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| Yongding river-Beijing |
Every
noon in Beijing,
Straight
up at noon
The
hands of official clocks reach out
And
strangle anyone who passes by,
And when they are done,
They reach out and choke the sky,
And
a little boy or a little girl dies
In Beijing.
No
one cares.
Time
is murderous here.
Every
noon in Beijing
The Yongding river sits down
Like
a famished peasant
Caked
in grime beside the gutter
Of Lake Beihai
To
sit inconsolably with his grief
And
play xiangqi1 alone.
No
one asks him
If he has eaten.
No
one asks how his children are.
The
children of this river
Are
long dead.
All
games long over.
The river is now very red,
What remains of it.
Every
noon in Beijing
The
north wind
Hits
like a hammer.
Every
noon in Beijing
The
north wind
Cuts
like a sickle,
And
every noon, straight up at noon,
A
little boy or a little girl dies
In
Beijing.
Every
noon in Beijing
The
north wind
Is
forever rusted red
And
this wind is read religiously
Like
a state newspaper
That rifles past
The
feet of a sick pigeon
Or the tattered sandals of a desperate peasant
That
move dazedly past Beijing’s official clocks
And every noon in Beijing
A
little boy or a little girl dies.
No one cares.
Time
is murderous here.
When
I found myself at noon by
The
Yongding river beside Lake Beihai
Standing near an official clock
Whose hands strangle passersby
Below tattered, smoggy clouds that leave
No
scraps or crumbs
For
the sick pigeons and peasants of the state,
Below tattered, smoggy clouds that leave
Not a mite or particle
For
the sick pigeons and peasants of its hate,
Below tattered, smoggy clouds that leave
Not a drop or speck
For
the sick pigeons and peasants and their fate,
Famished
beside a vagrant river
Loosing again by checkmate,
Where all the little boys and girls die
At the hands of the official clocks
In Beijing
I
felt like choking myself with
The
Yongding river.
This
isn’t propaganda.
Xiangqi=Chinese chess, the most popular game in China, not to be mistaken with Go, which is known as weiqi in China.
One time zone in China- Though China is almost as wide as the continental United States, the whole country is officially in just one time zone based on Beijing time.
