Luo Qing (Lo Ch’ing), pen name of Luo Qingzhe, was born in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and moved to Taiwan with his family in 1949. He received a B.A. in English from Fu Jen Catholic University and an M.A. in comparative literature from University of Washington, Seattle. He has been a Fulbright professor at Washington University in St. Louis and is currently a professor in the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University.
Luo Qing is a versatile artist, well known for his poetry as well as his paintings. Like his older contemporaries, such as Yu Guangzhong and Yang Mu (who was his teacher at the University of Washington), he lives the dual life of a poet and an academic, writing both creative works and literary criticism. In addition, he enriches this textual life with a vibrant career in the visual arts. His poems and paintings often are presented together in complementary sets and in both media. Luo is constantly experimenting with the limits of the materials and genres, in ways that defy not only native aesthetic conventions but also international ones. He is perhaps best known in both media for his playful, often zany, attitude toward established forms. To date he has published twelve books of poetry in Chinese, a collection of poems in English (see the bibliography), two volumes of essays, nine books of literary criticism, and three books of art historical criticism.
I stand here and look at you; you don’t look at me
I stand there and look at you; you still don’t look at me
I patiently stand in all the corners, in all the spaces
Looking at you—you never look at me
Only you can see me, but you don’t even look
You don’t look at me because no one can see me
No one can see me because
You don’t look at me
You don’t look at me, therefore I don’t exist
I don’t exist, then you don’t exist either, so there
Neither you nor I exist, well then, no one …
No way to exist
Yet, just suppose everything in everything
Approaches the danger of not existing
Would you still not give a damn about looking at me
About taking a look at me
If so then I might as well stand here quietly, or stand there
Stand in all the interiors, looking at you, looking at you
I might as well look at you and see you as everything, see everything as you
I might as well look at you and at everything, seeing it all as me
(1971)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
… the third watch begins and
With a lunge that stirs a gust of wind
I leap over your walls, outer then inner
To peer down into your intricately designed rooms
Seizing the chance, I merge with the flakes of falling snow
And float down soundlessly into your shadowed, forbidden courtyard
I hide among the wispy bamboo that you planted with your own hands,
Becoming your bodyguard, rifle shouldered in a near doze
It is I—come to murder you
Snow. Lying in secret ambush on the elegant roof tiles
Below the tiles, your warm, delicate bed
Blood. Thickly congealed on the cold hill of unmarked graves
Below the hill, my long-lost parents
If you would like to listen closely to the sound of falling snow
Then listen for my footsteps coming slowly toward you
My footsteps are silent, as silent as my shadow, and my shadow
Fearless and carefree, keeps bumping into your high-priced antiques
Just now I bumped into that narrow-necked vase that you treasure more than life itself
I’ll let her, since she is so cold and void, protect me, conceal me, rebelling against you
If you want to dream about petals and seeds that have fallen from that vase
Then dream about me.
The me of your dreams
Along with your heart and your bedroom are alike
Blacker than the night
The you caught in the gaze of my eyes
Along with my eyes and my dagger are alike
Flashing with light
In rhythm with your warm and steady breathing
I raise the sharp and gleaming blade—drive it into your chest, softly rising and falling
For an instant, everything around … with the universe caught in silence
Is so alluring and beautiful
(1972)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
—TALKING WITH PU SONGLING*
A sullen wind entices music from the lute strings
Rotten leaves scuttle toward the sheltering arcade
Strange clouds, bizarre stars
Paper windows, white as snow, grate like grinding teeth
The wooden gate stands slightly ajar, smiling a thin, silent grin
Suddenly, the murky clouds swallow the moon
And everywhere the earth is sunk into darkness
In this darkened void a single paper lantern
Floats up and down, round and round it goes
Lamp but no shadow
Light but no flame
Leisurely it roams
Through the pavilion, into one bedroom, then another
Putting out the light, one by one, of the faces
Terrified, mouth-gaping, wide-eyed faces
And then it is deadly quiet
Quiet like blood.
Oozing slowly from the skin of the four walls
Suddenly from deep within the entryway
A thin piercing laugh rises—
Rises like a strand of fine wire
Puncturing the layers of dark
Drawing forth a burst of flame, a strange wind
The heavy smoke smothers the dust piled thickly on the beams
The ashes cover the creaking furniture like shrouds
Tongues of flame lick the blood-spattered ground
Like tears, the drops of blood awaken the quiet, fearful courtyard
Above the courtyard wall
The round moon reemerges
Hanging there cool among the roaring flames
Silently shining into the dark corners of the wall
And there sticking up from the dirt
A pale, emaciated finger
Beckons you
Ever so slightly
(1976)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
ONCE MORE LOOKING OUT AT THE DEEP BLUE SEA AFTER LOOKING OUT AT THE DEEP BLUE SEA MANY TIMES BEFORE
On the calm and sweeping sea
There seems to be nothing at all
On the sea where there seems to be nothing at all
There is in fact simply nothing at all
It is just because there is after all nothing at all
That we know there was originally nothing at all
But on the calm and expansive sea
Is there actually nothing at all?
On the sea where there is nothing at all
Of course there is nothing at all
On the calm and sweeping sea
There is predictably completely and naturally nothing at all
Author’s note: Cao Cao’s first poem in the “Walking out of Summer’s Gate” sequence, titled “Looking out at the Deep Blue Sea,” was written in the seventeenth year of the Jian’an reign (C.E. 212). It goes like this:
Eastward we approach Stele Mountain
From there looking out at the deep blue sea
How peaceful and broad are its waters
Alpestrine spires stand on the mountain isle
Trees grow in profusion
The myriad plants are abundant
The autumnal winds sigh
Heavy waves surge
The course of sun and moon
Seems to start from there
The river of stars burning bright
Seem to rise from its depths
How very fortunate
That songs enchant intent
Also note: This is the first poem I wrote
with a Chinese word processor
Since the characters for “alpestrine spires” were not
contained in its memory
when I came to write the above note
I had to create them with the character-graphics program
(1985)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
1. It Must Be Made of Salt
I really would like to say
That Córdoba, white against the sky,
Is a city of sugar cubes
But I can’t, and I won’t
Write it that way
2. Tangerine Streetlights
There in Córdoba
The cobbles click as donkeys lightly tread
… along cobblestone streets
And tangerines so orange
… under the dark green leaves
The yellow light illuminating
And reviving … the dark road home
For all the night travelers
… returning to their hotels
3. Porcupines Under the Lemons
There in Córdoba
Under the lemon trees we
Gaze up at all that tangy fruit
Bumping against each other in the windless night
Bringing out the countless, soundless stars
To shine on us below
Like porcupines
Under the lemon trees
4. Knocking Alight
There in Córdoba
We spread wide our hands
To push open the narrow lanes
Knocking open the carved frames of windows
Along the surrounding walls
We call out to awaken
Each and every lamp within those very windows
Knocking alight
The long road snaking up the mountain
And at the end of the road
At the highest place on the mountain
We knock alight
The whole starry night
5. Olive Man
There in Córdoba
We take our wine
With the songs of wandering minstrels
Music as salty as salted fish
And as bitter as bitter absinthe
As brutal as the noonday sun
And as tart as midnight lemons
In the end all is turned into
Green olives bursting open
Caught in the throat
Burning like
too many glasses
Of cheap liquor
6. Coffee Annotations
There in Córdoba
In a little restaurant
We are having our breakfast
With a vagrant who introduces himself
With dirty and tangled hair
Smiling at everyone
With his broken shoes
And praising the talents of the baker
With his beard full of bread crumbs
Every once in a while
He dips his brown finger
Into the deep black coffee
To annotate and amend our lives
7. Dreams and Trash
There in Córdoba
When the evening bell tolls
Each ring drops into our drinks
Like an ice cube
Translucent and sparkling cold
There it stirs up lines
Of dream bubbles
To be inhaled into the lanes
Like straws of wheat
To those dark
And winding lanes
Dawn comes like a still and silent
Street sweeping machine
Through its immense silver straw
It inhales the trash blowing along the streets
As well as all the tattered dreams that hang and flap in the wind
Above the window frames
8. Doors Within Doors
There in Córdoba
Each door
Is different:
A different color
Or a different shape
A different size
Or a different thickness
And each door handle
Is different
And so are
Their knockers
And even the small doors
In the main doors are each of its own kind
And in those small doors
Are windows, large and small,
Opening onto
Accidently revealing
A dark and quiet courtyard
hidden in our hearts
Perhaps pristine, or filthy
Well kept, or run down
(1991)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
—A CRITIQUE OF FALL
Oh, Fall, damn Fall,
I can see you from afar
You are coming after all
But I refuse
To invent for you
Any sort of metaphor
I wouldn’t want to say
That you are a carpet woven out of red and yellow leaves
Or a wire net knitted from the black branches of trees
Nor would I say
That you are a harvest basket brimming with fruits and grains
Or a bronze brazier holding the ashes of tattered blossoms and wilted grasses
I just couldn’t say
That you are the chilling words from the wagging tongues of falling leaves
Incited by the bawdy poet’s drunken face, purple blotches among the red
No way could I say
That you are perfume factory upon perfume factory burned down by a mad,
Middle-aged arsonist, lawless, godless, and on the most-wanted list
I have never said
That you are abstract impressionism infused with minimalism
Or romantic realism with a touch of terrorism
I would not dare say
That you started a French Hair Revolt in China with its billion plus people
Or a Cultural Revulsion in France with its white frost and countless red maples
Even less would I dare say
That you are the red October Revolution that was launched from within the green watermelons of June
Or the white waves of the May Fourth student protests that arose from within the blue
Mediterranean Ocean of March
No, I absolutely will not recognize
You as a member of some underground party who likes to brush lightly against
My fifty-year-old right shoulder with the single last leaf
Oh, Fall, damn Fall,
I can see you from afar
Can see you coming after all
But I refuse to call
Out to you
In any sort of way
For although I should have, at the very least,
More than forty different ways
To damn you till your head hangs between your legs
I refuse to do so, definitely refuse
Because, you see, it’s still
Spring
(1996)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
Although Taipei is filled with
Many, so many cars
And people
and animals too
Still I just must invent
One more little car
And a person
And an animal too
Quietly I would place them
Those little things
In sprawling
Taipei
A car with headlights but no engine
A person who can walk but cannot talk
And there would also be an avileporophidia possum*
Who casts no shadow but can imitate the calls of birds
If here in Taipei
You happen to hear, or see, or even meet them
Please just wink
And smile
(1996)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
Every tree, yes, every one, is one—
A living, growing quatrain;
Birds hopping … through its branches:
Marks of moving punctuation!
(1997)
(translated by Joseph R. Allen)
*Pu Songling was the author of the eighteenth-century classic, Strange Tales from the Liao Studio, a collection of supernatural stories.
*Qiuyu, a mythical animal with the body of a rabbit, a bird’s beak, the eyes of an owl, and a snake’s tail. It closes its eyes when it sees someone.