, auszutreiben
musst du unterdrücken.
Außerdem darfst du nicht schlaflos werden von den Maschinen Tag und Nacht,
ja nicht in Panik
diskutieren.
In unseren Körpern gibt es Stärke,
das ist unvermeidlich.
Also mach dir nicht dauernd alle mögliche Sorgen,
Kartoffel werden sonst sauer.
Übersetzt von MW im Mai 2021
Xiao Jiao, eigentl. Li Hua, geb. im August 2003 Im Dorf Feng bei Ulan Cha, Innere Mongolei. Konnte aus Familiengründen nicht in die Schule gehen, lernte u.a. bei ihrem Opa schreiben und lesen. Veröffentlichte Gedichte und Prosa in mehreren namhaften Zeitschriften und im “Jahrbuch der Poesie 2020”. Mag Xiao Hong, Lu Xun und Wang Xiaobo. Sie ist eine dekadente Person.
On the dormitory’s first floor, conditions are worst. Moss on wooden doors, rust on window bars. From outside, passing the windows, I see three special rooms, with their own bathroom, doors and windows aluminum, Simmons mattress. A black student wielding a club to chase a mouse that ran in from the Chinese students next door.
In Wirklichkeit ist es immer wie jetzt. Halt nicht auf einmal, doch in der Schwebe, ein bisschen versetzt. In Wirklichkeit ist dein Leben nicht fest, sicher ist gar nichts, egal was wer sagt. In Wirklichkeit bist du Tanz und Musik. Wir sind was sich dreht oder steht und jemanden sucht solang es noch geht.
MW 1. April 2020
CORONA
Actually it’s always like this for many people. You live from one day to the next. Only now it’s a big deal for the whole world for a while.
One poem per day takes nothing away, I want to say. But everything takes time, every drug, every mask, every care. So one poem per day could take away whatever else you would have had. But then you could hear it again, whatever you do, if it was good.
MW March 2020
GRINDING
The world is grinding to a halt. So are we all madly in love? Or have we come to our senses about the climate between each other? About working together? We don’t have a choice. And we don’t have a choice in hoping it will soon be over. And we still let them set our clocks.
MW March 29, 2020
ACHTSAMKEIT
Achtsamkeit hat sehr viel mit Neunsamkeit zu tun, das sagen alle großen Neunsamkeitslehrer. Aber die großen Samenbanken, die fangen frühestens ab Zehnsamkeit an, mit Ihnen zu reden.
everyone wants deliberation
what do workers want
more money
more rights
less accidents
less insecurity
less misery
less discrimination
what do employers
and state agents want
nothing
in comparison
they have everything
only in certain cases
certain uncertain cases
they are very certain
everyone needs deliberation
rather than killing and maiming
each other
china has talked about democracy
very much
at least since 1919
austria too
so let us deliberate
how to give workers
in certain uncertain cases
maybe just a little bit
of deliberation
MW May 2017
From a small conference on Monday, May 15. Law studies and Petition Office representants from China. Vienna University law faculty and East Asian studies professors. Well-meaning reports on labor conflicts and “deliberative democracy”. Meanwhile we’ll have another big election in Austria in October. Last year was just the figurehead president. Could have been a Neo-German alt-right figurehead. It was close. Would have been ok with the foreign minister. Also with the governors of Burgenland and Lower Austria, the provinces around Vienna. They are working with the xenophobe extreme right Freedom party. Or looking forward to that. No, we don’t rally around the republic against neo-fascist and anti-European forces like they do in France. Although we finally tried last year and succeeded. And our president now is a Green independent. Yeah, that’s where my poems come from. China and Asia, Austria and Europe. Taiwan. Czech Republic. And so on. Like The Sun Also Crashes. That was in Vermont, right before the last US mid-term elections.
poetry
is impo
rtant
truth
is impo
tent
or is it
or are you
MW February 2017
REPORT
every report
every detailed incisive report
kind that makes powerful people squirm
is just as important
as any art
any poem
any church, temple
that makes you pause
think
feel
every report
as a bonus for the workers
at the all men’s dormitory
the mine partitioned the uppermost floor
and set up rooms for visiting spouses
from the opposite roof
you could see any move that went on inside
that was a secret all mine workers knew
one summer
one man fell from the roof
everyone said
he fell down and died watching the movies
Xiao Jiao, eigentl. Li Hua, geb. im August 2003 Im Dorf Feng bei Ulan Cha, Innere Mongolei. Konnte aus Familiengründen nicht in die Schule gehen, lernte u.a. bei ihrem Opa schreiben und lesen. Veröffentlichte Gedichte und Prosa in mehreren namhaften Zeitschriften und im “Jahrbuch der Poesie 2020”. Mag Xiao Hong, Lu Xun und Wang Xiaobo. Sie ist eine dekadente Person.
伊沙推荐：本诗来自于侯马的助攻，说明地方官开始关注当地的诗歌创作了。本诗的视角令我眼前为之一亮，太新鲜太新颖了！其次是笔触，显得与众不同。作者只有十八岁，她似乎已经进入了中国诗坛，这让我不免有些担心，但愿她成长得好。
