The Western Days

Jet Lag

Back to back, two egos disputing 
One vast oceanic mind—a quilt
Could be an analogy here—the water in the fishpond 
Hibernates, silt slipping through the net, the selfish
Family clear-cuts their land of trees in the name of progress 

. . . but reminiscence 
Is not a dinner party, rather it’s a country wife stretched to her limits, 
Letting go, holding back, avoiding tax, her 
Cheap plastic underpants agape to the north wind of discord, hometown 
Vistas fade in distant lands’ rich days, while her wind of discord could
Inflate a hot air balloon, her husband with a resounding fart
Crosses the sea and heads east, despite lives lived in different rooms, 
Death will be spent in the same grave, an active responsibility system 
Seen from another angle is clear-cutting the land of standards. 

 

The First Day

America, where beautiful endeavors unfurl like stripes on the flag, 
Between two oceans, one isolated land,
Fat is a defensive measure under these stars. 

Light rain, faint heart, small crowds unaligned, 
Every transiting tourist carries a bomb: 
A camouflaged apple, an incongruous act, a homeland.   
“Onmycoat the damp chill of dew”, a cold sweat as beams expose each scar,  
     Click — the sound of suspicion
     Thump — of sudden flesh
Confidential cases, hand-carried, open locks pried apart, 
Pray to Allah: let there be light,
And there will be light; become a monk and seek enlightenment to see. 



The Third Day  

Little bird, 
Red garb, red crest, 
Farfromhome I didn’t know you at first, 
Looking like some mixed-up punk 
Under the vine trellis. 
Early autumn’s urgency sets clarity in motion,  
A dog’s clarity sets urgency in motion, 
Interrogation of rocks, 
Self-criticism by squirrels, 
Another year,  
Of ripened fruit exploding their skins,  
The race to liberate the universe 
Unifies the triggers that 
Set this purple haze in motion. 

 

National Flag 

The clinic represents the motherland, 
Beyond the gates, below the porch, 
The wooden stars and stripes hang immobilized. 
The garden represents the twin towers, 
As the dentist chews his pork, 
His soul is occupied with marigolds and hydrangeas,  
A clump on the left, a thicket on the right
Proliferating like international flights. 
The cornfield represents the government,
Loose shirt, short pants, 
Sentimental, bloated,
Light radiating in all directions, illuminating
The heights and depths, illuminating the distant allure 
Of export subsidies with legs pried open.
Tooth decay represents the bride, 
The trash can represents the marriage contract, 
The Third World represents the wedding night. 

 

The Seventh Day 

Calm the nerves. Calm the mind. 
Go to bed. The earth rises inthesouth east 
Illuminating my frigid palace on the moon. The moon goddess graces the stage,
Armstrong retires, and the moon of science waxes 
Then wanes. The sheets: craters of the moon.   

Detach the body. Detach the mind. 
Get up to pee. The earth is relaxed and round. 
From my pavilion near the water,one earth is worth a hundred stars. 
Aliens analyzethevapors, and abduct the stinking 
And decrepit.  Wet dream: another Sunday on that globe. 

 

Slight Incline 

The streetlamp is a mouth full of ashes 
(the ashes of light at dusk) 
Twisting and flickering, unanimously nullifying 
The upright honesty of the legislature.   

The electric current in the sidewalk persists.
The spring in the jogger’s stride persists. 
The roaming soul of the daydream persists. 

“Fine grass ruffled by the breeze from shore”
Three righteous ones, 
Travelling incognito observe from on high,
One poor,
One sick, 
One sad, 
A cruise missile soars overhead, 
All trace of western paradise obliterated. 

 

Hair’s Breadth 

An apparition, a ghost on a reality trip
Defecating, urinating, moaning, coughing, and spitting 
As it paces the innocent skies. 

A tractor heads south, a single mother heads west, 
Isolated mountain hermitage meets bustling intersection,
All in needless repetition. Dare to ask: can the boundless universe
Be contained in a hair’s breadth?Meanwhile the ghost goes with the flow,   
Overdue for reincarnation and still not enlightened, 
Treating a headache with booze, drinking tea for a hangover, 
Sick of tea trying marijuana, high on weed turning to rock and roll, 
Sick of rock and roll, starting on the poems of Han Shan. It’s a ghoulish 
Labyrinth to trap empty souls: reinforce the shore, reinforce the shore. 
Imported trash, always ridiculing Hinayana.  



Distant Burn                           September 11, 2009

Dropped to half-mast. A carnival of flicking the remote control. 
An old woman takes to the streets, demanding
The extermination of Israel. Return me to myself unborn. 

Beneath the lowered flag the mind flutters
This morning dense with cloud, dusk seeded with electricity,
Day of remembering, fishing for words, eyes on programming, 
Canned resentment comes  half price. 

Meanwhile a pick-up truck wholeheartedly
Hauls home an empty load.  
 


Raising Calm 

Every day, white fences paint the earth
Into pens, grapes mound in purple disarray,
Defects decaying to a pile of sweetness.       

Every day, if it doesn’t rain water, arbitrarily it
Rains umbrellas, distant water never reaches the shore, 
Sunlight replicates moonlight’s many wrinkles.

Every day, squirrels play at tranquility, 
The tranquility nibbles acorns, acorns
Don’t need a mess of words and paper to convey environmental teachings. 

Every day, bamboo plants can grow into bed mats,
The farmer’s wife craves an Alien adventure, and gets 
The supermarket, where rare treasures pass as edible. 

Every day, the world’s wanderers trawl online
Through the frenzy of things, as clouds and mud intersect
And reflect express deliveries, reading Genesis as chaos.  

 

Twin Cities 

In an ethnic subdivision: 
One skinny horse runs into another;
Hell is other horses, motherfuckers. 

Absurdistan has contaminated
Correctistan, now betrothal 
Is a conduit for new gods, resentment
Walks in human clothes, homes
Sleep with eyes open, neighborhood
Sports meets happen round the clock, a dice throw decides 
Long and short, right and wrong, color. 

The moon shines through a thousand windows: a thousand different moons; 
Gentle breezes merge at the garbage dump. 

One person digs a hole; 
One person fills up the hollow;
One person digs the hole hollow;
One person fills up the hollow hole;
One person borrows the hollow hole to dig the hole hollow;
One person relies on the hole’s hollow to bury the hollow hole.  

To be a poet is to be dizzy with vertigo: 
Two books of scripture, entirely new, entirely salty and sour. 
One says a long whip won’t reach a horse’s belly, 
The other says words can crush tanks. 

 

The Eighteenth Day 

Dignified shame. Beautiful dirt. 
Translation: the world for no reason bestows tomatoes. 

 

Wandering Immortal 

The night speeds by as people relax, a young girl’s heart grows lonely. 
Nude images reflect the nature of the self, lechers 
Restless at their webcams, over fantasies
Distant and endless, nightclubs
Hard-boiled, seething like electrified
Chilli oil, electrified nerves, an endless parade of 
Species, ages, nationalities, shapes, and sizes rolling on through.  

Electrified tales of the supernatural, this is how joy is diluted.
Electric speech. Electric light. Electric cohabitation.  
No fixed abode. No limits. No need for contraception. 

 

Guesthouse 

An airbus stranded like a castle in the sky, 
Reckless leviathan both delicate and soft,
Comrades flung far apart, 
Gathering stars in passing.                                                       

Clocks, diluted stars, 
Menopausal tides, improvised lines;
The one-eyed man walks unhindered,
Oblivious of falling or of the chasm’s depth. 

 

The Twenty-Seventh Day 

After a devastating fall of rain, 
The primordial grass is saved, hearts are refreshed
The water-logged tourist 
Heads for the equator where day and night are equalized, 
Where day and night equalize the devastation             
Of a shoal of fish. In all the seven seas there is nowhere to call home. 

Thoughts of home seasons?
A pretext for reasoning.
Thoughts of seasoning?
A pretext to read the Analects of Confucius
Or sing in unison the Internationale? 

A devastating flock of field mice
Heads for the kitchen, and with ragged ears
Water-logged, dress up and eat a meal, 
The primordial grass echoes, water vessels form an army,
Water vessels hone the devastation
Of a shoal of fish: a foreign country feels like a death sentence. 

 

Turning Clouds 

Heading to the mall, the vast sky draws up its mantle. 
Village fields rip away each moment as it passes its self by date. 
Traffic surges, the wind rolls through
Blowing in waves. The highway
Replicates the Yangtze River, both shores shimmer with jumping pearls of rain,
Briefly suspended, crime gangs blot the land  
With chaos, darkening the mountains.  The mountains are an outlet store, 
With vicious squabbling over bargains, the world
Is holding a flash sale, stripping the shelves, and won’t be keeping poetry in stock. 



Sanitation 

The tomcat lifts his queen in an embrace, 
The dignified and proper proffer happiness.  
Find a pretext to cease the internal struggle — 
Everything can be bad for you, and yet be
An indication of every stain scrubbed clean. 

 

Destined Lovers

Recycling waste material, a man and woman sit down to eat and wait for death, 
It’s the gold-banded cudgel of Sun Wukong writ large, a tool for indulging excess,  
The downside of preserving health is this: I’m alive, but running out of time.   

 

Greylag Goose 

Warm winter, exhaust fumes rising, 

through the act of walking one becomes a pedestrian
And dissolves the word ‘person’, voice cut off from its roots, 

the body finds itself 
In Chicago, a quagmire of strangers. 

You emulate the goose, lifting my wings, 
Emulatingtheashen faced warrior
Cao Mengde. 

 

Wasteland

On a Sunday afternoon, a small piece of the universe lies
Abandoned: cumulonimbus clouds stacked overhead, feeding 
The non-beauty that no one pays heed to, a gravel road alongside, 
Above the pylons, a bald eagle idles, peering 
At the fields that no-one has clear harvested for the greater good. 

A small piece of cultivated wasteland, farmland 
Abandoned, on a Sunday afternoon, a meticulous 
Chessboard of fields, on this nominally correct but going nowhere
American continent, before Columbus known anonymously thus: 
“No prairie fire can destroy the wild grass, 

it shoots up again with the winds of spring.” 

A handful of wildly ambitious families felled the young trees,
Set the emptiness upright, the even more wildly ambitious plants
Crackled as they burned but stayed green within, abandoning the fruits of autumn, 
Ignoring passingtravelersflaying, biting and wrangling, ignoring
The wood fungus with both ears listening, ignoring the minor nagging of mushrooms.  

Beneath the oaktree someone is searching for
Desire Under the Elms, retrieving the 
small purple alfalfa flowers that you and I retrieve from each other, 
We are scattered like stars, on a muddy Sunday
Afternoon, pleading with the pine needles and thorn bushes we cherish. 

A small place, abandoned but eventful, intentional 
And arbitrary, an iron fence delineating unintended 
Limits, a small abandoned place imploring Columbus
To undo Sunday and all it implies, a farm that is a drowsing wasteland, 
A dozing farm where village children run hand in hand to tip over a cow.  

 

Pre-Agrarian  

Human, all too headstrong.  
Inflatable superheroes rely on the conflicts in human nature 
An inflatable, headstrong peace, beneath the obelisk
The inflatable superhero’s intern gives him a blowjob,
Relying on that headstrong fountain of joy to shatter the boredom.  

The loneliness of the inflatable superhero is a prison drawn 
By the state, the peace between lies and lies, 
The willfulness of God and the devil, a bicycle pump 
Lifts straight the cloudy sails, betting the unmanned aircraft
Can see its shadow below as it crosses the blue-green sea: a few suicide bombers, 
He shuts his eyes and sees the secondhand entrance to eternity.   

 

The Thirty-Sixth Day 

All of creation provides for the other. 
I am without you, impersonating the abundance of non-being. 
The western days rear up, jostling idioms together, and are silent, 

dissipating the East, 
Superstitious about its limits: forming a line of improbable days. 

Lacking rice to scatter as rain, or any trace of awkwardness, 
Imagine yourself as God, energy wearing thin, burning through borrowed stability.
Imagine yourself as water, Judgement Day an illusion, learning society by probing its designs. 

Your father retires, becomes enlightened, travels as far as the balcony where he shakes out his wings. 
In aConfucianrite you hear as a cicada’s song, all is forgotten.

 translated from the Chinese by Catherine Platt

For her excellent translation of Han Bo's work, Catherine Platt is one of two runners-up of the 2019 Close Approximations Translation Contest in the Poetry category. Read judge Eugene Ostashevsky's citation and discover the other contest winners

Translator's notes:

I met Han Bo at the Vermont Studio Center in 2018, paired as poet and translator by a Luce Foundation Chinese Poetry Fellowship. We worked on a series of poems he wrote on an earlier trip to the USA in 2009, The Western Days, in which he considers the cyclical, interconnected nature of life as seen by ancient Chinese philosophy, in contrast with the more linear, progressive viewpoint of western traditions. By no means a simplistic dualism, the poems probe the complexities of how west and east perceive each other, in a flickering parade of glimpsed people, places and conundrums. 

The first poem in the series, “The First Day”, describes Han Bo’s arrival in America and the experience of going through immigration as a foreigner. Having read some of his earlier, more narrative work, I admit to being baffled, and to alternately admiring and loathing the poem as I despaired of translating it in any meaningful way. The poem itself is an apt metaphor for my process, as rays of light slowly pierced the confusion. A moment of despair proved to be a turning point and necessary rite of passage in translating each poem, along with multiple drafts, online research and helpful consultations with Han Bo. It helped to have lots of time in Vermont, a beautiful writing studio in a converted church and the poet himself right across the corridor, happy to explain his thoughts over coffee. I found that as each poem gradually yielded its secrets my fascination with it grew, so that by the time one possible English version was coaxed into shape it had won me over completely and I couldn’t wait to start the next one. In fact, immediately after leaving Vermont I began translating the new poems Han Bo had written during the residency. 

Han Bo asks a lot of the reader in these poems. His language is inventive and sometimes startling, employing homophones, sound effects, visual puns and neologisms, juxtaposing ancient and modern, real and imagined in a shimmering cascade of images. Challenges included how to reflect in English the homophones, alliteration and word play of the original. Incorporating classical references was another issue. I began by notating each one, but in the end left them as quotations, or formal images woven into the text. Traditional poetry has a surface perfection and Han Bo likes to disrupt surfaces of all kinds in order to delve beneath. The scarcity of grammar is also noteworthy. By mostly avoiding an individual voice, Han Bo creates a sense of shared space and consciousness, but also ambiguity. Minimal prepositions or conjunctions leave the relationship between ideas, images and phrases open to interpretation, while the lack of tense, sometimes even of a verb, allows multiple readings of a phrase in Chinese. The translator’s challenge is how to capture this playful multiplicity in English whilst maintaining the pared-down style, aiming to convey some of the ways these multi-faceted gems reward the reader with shifting viewpoints and insights.

 原文

第西天（2009 美国爱荷华）

时差


背靠背，两位自我
争执一道汪洋——棉被
的喻旨——来自鱼塘，水
冬眠，淤滑漏网，家庭自私
而进步且砍光小树……但回忆
不是请客吃饭，却是扯紧被角的
婆姨，疏松，吞吐，无提留，她的
塑料内裤勤俭收持不周风，故土
云枯，他乡日肥，她的不周风
鼓胀热气球，放响屁的汉子
渡海东去，生则异室，死
则同穴，活泼的责任制
一分为二砍光标准。



第一天

美丽的事业条纹相间，
两座海洋，一线孤岛，
脂肪是坚壁者唯一的星空。

小雨，小心，小规模群而乱党，
每一位中转旅客手提炸弹：
伪装的苹果、妄行或故乡。
披衣觉露滋，射线无透痕，
“咔”地一声，疑似
“嘭”地一下，人肉
手提明锁被撬的暗箱，
替真主求全：要有光，
于是就有了光；光头圆脑作僧看。

 

第三天

小鸟，
红衣红发，
远人初未识，
浑作朋克看，
葡萄架下，
初秋急迫至清晰，
狗儿清晰至急迫，
翻问石块，
检讨松鼠，
又一年，
火药填满果皮，
解放宇宙竞赛
团结扳机
至淤紫。



国旗

诊所代表祖国，
门前，廊下，
木雕的旗帜迟滞不动。
花园代表双子塔，
牙医咀嚼猪肉，
灵魂参与臭菊、绣球、
左一蓬右一簇
国际航班似的野草。
玉米地代表政府，
宽衣，短裤，
多情，肿胀，
光恩被四表，格于
上下，格于出口补贴
掰开双腿的遥艳。
蛀牙代表新娘，
废物箱代表婚约，
第三世界代表初夜。
 


第七天

安歇。安神。
上床。地出东南隅，
照我广寒宫。嫦娥登场，
阿姆斯特朗退役，科学月满
则亏。床单：太阴之精的环形山。

分身。分神。
起夜。地球又松又圆，
近水楼台，百星不如一地。
外星人剖解蒸汽，绑劫腥甜与
昏聩。梦遗：彼一只圆球的星期天。



小坡

口含灰烬的路灯
（夕光的灰烬）
扭扭歪歪，一致
作废议会的平直。

人行道电量尚存，
慢跑者弹簧尚存，
白日梦游魂尚存。

细草微风岸，
三个正义者，
微行俯瞰，
一个穷，
一个病，
一个悲，
导弹飞过，
西天删尽痕迹。



毫发

一个幽灵，远征现实的幽灵，
屙屎送尿，呻吟咳唾，
在天真上空徘徊。
拖拉机偏南，拖油瓶偏西，
孤峰顶上动触十字街头，
头上安头。斗胆问：大千
入毫发？幽灵随波逐流，
往生过期而不自知，头痛
医酒，酒痛医茶，茶痛
医大麻，大麻痛而医摇滚，
摇滚痛始医寒山。方寸
地虚鬼打墙：住岸，住岸。
进口垃圾，长破小乘痴。



远烧

降半旗。遥控器狂欢。
老妪敷街，讨翦
以色列。还我未生我。

旗下跑题心将半，
今晨浓云，傍晚种电，
节日钓话节目，
罐装愤慨半价。

皮卡全心全意，
拉回一车无事。



养恬

每天，白栅栏画地
为牢，葡萄叠乱紫，
缺点烂漫一堆甜蜜。


每天，水不下雨乱
下伞，远水不近岸，
日光复制月光多皱。

每天，松鼠扮空寂，
空寂啃橡果，橡果
对境棒喝不乱字纸。

每天，蔬笋生床笫，
农妇渴求异形乱得
超市，鳞角欺食材。

每天，越洋人网购
荒莽事，云泥交集
快递，看乱创世纪。



连城

民族细分：
一匹瘦马撞见另一匹；
他马即地狱；他妈的。


荒诞斯坦病入
正确斯坦，婚触
取鬼神，怨忿
上人衣，屋舍
睁眼睡觉，邻里
三更运动会，互掷
长短是非颜色。

月入千窗：体千分；
和风搭在：垃圾场。

一个人挖坑；
一个人埋空；
一个人挖坑中之空；
一个人埋空中之坑；
一个人借坑空挖空坑；
一个人凭空坑埋坑空。

作诗人头晕目眩：
两册经书，咸与咸酸，
一册鞭长不及马腹，
一册言谋扑破坦克。



第十八天

端庄羞耻。漂亮肮脏。
译作：天地无端赠番茄。



游仙

夜驰人闲，少女之心孤起。
艳照悬想自性，登徒子
熙攘摄像头，幻事
远而不尽，犹似
水煮夜总会，电子
红油，电子神经，不尽
物种年龄国籍肥瘦滚滚来。

聊斋触电，欢欣淡如此。
电语。电光。电子试婚。
无住。无度。无需避孕。



客栈

空中客车搁浅空中楼阁，
鲸的胡乱又细又软，
同志鸟兽散，
随手捏星辰。

时钟，掺水的星辰，
潮汐绝经，口占一联：
独目之人纵横走，
浑然不觉落深坑。



第二十七天

潦倒一场雨后，
草昧得救，人心积水，
潦草的观光客
倒向赤道：昼夜平分，
昼夜平分鱼群
的潦倒。四海不为家。

思乡？
假托思想
思香？
假托《论语》
齐唱《国际歌》？

潦倒一群田鼠
倒向厨房，破着耳朵
潦草穿衣吃饭，
草昧喷响，水壶皆兵，
水壶磨刀鱼群
潦草：他乡犹言死刑。



翻云

购物途中，长空掀长衫。
乡野撕去过期的一叶。
车流生波，卷地风来
吹皱聚散。高速公路
复制长江，两岸跳珠
悬不住，黑社会翻墨
乱遮山。山是特卖场，
折扣厮杀痴嗔，天地
清仓，裸行虽好不留诗。



卫生

公猫端母猫，
端士端欢喜。
端身战借端忽止——
万端不健康，
端倪各搓泥。



冤家

废物利用彼此的男女坐吃等死，
放大金箍棒，如意过度的机器，
保健不幸：我活着，但没时间。



灰雁

暖冬，废气上空，行止自成行者
解散人字，声绝故根，身投
芝加哥，陌路人的泥潭。

你拟灰雁，举我翅，
拟面无人色
曹孟德。



蓄莽

礼拜日午后，一小块宇宙
疏忽：排云悬垂锥乳，哺养
无人理睬的不美，砂土路一侧，
电线杆上，秃鹰闲置，斜视
无人收割清楚至善的田地。

一小块蓄养的荒莽，农业
疏忽，礼拜日午后，勤勉的
棋局聊备一格正确但一事无成
的美洲，哥伦布襟前，匿名：
野火烧不尽，春风吹又生。

一小撮野心家，放倒小树，
扶正虚高：野心勃勃的草木
虽萧瑟而外焦里嫩，抛下秋实，
放任过客剥咬且争辩，放任
木耳兼听，放任蘑菇磨蹭。

有人在衰朽的橡树下检索
榆树下的欲望，检索你与我
彼此检索的一小块苜蓿的粉紫，
你我星星点点，沾满礼拜日
午后央求襟的针叶与刺球。

一小片疏忽多事，多刻意
寄任意，铁丝围栏界定无意
有限；一小片疏忽央求哥伦布
倒退出礼拜日：农场困荒莽，
农场困村童携手推倒奶牛。



未牧

人性的，太任性的。
充气超人依恃人性的战争
充气任性的和平，方尖碑下，
充气超人的实习生口含阴茎，
依恃任性喷泉欢腾有力破闷。

充气超人的孤独是国家画地
为牢，是谎言与谎言的和平，
上帝与魔鬼的任性，打气筒
直挂云帆，打赌无人战斗机
顾影自济的沧海：一些肉弹，
他闭眼看见永恒的二手入口。



第三十六天

万物皆备于他。
我匮乏你，假扮无我的富裕。
第西天拔地挨挤成语而无言，弥散东，
迷信他的尽头：一线，不应该的天。

贫乏洒米成雨，窘困人的痕迹，
置身神，能量破旧，烧毁借贷的安定。
置身水，幻想地的末日，风闻会社问设计。

父亲退休，光头圆脑，远赴阳台振翅。
礼乐：知了，知了，全忘了。

△

韩博 诗人，剧作家，导演，旅行作家和艺术家。1973年出生于黑龙江牡丹江，现居上海。 他出版了包括《飞去来寺》等五本诗集。 他的剧本在中国和美国演出，他的诗歌获得了包括刘丽安诗歌奖在内的奖项。 

凯瑟琳·佩雷特（Catherine Platt）美国Montclair文学节的合办人。 英国人，2004年至2016年生活在中国成都，她在那里管理老书虫国际文学节。 她的小说，诗歌，以及翻译发表于《亚洲文学评论》，《马拉：成都老书虫文学评论》等。她翻译的韩博《第西天》组诗是渐近线2019年翻译竞赛诗歌组的获奖作品。

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