Translated by Ouyang Yu

I am Belgium's Zhang Ping. So are you
swaying from side to side, we play saxophones together
two tunes coming out of one brass wind
strolling outside the window, like this snowy night
as you said 'the heart won't melt in the water like the snow — '

The snow and the wind do not have the needle and the thread, and
you said that there was no need to sew and mend
On this wintry night, you left without shaking my hand
leaving me, like slowly going into this mirror before my eyes
except this puffy hair that's curled up
this cheek with a burnt mark, I found a goatee

You and I are one and the same, you and I are two
my familiarity with you, more unfamiliar than others
here, of all the places, simultaneously renting two bodies
You and I have launched one man's war
not able to exit but preferring to shoot each other

On the snowy night, I am recounting helplessness with the saxophone
the sadness you don't like. You said you hated pretensions
but did not sympathize with people in trouble, totally ignoring me
leaving me like an old shoe under the bed, a lost soul by itself
a big snow and wind outside the window, you left in a hurry

You minded them very much, my faults
although they should have been forgotten, you kept nagging
just like an apology that I suddenly happen to think of tonight
because of this friend's death, it's too late
you have moved out, leaving me sulking, with myself

I also tried to make myself look more decent
doing things with resolution, treating people with passion, not too selfishly
the result is that I can't change the facts when I wake up
I still carefully keep the money, on guard against people
haggling over every cent in the market, with burning ears and a red face

I'm Belgium's Zhang Ping. So are you
like this poem, revised from another one
like walking on the snow, with snow falling behind
covering the road, erasing the footsteps
making it difficult to tell who is I, who is you

Zhang Ping, a poet originally from China, is now based in Belgium.

Translated by Ouyang Yu

at five in the morning, i can hear pigs shrieking
from across the river
i can imagine how a sharp knife
thrusts into the throat of a pig
and how the hot blood shining with a cold light
spurts out into the world relentlessly …

a new day, the things around me
— the trees, the birds as well as that small river
it is in this hair-and-bone terror that they wake up

Zhang Minhua is a judge and poet who works in Jiashan Court, Zhejiang Province, China.

Translated by Ouyang Yu

in the elevator, four or five people
greeted each other mechanically
i was embarrassed
they were all in their forties or fifties
— even i, the youngest, was thirty-odd years of age
my vicious eyes were staring at a mouth
magnifying it
i found it extremely ugly
— how many lives it had consumed all its life!

Translated by Ouyang Yu

one horse, two horses
three four five six seven horses
one horse

the net-shaped horse
the transparent horse
from one empty door
to another empty door

the skin of the grass
rubbing against the belly
the horses on the slope
their belly shiny and smooth

the horses on the slope
with sunken backs
the blue sky light, the desires heavy
the horses on the slope
their eyes open with wild flowers

Based in Nanjing, China, Yu Kuichao's poetry has appeared in Otherland (No. 1, 1996).

Translated by Ouyang Yu

several times i had gone past that stop by bus
just in a flash each time
and then that day two policewomen came from the
stopsign. they went past me and sat down in the row of seats behind me, in silence, talking in a low voice. and the place where they had been sitting had something lingering, loving.
what was the life a policewoman like?
on my way, i turned my head back twice and saw the smooth hands, two none-too-fashionable bags and unpowdered youth. one of them took a sharp look at me possibly because she had recognized the motive of a potential criminal in me before i even recognised it myself.
at the head of a lane not far from the stop where they had got on the bus, i saw the stopsign written on the wall of the factory with chalk: 'Tianjin Women's Prison' and, side by side with it, was a work unit called 'Junvenile Delinquents Reform Station.'
each time the bus flies all the way.
it went just like that on that occasion.
subsequently, whenever i go past that stop, i will at once realize that there is a prison ahead of me.

Xu Jiang (b 1967) is a Tianjin based poet who edits Kui, a Chinese poetry journal and has had several books of poetry published, including wo xie shi (I Look Askance) in 1999.

Translated by Ouyang Yu

in 1967
my dad went to an alien place
to begin his middle school career

every weekend
my dad managed to get home
and bring from home
things
to eat
salted vegetables and dry carrots
or pickled cucumbers

to prevent
his roommates from stealing them
my dad
had a sound strategy
every time he opened his food
he'd first spit into it
a few mouthfuls of saliva

Shen Haobo is a Chinese poet based in Beijing who is often described as the leader of the Post-1970s Poets (poets born in the 1970s) and now edits the Chinese webzine xia ban shen (Lower Parts of the Body).

Translated by Ouyang Yu.

Dreams just made behind closed eyes
were suddenly shattered by a glass breaking
It would be better if it had been a glass
but I was worried that it might be the goldfish from
the fish tank
that were thrashing on the floor

I stopped my ears for a long time
against the abusive man and the weeping woman
whose voice was so small
that it sounded as if it came from another distant world

I wasn't concerned at all
that they might break their own home
for houses now are
built far sturdier than the goldfish tank

No. How many homes there must be
in today's cities that look sturdy on the
outside
but are broken within

Chen Dachao (born 1958) is a Chinese poet and short story writer based in Hubei, China, whose work has won prizes in China, Taiwan and Australia.