a shadow always follows behind me

by Yao Feng

a shadow always follows behind me
with my file wrapped inside
I don't know who compiles it
and I don't know what it says
but given my shaky future I can guess
that in the file, I am an ungrammatical sentence
repeatedly corrected by a hooded man
until I fire a shot at the shadow

The literal translation of this poem was made by Chenxin Jiang

The final translated version of the poem is by The Poetry Translation Workshop

Notes

This poem is untitled in its original version. Because of the way our website is set up, we've had to add the first line as a title.

Comments

  1. November 24th, 2011 at 4:42 am

    Yao Feng says:

    Thanks for your works.Here is another version  of  this poem

     

    at the plenary meeting

    three thousand right hands are raised

    at the same level

    like a lawn trimmed by a mower

     

    a spring swallow

    opened its scissors tail

    flew past above my arm

    I gave out a sad, shrill cry

    Translated by Hilda Tam and Kit Kelen

     
     for reference:

     


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