Author: mascara

Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng is a poet, literary translator and publisher. Since 1997, Ng has been at the helm of firstfruits publications. In 2005 he won the Golden Point Award for Chinese Poetry. In 1991 his first book of poems were awarded Best First Book by the Taiwanese literary journal “The Modernist”. His poetry has been featured in journals in Singapore, India, Malaysia and Taiwan, and anthologized in China and Singapore. Ng is one of the awardees of the Singapore National Arts Council Arts Creation Fund 2009.

Yeo Wei Wei is a teacher, literary translator, and writer. Her interest in translation began during her PhD in English at the University of Cambridge. Her translations have recently been published or are forthcoming in journals in India, Taiwan, and the U. S. She is currently working on a translation volume of Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng’s poems (to be published in 2010). She lives in Singapore.

书虫

毛毛虫

吞吐一部份诗行

成可口香叶

一部份张贴在蛹

的内壁

取光

Bookworm

The caterpillar

Munches a few lines

Tasty leaves for its repast

Lining the walls of its cocoon

With the uneaten parts of the poem –

Therein and whence

The light.

家事

（一）灯火

水退以后

额头火红

犬吠声

篱笆好

一片月

住下，就是一生：

彩电

蕃薯

枪声

女人

齐齐蹲下

凝视远方的老鼠

时间似猫眼

（二）马戏

独眼牛

在杜撰的钢索上

平衡祖先

了无新意的

困境

猪在肥

水灾在雷

(三) 晚餐

武装

革命结束之夜

摸着石子

过河回来的元帅们

晚餐生蚝

佐以京戏：

黑猫白猫

穷追老鼠

From Family Matters

1. lamp light

After the flood recedes

foreheads red as fire

dogs barking

sturdy fences

a sliver of moon

To stay is to settle down, a lifetime:

colour tv

potatoes

gunfire

womenfolk

neatly crouching

time spies on mice in the distance

with watchful cat eyes

2. circus act

One-eyed bull

on the steel wire of fancy

calibrates the ancestors’

unoriginal

circumstance

pigs fatten

floods follow suit

3. dinner

In fatigues

the night the revolution ended

stepping on stones

the generalissimos cross the river, returning

raw oysters for dinner

peking opera for company

black cat white cat

hunt in vain for mice

十二月

如常的警笛声

果核纹路分明的下午

天蓝如此

下课以后球就会滚到另一边

雨后无辜的蘑菇

则不免让人分心

地表, 板块, 土拨鼠: 松动的日子

说不定难免就是

湿翠的菊花无端开落

december

the police siren makes familiar rounds

through the seed grooves of an afternoon.

thus the blue sky surveys:

a ball rolls from one end of the court to the other, after class.

mushrooms, newborn after the rain,

daintily lead the eye and mind astray.

these days of unwinding, a palpable reprieve tingling soil and sundry:

earth’s surface, tectonic plates, groundhog.

moments, perhaps, for spectatoring and speculation:

chrysanthemum flowers, bursts of moistened jade, bloom and fade, just so.

父亲素描

晚年

他的脸开满菊花

南中国海过的眼睛

不再潮汐

耳，继续路往天籁

鼻穴，深埋梁祝

嘴，沉默得很大声

唯双眉翔不出

翔不出

铁蒺藜，以及

铁蒺藜那边的泥土

Portrait of My Father

In the twilight years

His face bloomed into chrysanthemums.

The eyes that crossed the South China Sea

Were weaned off the tides.

The ears followed still the trail of nature’s sounds.

The nose, buried deep in the legend of the butterfly lovers,

The mouth spoke loudly without words.

Time and again his brows made the mad flight

Flailing again and again

before the barbed wire fence,

exiled by the barbed wire fence,

from the land over there.

想起杜甫

– 纪念与梅剑青同游悉尼的日子

风停了废墟开始浮出水面

急急急带雨: 床在异地, 前世是码头

天空系在脑后, 我们是风里来火里去的云

高人江湖满地, 踢踏过唐人街, 已是中年

猿声多一阵少一阵, 人倚斜了天涯

啸过冬天漫长的边境

哀伤的头颅内住着完整的瓷

Remembering Du Fu

– in memory of the time spent with Boey Kim Cheng in Sydney

After the wind died down, ruins rose from the water.

The rain poured, making haste, making haste:

our beds are remote from home; our past lives, a quay.

Sprawling behind the mind is the sky –

while we who have no care, we clouds blazing through wind and fire,

what care have we for the masters? Already there are too many in the world –

enough that Chinatown was our playground until middle age caught us playing truant.

Marking the rise and ebb of monkey cries, man leans to rest and the horizon slants.

Ranting and raving along the borderlines of winter;

The pained skull shelters a piece of porcelain, perfection no less.

Note:

In July 2006 I was in Sydney for the launch of Boey Kim Cheng’s book After The Fire: New and Selected Poems. It was a holiday as well as a work trip for me. We spent quite a lot of time traveling by car and we listened to his CDs of Du Fu’s poems.