Yan Hongya, who writes under the pen name Hong Hong (Hung Hung), was born in Tainan and attended primary school in Taoyuan. After two years in the Philippines (1977–79), he returned to Taiwan to attend middle school. He started writing modern poetry while in junior high and studied modern dance and theater while in senior high. He majored in drama at National Arts Academy and after graduation worked as a journalist and editor. From 1993 to 1995 he served as chief editor of the revived Modern Poetry Quarterly; he founded a theater group called Secret Hunters in 1994. He has been active in Taiwan’s avant-garde theater and film world as an actor, scriptwriter, and director.
Hong Hong has published three books of poetry, a volume of essays, a collection of short stories, and drama criticism.
1 Lonely Elephant
A bulky
enormous
blur,
the elephant,
passes through town
like a
fog,
gently touches
every single thing
(unbeknownst to us),
departs,
but leaves
its imprint on the walls;
disappears,
and we forget it.
Later, we find its carcass
atop the weather station
and realize it’s been standing there all along,
waiting for its kind.
2 Ravenous Pig
After breaking out of the feedlot and bolting,
it lives for a spell off garbage piles,
then scurries in and out of hospitals
snatching up food.
On occasion, you can see it running through an intersection,
sleeping soundly in grade-school lavatories,
or sightseeing at the museum,
staring red-eyed, drooling at the chin …
(we all feel taken aback)
But in the end it gets caught,
branded in red,
crushed and pulverized,
stuffed into cans
—its companions, the same—
and distributed to every supermarket in town.
At the dining table, we are eating minced meat—
a small wonder in life
disappears without trace.
3 Night Dog
Mercury vapor lamps shine on the broad avenue;
a dog
in the center of the intersection
hesitates.
No cars are passing;
what’s it still waiting for?
The whole city some time ago
sank into the curse of death;
why won’t you cross
to a safe place?
Are you giving thought
to the direction to go in,
or are you afraid
anytime that black car might come?
In the middle of the long night,
I also hesitate.
(1986)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
A drop of juice falls
on the poem that I’m reading;
I don’t at once brush it away.
Slowly it spreads
on this scented, measured line of indelible feeling.
A drop of juice falls,
falls on a new poem by a poet far away
who, in youth, was exiled even farther
to labor as a boiler maker, coal miner, shop mechanic,
where he came to know the migratory birds, the grasses and leaves—and young girls existing only in dreams;
went to prison and then, in a political reversal, was assigned to warehousing,
an insignificant position with nothing to do.
No one cares about any of this.
On a certain day in his forty-seventh year, a cherry tree bloomed outside his window.
He recalled a small alley from childhood, leading to that
sea deep in his heart; memory shining like sunlight
on the graffiti on the walls, so like a well-made poem, riding the wind,
flying over
the sea, landing on my desk.
I’m drinking the juice, but my heart’s not in it,
waiting for summer to pass. One summer in childhood,
I stole my mother’s bamboo bank, hit my older brother, and lied to my teacher.
When grown, I suddenly discovered I loved more than one girl, and so I began writing poetry.
After my older brother grew up, he taught me to flatten an aluminum can
after drinking from it, thereby decreasing the volume of the world’s rubbish
and, in a way, saving humanity from its excesses.
In passing, I squeeze out one last drop of juice
and spill it on the poet’s little alley. One drop of
juice, from who knows where—
remote South Africa or some other place? It was in an orchard
where it couldn’t hear the demonstration outside, the racial clashes; also, no one cared
about this one dark fruit.
It didn’t mind and kept growing;
didn’t mind being squeezed and packaged;
didn’t care one way or the other—
dripping.
Or, perhaps, it deeply desired to grow up;
felt pain when squeezed;
grieved as it dripped—
Either way, it’s just poetic speculation,
which we can’t rely on.
There is only its last fragrance,
color, brightness—
goose-down yellow—congealed on the poem.
When the hand lightly touches the glossy paper,
there is no way to feel the drop or the handwriting,
but when seen again, it
affirms the power of memory, full
fragrance, even to the extent of being sweet.
No one can mistake
it for a tear.
(1993)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
The dead woman in the garden
writes with intensity and speed—
a butterfly lifts up from the page.
Actually she is only translating—
work, like a spy’s, requiring courage, secrecy, calm—
like the insubstantial God of Death who shadows form down to the very last detail.
The only prohibition: the prohibited cannot be translated.
To translate is to open.
The first room has antique furniture;
the second, pearls, jade, gold, silver, and crystal vessels;
the third is circular, surrounded by bronze mirrors;
the fourth has a saddle, chains, a hunting rifle, a leather whip …
She becomes momentarily dizzy,
drops the key.
Don’t even mention the last forbidden room.
To translate in the garden
is better than standing on the deck of a boat approaching towering waves;
avoiding encounters with pirates, avoiding being thrown into cabins,
having to bear the sweat and tears in the bedding of the thousand women before.
It’s better than going to the market,
having to hear gossip about the love affairs of other women’s husbands;
better than going dancing at a dance hall—
those measuring gazes,
and not knowing which arrow is tipped with poison.
Better to translate than open the next room; better
than turning on the television
to see people of position talk with confidence and rehearsed smiles.
At least she knows she’s already dead
and must take advantage of the time her husband is away
to quickly finish translating the book;
to leave something behind would be intolerable.
He has been standing in the shade of the trees watching her a long time,
watching love’s last little remains—warm ashes—left on the paper.
Before she died, she was unable to discover
that he had many women.
Unable to make it to winter,
he split them into charcoal and stuck it in the stove, filling the room with fragrance.
He really wants to stick charcoal into her body,
make her burn.
But she is so composed,
her attention so focused,
she is perfectly oblivious to the day already darkening.
Yes, the book still has much to be done,
and translating requires such calm.
(1993)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
No war sits in
my home’s shaded hall;
no black cat crouches
at the turn of the stairs.
The dressing mirror breathes peacefully,
unfazed by the ant traversing it;
the books in the bookcase firmly bite their lower lips,
suffering book-eating worms to reach climax.
No dream was ever such a letdown.
Outside in my garden a beggar looks about.
No death was ever this depressing a departure,
unable to hear the sound of life.
On bamboo poles, clothes gradually lose their dampness;
in a distant place, a cigarette burns.
When fervent hope burns out, the real dark falls;
the soul’s branches and leaves begin to shine.
At this moment I can sense you, always close at hand;
ah, darkness is life’s best compensation.
But death can never permit any memories;
this time he brings the dawn.
(1993)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
The suitcase lost and found
once stopped alone at
a place you have never been to,
in your evening in its morning.
Humidity caused it to awaken.
A critical remark was made to it
in an unfamiliar language—
a mysterious unforgettable encounter
like flying through a sea of clouds at night
and glimpsing from a window
a pair of bright eyes inside another airplane.
You happily have reclaimed the suitcase.
Open it everything’s as before.
You take out a pair of socks, put them on take out a pen and write.
These possessions seem to you to be deep in thought,
but they really do not speak.
You suddenly realize,
perhaps you have never been friends and aren’t master and servant;
you depend on them like an animal depends on food.
Toward you they still keep their silence
like a stain on your collar that can’t be washed off,
to be endured a lifetime.
(1994)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
After love,
the two sleep without stirring till dawn.
Words of love
are cast to the floor
along with a sleeveless jacket, crumpled tissue paper, a set of unfamiliar keys.
A glass of slowly cooling water reflects the bright, growing light;
a half-eaten scoop of ice cream
melts uniformly
on the dark-green rug;
its strong, sweet smell of milk continues seeping, seeping, seeping into
the lowest layers of the rug,
saturating each inch it passes through,
just like their tongues after love that began to turn bitter,
and there’s no way to stop it.
In their dreams (whose dreams?),
in theirs, some people are dancing a duet out in the street,
going around in a large circle, slipping away toward someplace far,
tracing a perfect line
until out of sight.
(1995)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)
If I know a bowl of fruit, it can be a bowl that I love.
I love its transparency altering the shape of the fruit.
I love it placed on my table, even though this is a writing desk.
I love it holding fruit of every color, some fresh, some too long set out,
and whether I eat any or not.
Fruit combined looks exquisite or sublime.
The bowl bears it all in ignorance.
I love its ignorance.
If I know a watch, I can love this watch.
I love the long watchband, interrupted by the round watch face.
I love the watch lying gently face down on the table; hard then to imagine it dignified, secure on the wrist.
I love its three pinned hands, each turning at its own speed,
whether or not I perfectly understand these mechanical parts meshing together at its back.
It also doesn’t understand how it divides my whole life.
The watch in ignorance still runs.
I love its ignorance.
If I know a dictionary, I can love it to distraction.
I love its fastidious ordered arrangement, every page full yet neat.
I love its giving names to everything of form or no form.
I love its wavy cover when shut and the naked line of its spine.
I love its having numberless keys with no need for keyholes and no need to open doors;
I don’t even care what’s behind the doors.
I love to read the multiple meanings of every unfamiliar word, thereby forgetting my own complexity.
I love its ignorance.
(1997)
(translated by Mike O’Connor)