Posts Tagged ‘ugly’

不在 AWAY

6月 30, 2025

picture by Meng Zhi

AWAY

Away from the environment,
how do I write in Chinese?
Especially a foreigner!
Looking at photos
and videos,
I realize again
when friends take a picture
they want to remember,
remember beauty,
being together,
and also
the vapid aggression,
destruction and ruin.

MW June 28th, 2025

picture by Meng Zhi

不在
(给上苑艺术馆2025年艺术家)

维马丁

不在中文环境
很难写中文
尤其是老外
看到朋友照片
和视频
就更知道
朋友拍的
都是想记得
记得美
记得在一块
也记得
荒谬霸气
坠毁空虚

2025.6.28

picture by Meng Zhi

AWAY

Away from the environment,
how do I write in the language?
Especially a foreigner!
Looking at photos
and videos,
I realize again
when friends take a picture
they want to remember,
remember beauty,
being together,
and also
the vapid aggression,
destruction and ruin.

MW June 28th, 2025

 

英语也可以说任何语言,包括英语,离开了环境很难写出来。而那些荒谬等等,川普美国感觉也是。

In English I can talk about writing in any language, also English, while being away from the environment. I wrote this poem in Chinese in response to what happened last year and this year at a certain place in China. But the absurd aggression, the senseless destruction and ruin could also be Trump and Musk’s ‘work’, right? Or Putin and so on.

字 CHARACTER

6月 24, 2024

CHARACTER

Last year in April
when I first came
and walked through the campus
of Shangyuan Art Museum
from the front to the back
along the big exhibition hall
to the small bridge
on the left
there was a wall
a tall grey wall
crowned with barbed wire.
Looked like a prison.
What is this
I asked.
It is the house
of the poet Xi Chuan.
But he never comes
he’s never been here.
I didn’t ask more.
Now there is no exhibition hall.
From the library
from the back door
you can see over the ruins
all the way
to that grey wall.
There is enough space
to write on the wall.
Maybe just one character
maybe “shame”.
That “shame” of “no shame”.
Yes I do know
that I don’t know
very much at all.
There must be reasons
why it went this way.
But now there is room
there is very much space
now the effect
could be not bad.

MW June 22, 2024

 

写字

去年四月
第一次来
上苑艺术馆
从前面走后面
沿着通道
经过展厅
到后面小桥
通道左边
灰色高墙
上面铁丝网
像监狱
那时候问
旁边是什么
是诗人西川
建设的房子
可是他不来
从来都不来
我觉得奇怪
但也不多问
现在展厅没了
从图书馆
后面的门
经过废墟
看到后面
灰色的墙
觉得墙上
可以写字
就一个字
也许可以写

无耻的恥
当然有很多
我都不知道
应该有很多
为什么有今天
不过一直觉得
这墙很难看
而现在有空
有很大的空间
现在写
效果好

2024.6.22

 

ON A TRIP – 春树 Chun Sue

1月 9, 2016

Chun_Sue

Chun Sue
ON A TRIP

In the same night
in Berlin
I was at two events with Chinese writers.
The female writer who lived in London
gave me a stronger impression
than the male writer who stayed in America.
Her English pronunciation was better, more resonant;
also before at the event with the male writer
I was very thirsty
so I was distracted.
When the female writer was up on the stage
I had drunk enough water,
had been to the bathroom.
Under the light,
from the side she frowned at the moderator.
A grimace like
a Hollywood star doing a fierce ugly Asian.
It was really confusing,
like she was seeing her psychiatrist
at the literature festival.
As she screwed up her face
I really wanted to ask her: Are you happy?
Maybe it was
that special
feeling for form
reminding me of my former self.
At a lit fest in Norway, I had a crowd of high school kids;
when it was over,
I saluted the packed mass in the dark,
like a Young Pioneer.

2015
Tr. MW, Jan. 2016

Chun Sue On Tour

STACHELDRAHT

9月 18, 2015

STACHELDRAHT

orbán ist häßlich
ein häßliches ungarn
ein ungarn im stacheldraht
wollen die ungarn
wirklich den stacheldraht?

MW 17. Sept. 2015