Exploiting Pears at Midnight

After a brief respite over the past two weeks: This week's entries are from Luo Fu, the first of hopefully many Taiwanese poets to be on this blog. He was born Mo Luofu on mainland China in 1928, in Hengyang, Henan province. In 1949 at the age of 21 he left home for Taiwan as the KMT and nationalists fled a losing civil war with the CCP. Luo Fu graduated from Taiwan's Tamkang University, and his work includes over 30 volumes of poetry. He also was one of the founders of Taiwan's Epoch (创世纪), an important poetry journal, and several sections from his most famous work, one of the first (or the first? I'm not sure) epic poems in contemporary Chinese poetry entitled Death in the Stone Cell (石室之死亡), were selected for inclusion in and translated for Cyril Birch's Anthology of Chinese Literature in the "New Poets of Taiwan" section. I really dug on a bunch of these, and ended up translating a whole chunk from this website, so below are six that I thought worked reasonably. He's got a really cool traditional feel, very very slow-moving at times, reminiscent of traditional Chinese regulated verse or haiku or some such thing. But the themes and style are definitely weirder, more surrealist. It rocks. Lots of fun translation issues, of course. One of the best is the title of the first poem, "carving pears at midnight" (午夜削梨). The third character, xue (削), ostensibly here means "slice, carve, cut, peel," but it is also a character in the word boxue (剥削), "to exploit, take advantage of." So the title has a second meaning: "exploiting pears at midnight." Read the poem and you'll see why this is awesome. Reminds of Georgia O'Keefe or something. Unfortunately I couldn't think of a more sexual way to say it than "carve," can anyone think of one? The title of the second poem is pretty cool as well: I found out that the rather rare term he uses for midnight, zi ye (子夜), also alludes to a Six Dynasties-era female poet who "wrote about the life and feelings of a woman of the night." Hmm, not really a good way to allude to that in English. Still, knowing about it definitely adds a nice extra richness to the poem. Allusions are definitely one of the toughest things about Chinese poetry. For example, I'm basically 100% sure that "birchleaf" in that same second poem, tang (棠), refers to the classical Book of Poetry because of the way it's used. Something about a river as well I think. I've got to look that up. In the meantime, any Chinese friends want to enlighten?

午夜削梨 冷而且渴 我静静地望着 午夜的茶几上 一只韩国梨 那确是一只 触手冰凉的 闪着黄铜肤色的 梨 一刀剖开 它胸中 竟然藏有 一口好深好深的井 战栗着 拇指与食指轻轻捻起 一小片梨肉 白色无罪 刀子跌落 我弯下身子去找 啊！满地都是 我那黄铜色的皮肤	|||	carving pears at midnight cold, and thirsty i quietly gaze upon, atop the midnight table, one korean pear that certainly is an ice-cold tentacled, brass-skin-flashing pear. one slice of the knife: its chest, to my surprise, hides one mouthful of a deep, deep well trembling, thumb and forefinger gently twist a small piece of pear flesh white and guiltless the knife drops, and i bend my body to search ah! the whole ground is all my brass-colored skin
子夜读信 子夜的灯 是一条未穿衣棠的 小河 你的信像一尾鱼游来 读水的温暖 读你额上动人的鳞片 读江河如读一面镜 读镜中你的笑 如读泡沫	|||	midnight, reading a letter the midnight lamp is a small river that’s not yet worn the birchleaf your letter is like a fishtail swimming up to me and i read the water’s warmth read those scales on your forehead read the Yellow and Yangtze, as if reading one side of a mirror i read your laugh in the mirror as if reading bubbles floating
河畔墓园 为亡母上坟小记 膝盖有些些 不像痛的 痛 在黄土上跪下时 我试着伸腕 握你蓟草般的手 刚下过一场小而 我为你 运来一整条河的水 流自 我积雪初融的眼睛 我跪着。偷觑 一株狗尾草绕过坟地 跑了一大圈 又回到我搁置额头的土 我一把连根拔起 须须上还留有 你微温的鼻息	|||	cemetery at the riverbank on visiting my mother’s grave my knee has some pain strangely painless as i kneel on this sand and clay i try to stretch my wrist and grasp your thistlegrass hand so recently descended and for you i bring a whole river of water flowing from my snow-filled, melting eyes i kneel. i steal a look at the foxtail that surrounds the graveyard running a great circle and returning to where my forehead touched the earth and i tear it up by the roots it must, must hold some measure of your breath, still warm
金龙禅寺 晚钟 是游客下山的小路 羊齿植物 沿着白色的石阶 一路嚼了下去 如果此处降雪 而只见 一只惊起的灰蝉 把山中的灯火 一盏盏地 点燃	|||	golden dragon in the temple the late bell, now visitors descend the mountain’s small path sheeptooth ferns alongside the white stone steps the whole journey, chewing things over if it snows in this place we may see a startled gray cicada take the lanterns of the mountain cup by cup, and ignite
洗 脸 柔水如情 如你多脂而温热的手 这把年纪 玩起水来仍是那么 心猿 意马 赶紧拧干毛巾 一抹脸 抬头只见镜中一片空无 猿不啸 马不惊 水，仍如那只柔柔的手 ——一种凄清的旋律 从我的华发上流过	|||	face-washing soft water like a feeling like your greasy, tepid hand that takes this age and plays in the water, still so ape-hearted horse-headed hurriedly twisting the towel dry a wipe of the face raising my head, surprised to see this chunk of emptiness ape unhowling horse unsurprised water, still like that soft hand -- a cold and clear melody flowing out and over my gray hair
剔 牙 中午 全世界的人都在剔牙 以洁白的牙签 安详地在 剔他们 洁白的牙齿 依索匹亚的一群兀鹰 从一堆尸体中 飞起 排排蹲在 疏朗的枯树上 也在剔牙 以一根根瘦小的 肋骨 -洛夫	|||	picking teeth noon all peoples of the world picking their teeth with pure white toothpicks serenely picking their pure white teeth tied to an equal crowd of vultures from amongst pile of corpses taking flight lined up squatting atop the sparse, withered trees and each picking their teeth with a small, thin rib -Luo Fu, t. Rob Voigt