DEAD WATER: Poetry, by Wen Yi Duo

DEAD WATER

“This is the moat of putrid water and despair, not a breath of the breeze ruffles. Better throw ourselves even ferracci rusted and copper pieces, and without remorse even the leftovers of the meal. Maybe the copper pieces they want to become green as jade, and tin boxes you embroider some peach flower petal; let the anointed make damask fabric above, and from the mold bait evaporating a rosy cloud. Let the stagnant water brewing becomes a moat of green wine, full of floating white foam that becomes a pearl; the laughing pearls become a big pearl, stolen and broken by the attack of the midges. Is the river of despair, dead water even manages to make a bit of clear water. If the frog can’t stand the loneliness, perhaps from standing water out a croaking. This is the water putrid ditch and despair. Here is not the place of beauty, then it is best that the wicked the come to dig, and we will see that the world will pull out. “

(Wen Yi Duo)