King George V School

IB A1 English

Part 4

World Poetry Anthology

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Table of Contents

Author Poem PageBei Dao Notes from the City of the Sun 3

The Answer 5Dusk: Dingjiatan 6An End or a Beginning 7Head for Winter 10

Pablo Neruda Weak with the Dawn 12Walking Around 13I’m Explaining a Few Things 15The Way Spain Was 17Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks 18

Rabindrinath Tagore Africa 19Flying Man 21Railway Station 23Freedom-bound 25Injury 27

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Notes from the City of the Sun

Life

The sun has risen too

Love

Tranquillity. The wild geese have flownover the virgin wastelandthe old tree has toppled with a crashacrid salty rain drifts through the air

Freedom

Torn scraps of paperfluttering

Child

A picture enclosing the whole ocean folds into a white crane

Girl

A shimmering rainbowgathers brightly coloured feathers

Youth

Red wavesdrown a solitary oar

Art

A million scintillating suns appear in the shattered mirror

People

The moon is torn into gleaming grains of wheatand sown in the honest sky and earth

Labour

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Hands, encircling the earth

Fate

The child strikes the railing at randomat random the railing strikes the night

Faith

A flock of sheep spills out of the green ditchthe shepherd boy plays his monotonous pipe

Peace

In the land where the king is deadthe old rifle sprouting branches and budshas become a cripple’s cane

Motherland

Cast on a shield of bronzeshe leans against a blackened museum wall

Living

A net

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The Answer

Debasement is the password of the base,Nobility the epitaph of the noble.See how the gilded sky is coveredWith the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.

The Ice Age is over now,Why is there ice everywhere?The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?

I came into this worldBringing only paper, rope, a shadow,To proclaim before the judgementThe voice that has been judged:

Let me tell you, world,I–do–not–believe!If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,Count me as number one thousand and one.

I don’t believe the sky is blue;I don’t believe in thunder’s echoes;I don’t believe that dreams are false;I don’t believe that death has no revenge.

If the sea is destined to breach the dikesLet all the brackish water pour into my heart;If the land is destined to riseLet humanity choose a peak for existence again.

A new conjunction and glimmering starsAdorn the unobstructed sky now:They are the pictographs from five thousand years.They are the watchful eyes of future generations.

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Dusk: Dingjiatan

Dusk, duskDingjiatan is your blue shadowdusk, duskYour sweetheart’s hair floats on your shoulder

she holds a bunch of white rosesand brushes the dust away with her lashesit is the martyr’s holy namethat freedom writes on the land

he pierces the moon with his fingerlike a circle of smoke from the horizonit is a gold engagement ringthe golden sealed lips of the girl

lips are lipswithout a single wordtheir breath can still find in the valleya shared echo

dusk is duskeven if there are heavy shadowsthe sunlight can still simultaneouslyfall into both hearts

night closes in night faces two pairs of eyeshere is a small patch of clear skyhere is dawn waiting to rise

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An End or a Beginning

for Yu Luoke

Here I standReplacing another, who has been murderedSo that each time the sun risesA heavy shadow, like a roadShall run across the land

A sorrowing mistCovers the uneven patchwork of roofsBetween one house and anotherChimneys spout ashy crowdsWarmth effuses from gleaming treesLingering on the wretched cigarette stubsLow black clouds ariseFrom every tired hand

In the name of the sunDarkness plunders openlySilence is still the story of the EastPeople on age-old frescoesSilently live foreverSilently die and are gone

Ah, my beloved landWhy don’t you sing any moreCan it be true that even the ropes of the Yellow River towmenLike sundered lute-stringsReverberate no moreTrue that time, this dark mirrorHas also turned its back on your foreverLeaving only stars and drifting clouds behind

I look for youIn every dreamEvery foggy night or morningI look for spring and apple treesEvery wisp of breeze stirred up by honey beesI look for the seashore’s ebb and flowThe seagulls formed from sunlight on the waves

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I look for the stories built into the wallYour forgotten name and mine

If fresh blood could make you fertileThe ripened fruitOn tomorrow’s branchesWould bear my colour

I must admitThat I trembledIn the death-white chilly lightWho wants to be a meteoriteOr a martyr’s ice-cold statueWatching the unextinguished fire of youthPass into another’s handEven if doves alight on its shoulderIt can’t feel their bodies’ warmth and breathThey preen their wingsAnd quickly fly away

I am a manI need loveI long to pass each tranquil duskUnder my love’s eyesWaiting in the cradle’s rockingFor the child’s first cryOn the grass and fallen leavesOn every sincere gazeI write poems of lifeThis universal longingHas now become the whole cost of being a man

I have lied many timesIn my lifeBut I have always honestly kept to The promise I made as a childSo that the world which cannot tolerateA child’s heartHas still not forgiven me

Here I standReplacing another, who has been murderedI have no other choiceAnd where I fallAnother will standA wind rests on my shoulders Stars glimmer in the wind

Perhaps one dayThe sun will become a withered wreath

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To hang beforeThe growing forest of gravestonesOf each unsubmitting fighterBlack crows the night’s tattersFlock thick around

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The first draft of this poem was written in 1975. Some good friends of mine fought side by side with Yu Luoke, and two of them were thrown into prison where they languished for three years. This poem records our tragic and indignant protest in that tragic and indignant period.

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Head for Winter

The wind has blown away towards the setting sunthe sparrow’s last remaining warmth

Head for winterwe weren’t born for the sake of a sacred prophecy, let’s gopast the arched doorway formed by humpbacked old menleaving the key behindpast the main hall where ghost shadows flickerleaving the nightmare behindleaving all our superfluous things behindwe lack for nothingsell off even clothes and shoesand our last rationsleaving our jingling change behind

Head for wintersinging a songno blessings, no prayerswe will never go backto decorate the painted green leavesin a season that has lost its enchantmentfruit that cannot make winewon’t turn into vinegar eitherroll a cigarette out of newspaperand let the black cloud faithful as a dogclose at our heels as a dogwipe away all the lies under the sun

Head for winterand don’t sink into greendissipation, at ease everywheredon’t repeat the incantation of thunder and lightningletting ellipses in thinking become streams of raindropsor walk down the street like a prisonerunder noon’s supervisionruthlessly stepping on our shadowsor hide behind a curtainto recite with a stammer the words of the deadperforming the wild joy of the tyrannized

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Head for winterin a land where rivers are frozenroads begin to flowon the cobblestones along the river shorecrows hatch out a series of moonswhoever awakens will knowa dream shall befall the earthprecipitating as cold morning frostreplacing the exhausted starsthe time of evil shall come to an endand icebergs in uninterrupted successionbecome a generation’s statues

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Weak with the Dawn

jThe day of the luckless, the pale day appearswith a cold heart-breaking smell, with its forces in grey,with no bells on, dripping dawn from everywhere:it is a shipwreck in a void, surrounded by weeping.

For the moist shadow went from so many places,from so many vain objections, from so many earthly haltswhere it should have occupied even the design of the roots,from so much sharp form that defended itself.

I weep in the midst of what is invaded, amid the uncertain,amid the growing savour, lending the earto the pure circulation, to the increase,without direction giving way to what is approaching,to what issues forth dressed in chains and carnations,I dream, burdened with my moral remains.

There is nothing sudden, nor light-hearted, nor with a proud form,everything seems to be making itself with obvious poverty,the light of the earth comes out of its eyelidsnot like a bell’s ringing, but more like tears:the fabric of the day, its frail linen,is good for a gauze for the sick, is good for wavinggoodbye, in the wake of an absence:it is the colour what wants only to replace,to cover, to engulf, to subdue, to make distances.

I am alone with rickety materials,the rain falls on me, and it is like me,it is like me in its raving, alone in the dead world,repulsed as it falls, and with no persistent form.

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Walking Around

It happens that I am tired of being a man.It happens that I go into the tailor’s shops and the moviesall shrivelled up, impenetrable, like a felt swannavigating on a water of origin and ash.

The smell of barber shops makes me sob out loud.I want nothing but the repose either of stones or of wool,I want to see no more establishments, no more gardens,nor merchandise, nor glasses, nor elevators.

It happens that I am tired of my feet and my nailsand my hair and my shadow.It happens that I am tired of being a man.

Just the same it would be deliciousto scare a notary with a cut lilyor knock a nun stone dead with one blow of an ear.It would be beautifulto go through the streets with a green knifeshouting until I died of cold.

I do not want to go on being a root in the dark,hesitating, stretched out, shivering with dreams,downwards, in the wet tripe of the earth,soaking it up and thinking, eating every day.

I do not want to be the inheritor of so many misfortunes.I don not want to continue as a root and as a tomb,as a solitary tunnel, as a cellar full of corpses,stiff with cold, dying with pain.

For this reason Monday burns like oilat the sight of me arriving with my jail-face,and it howls in passing like a wounded wheel,and its footsteps towards nightfall are filled with hot blood.

And it shoves me along to certain corners, to certain damp houses,to hospitals where the bones come out of the windows,

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to certain cobblers’ shops smelling of vinegar,to streets horrendous as crevices.

There are birds the colour of sulphur, and horrible intestineshanging from the doors of the houses which I hate,there are forgotten sets of teeth in a coffee-pot,there are mirrorswhich should have wept with shame and horror,there are umbrellas all over the place, and poisons, and navels.

I stride along with calm, with eyes, with shoes,with fury, with forgetfulness,I pass, I cross offices and stores full of orthopaedic appliances,and courtyards hung with clothes on wires,underpants, towels and shirts which weepslow dirty tears.

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I’m Explaining a Few Things

You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?and the rain repeatedly spatteringits words and drilling them fullof apertures and birds?

I’ll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,a suburb of Madrid, with bells,and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look outover Castille’s dry face:a leather ocean. My house was calledthe house of flowers, because in every crannygeraniums burst: it wasa good-looking housewith its dogs and children.

Remember, Raúl?Eh, Rafael? Federico, do you rememberfrom under the groundmy balconies on whichthe light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?

Brother, my brother!

Everythingloud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,pile-ups of palpitating bread,the stalls of my suburb of Argüelles with its statuelike a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:oil flowed into spoons,a deep bayingof feet and hands swelled in the streets,metres, litres, the sharpmeasure of life,

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stacked-up fish,the texture of roofs with a cold sun in whichthe weather vane falters,the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down to the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,one morning the bonfiresleapt out of the earthdevouring human beings –and from then on fire,gunpowder from then on,and from then on blood.Bandits with planes and Moors,bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,bandits with black friars spattering blessingscame through the sky to kill childrenand the blood of children ran through the streetswithout fuss, like children’s blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the bloodof Spain tower like a tideto drown you in one waveof pride and knives!

Treacherousgenerals:see my dead house,look at broken Spain:from every house burning metal flowsinstead of flowers,from every socket of SpainSpain emergesand from every dead child a rifle with eyes,and from every crime bullets are bornwhich will one day findthe bull’s eye of your hearts.

And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetryspeak of dreams and leavesand the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets.Come and seethe blood in the streets.Come and see the blood

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in the streets!

The Way Spain Was

Taut and dry Spain was,a day’s drum of dull sound,a plain, an eagle’s eyrie, a silencebelow the lashing weather.

How unto crying out, unto the very soulI love your barren soil and your rough bread,your stricken people!How in the depths of megrows the lost flower of your villages,timeless, impossible to budge,your tracts of mineralsbulging like oldsters under the moon,devoured by an imbecile god.

All your extensions, your bestial solitude,joined with your sovereign intelligence,haunted by the abstracted stones of silence,your harsh wine and your sweet wine,your violent and delicate vineyards.

Stone of the sun, pure among territories,Spain veined with bloods and metals, blue and victorious,proletariat of petals and bullets,alone alive, somnolent, resounding.

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Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks

All these men were there insidewhen she entered, utterly naked.They had been drinking, and began to spit at her.Recently come from the river, she understood nothing.She was a mermaid who had lost her way.The taunts flowed over her glistening flesh.Obscenities drenched her golden breasts.A stranger to tears, she did not weep.A stranger to clothes, she did not dress.They pocked her with cigarette ends and with burnt corks,and rolled on the tavern floor with laughter.She did not speak, since speech was unknown to her.Her eyes were the colour of faraway love,her arms were matching topazes.Her lips moved soundlessly in coral light,and ultimately she left by that door.Scarcely had she entered the river than she was cleansed,gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain;and without a backward look, she swam once more,swam toward nothingness, swam to her dying.

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Africa

When, in that turbid first age, The Creator, displeased with himself, Destroyed his new creations again and again; In those days of his shaking and shaking his head in irritation The angry sea Snatched you from the breast of Mother Asia, Africa –Consigned you to the guard of immense trees, To a fastness dimly lit. There in your hidden leisure You collected impenetrable secrets, Learnt the arcane languages of water and earth and sky; Nature’s invisible magic Worked spells in your unconscious mind. You ridiculed Horror By making your own appearance hideous; You cowed Fear By heightening your menacing grandeur, By dancing to the drumbeats of chaos.

Alas, shadowy Africa, Under your black veil Your human aspect remained unknown, Blurred by the murk of contempt. Others came with iron manacles, With clutches sharper than the claws of your own wild wolves: Slavers came, With an arrogance more benighted than your own dark jungles. Civilization’s barbarous greed Flaunted its naked inhumanity. You wailed wordlessly, muddied the soil of your steamy jungles With blood and tears; The hobnailed boots of your violators Stuck gouts of that stinking mud Forever on your stained history.

Meanwhile across the sea in their native parishes

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Temple-bells summoned your conquerors to prayer, Morning and evening, in the name of a loving god. Mothers dandled babies in their laps; Poets raised hymns to beauty. Today as the air of the west thickens,Constricted by imminent evening storm; As animals emerge from secret lairs And proclaim by their ominous howls the closing of the day; Come, poet of the end of the age, Stand in the dying light of advancing nightfall At the door of despoiled Africa And say, ‘Forgive, forgive –’ In the midst of murderous insanity, May these be your civilization’s last, virtuous words.

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Flying Man

Satanic machine, you enable man to fly. Land and sea had fallen to his power: All that was left was the sky.

God has given as a gift a bird’s two wings. From the flash of feathery line and colour Spiritual joy springs.

Birds are companions to the clouds: blue space And great winds and brightly-coloured birds Are all of the same race.

The rhythms in the life and play of birds belong To the wind; from the sky’s music comes Their energy and song.

Thus each dawn throughout the forests of the earth Light, when it wakes, unites with birdsong In one harmonious birth.

In the great peace beneath the immense sky, The dancing wings of birds quiver Like wavelets rippling by.

Age after age through birds the life-spirit speaks: It is carried by birds along tracks of air To far-flung forests and peaks.

Today what do we see? And what is its meaning? The banner of arrogance has taken wing, Proud and overweening.

This thing has not been blessed by the life-divinity. The sun disowns it, neither does the moon Feel any affinity.

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In the brutal roaring of an aeroplane we hear Incompatibility with sky, Destruction of atmosphere.

High among the clouds, in the heavens, its din Adds new blasphemous grating laughter To man’s catalogue of sin.

I feel the age we live in is drawing to a close – Upheavals threaten, gather the pace Of a storm that nothing slows.

Hatred and envy swell to violent conflagration: Panic spreads down from the skies, From their growing devastation.

If nowhere in the sky is there left a space For gods to be seated, then, Indra, Thunderer, may you place

At the end of this history your direst instruction: A last full stop written in the fire Of furious total destruction.

Hear the prayer of an earth that is stricken with pain: In the green woods, O may the birds Sing supreme again.

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Railway Station

I come to the station morning and evening,I love to watch the coming and going –Hubbub of passengers pressing for tickets,Down-trains boarded, up-trains boarded,Ebb and flow like an estuarine river.Some people sitting there ever since morning,Other people missing their train by a minute.

Day-Night-clanking and rumbling,Trainloads of people thundering forth.Changing direction at every moment,Eastwards, westwards, rapid as storms.

The essence of all these moving picturesBrings to my mind the image of language,Forever forming, forever unforming,Continuous coming, continuous going.Crowds can fill the stage in an instant –The guard’s flag waves the train’s departureAnd suddenly everyone disappears somewhere.The hurry disguises their joys and sorrows,Masks the pressure of gains and losses.

Bho – Bho – blows the whistle,Ruled by the clock’s division of time.No one can bear to wait for a second,Some get aboard, some stay behind.

Succeeding, failing, boarding or remaining,Nothing but picture after picture.Whatever catches the eye for a momentIs erased the next moment after.A whimsical game, a self-forgettingEver-dissolving sequence –Each canvas ripped, its shreds discarded

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To pile up along the roadside,Detritus lifted hither and thither By tired hot summer breezes.‘Hold back, hold back,’ rings out the clamourOf passengers left stranded –Next thing they have also vanished,Chasing, running, wailing.

Clang – Clang – sounds the tocsin,Time for good-bye, off goes the train.Passengers leaning out of the windows,Waving until they are whisked away.

The world is merely the work of a painter,This is the truth I have accepted –Not made by a craftsman, beaten and moulded,Not a thing the hand can grip hold of,But an insubstantial visual sequence.Age follows age, never losing momentum,A stream of forming and passing pictures.Alone in the midst of the to-ing and fro-ingI watch the constant flux of the station

One – brush – the picture is painted,Another brush blacks it out again.Who are those coming from one direction?Who are those floating the other way?

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Freedom-bound

Frown and bolt the door and glare With disapproving eyes,Behold my outcaste love, the scourge Of all proprieties.To sit where orthodoxy rules Is not her wish at all –Maybe I shall seat her on A grubby patchwork shawl.The upright villagers, who like To buy and sell all day,Do not notice one whose dress Is drab and dusty-grey.So keen on outward show, the form Beneath can pass them by –Come, my darling, let there be None but you and I.When suddenly you left your house To love along the way,You brought from somewhere lotus honey In your pot of clay.You came because you heard I like Love simple, unadorned –An earthen jar is not a thing My hands have ever scorned.No bells upon your ankles, so No purpose in a dance –Your blood has all the rhythms That are needed to entrance.You are ashamed to be ashamed By lack of ornament –No amount of dust can spoil Your plain habiliment.Herd-boys crowd around you, street-dogs Follow by your side –Gipsy-like upon your pony

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Easily you ride.You cross the stream with dripping sari Tucked up to your knees –My duty to the straight and narrow Flies at sights like these.You take your basket to the field For herbs on a market-day –You fill your hem with peas for donkeys Loose beside the way.Rainy days do not deter you – Mud caked to your toesAnd kacu-leaf upon your head, On your journey goes.I find you when and where I choose, Whenever it pleases me –No fuss or preparation: tell me, Who will know but we?Throwing caution to the winds, Spurned by all around,Come, my outcaste love, O let us Travel, freedom-bound.

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Injury

The sinking sun extends its late afternoon glow. The wind has dozed away. An ox-cart laden with paddy-straw boundFor far-off Nadiyā market crawls across the empty open land, Calf following, tied on behind.Over towards the Rājbamśī quarter Banamāli Pandit’s Eldest son sits On the edge of a tank, fishing all day. From overhead comes the cry Of wild duck making their way From the dried-up river’s Sandbanks towards the Black Lake in search of snails.

Along the side of newly-cut sugar-cane Fields, in the fresh air of trees washed by rain, Through the wet grass, Two friends pass Slowly, serenely – They came on a holiday, Suddenly bumped into each other in the village. One of them is newly married – the delight Of their conversation seems to have no limit. All around, in the maze Of winding paths in the wood, bhāti-flowers Have come into bloom, Their scent dispensing the balm Of Caitra. From the jārul-trees nearby A koel-bird strains its voice in dull, demented melody.

A telegram comes: ‘Finland pounded by Soviet bombs.’

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