Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu now moves between China and Australia. A poet, novelist and critic, he has to date published 36 books including fiction, non-fiction, poetry and translation in both English and Chinese. Ouyang’s best-known works in English are his poetry collections Moon Over Melbourne and Other Poems (1995), Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997), short-listed for the 1999 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards) and Two Hearts, Two Tongues and Rain-Coloured Eyes (2002).

50

you are your own alter-ego
you see, life has not treated you badly
even though there were many times you thought it did, it didn’t
thing is, you don’t feel much desire for many things you used to
so passionately believe in. the sum-total of hard work seems to be
more of the same. you, and your self. in your language, alter-ego
is the opposite of the alter-ego, not the mirror image but the reverse side
of the mirror. it requires a strange translation to make sense: know-heart
hence the alter-ego that knows the heart. not true. the distance between a know
and a heart is a hyphen. often, it is this hyphen that cuts you apart
day after day you live with a diminishing sense of romance
the word itself having ceased to mean anything more than a mere memory
an age in which fallen teeth serve as part of an improvised interior
design and daily written things, fodder for future franchise the owner of those teeth
will not be a part of. incidentally, though, alter-ego is
the other self, the enemy of the self. hey, but what has this got to do
with the mathematics of it all. when will it happen? when the real
become the imaginary
here you go
here you go again

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