Thursday 5 February 2015

5 Poems by Ouyang Yu

Advance 

someone says in the Age (11/9/04)
that Martin Amis gets an advance for £500,000
and that a Michelle Paver gets more, £3 million
this is all fine for me
till you have a closer look:
500,000 vs 3,000,000
the bigger figure has only one more zero
look closer still
except for 5 & 3
all the rest are zeroes


Drinkable stuff 

What is semen made of?
Is it drinkable?

I am made to wonder about this
When I watch expressionlessly
The two women swallow up
The whole loads of it

In the spoon of their tongues


In his own image 

they say
God created man
in his own image

I say
Ouyang Yu created Australia
in his own image


In Wagga Wagga 

With the arrival of a poet
Everything seems to go wrong

A breakfast becomes plastic
A workshop with minimal attendance

Because rain, over the Murrunbidge River, supposedly stopped
Any interested, even as slightly as the rain

And three nights
No visits by a single possum

I know, the correct spelling for the river is Murrumbidgee

And we thus have come full circle


Going fast 

what comes fast
goes fast

what goes fast
comes back fast

it comes back fast
it comes back fast

in this go-come-back process
you go fast


Bionote

Ouyang Yu has to date published 73 books in both English and Chinese languages in the field of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, literary translation and criticism. He is now teaching creative writing and literary translation in a Shanghai-based University.



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