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Poetry

Until

By Yang Lian
Translated from Chinese by Brian Holton & Agnes Hung-Chong Chan

until sky is like a breast popping out from a collar
held by horrible hands your hands
until slow death displays more distinct violence

until a dead drunk fiddle has just shed its feathers
until a bird flies into the snow-white structure of its own skull
a pair of fleshless orbits stare outside the window

staring wind twelve months’ paralyzed blood
thick smoke in the fireplace always seems like the last time
blackening a horrible throat your throat

remembrance not remembering until transparent
another each flung broken-necked elsewhere
storm until the tiny storm-storing heart

use more distinct violence display slow death
this horrible rotting your rotting
like a zero with no exit

like a scream expanding its territory until tonight
tonight expanding its face out to the belly-tattooed ocean
sea given to a golden frame until

painless severer than headache
the entire sky a nail that can never be pulled
but is hammered home until this bird’s head undyingly rots into thinking

until nobody can reach the finish
until the impossible always uses you to flood the finish
until slow death wakes you at midnight

wind twelve months’ paralysed blood displays more distinct violence
until your head is the only horror
fleshless and snow-white until your mud splatters all over

English

until sky is like a breast popping out from a collar
held by horrible hands your hands
until slow death displays more distinct violence

until a dead drunk fiddle has just shed its feathers
until a bird flies into the snow-white structure of its own skull
a pair of fleshless orbits stare outside the window

staring wind twelve months’ paralyzed blood
thick smoke in the fireplace always seems like the last time
blackening a horrible throat your throat

remembrance not remembering until transparent
another each flung broken-necked elsewhere
storm until the tiny storm-storing heart

use more distinct violence display slow death
this horrible rotting your rotting
like a zero with no exit

like a scream expanding its territory until tonight
tonight expanding its face out to the belly-tattooed ocean
sea given to a golden frame until

painless severer than headache
the entire sky a nail that can never be pulled
but is hammered home until this bird’s head undyingly rots into thinking

until nobody can reach the finish
until the impossible always uses you to flood the finish
until slow death wakes you at midnight

wind twelve months’ paralysed blood displays more distinct violence
until your head is the only horror
fleshless and snow-white until your mud splatters all over

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