Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng; translations by Yeo Wei Wei

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

 

Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng is a poet, literary translator and publisher. Since 1997, Ng has been at the helm of firstfruits publications. In 2005 he won the Golden Point Award for Chinese Poetry. In 1991 his first book of poems were awarded Best First Book by the Taiwanese literary journal “The Modernist”.  His poetry has been featured in journals in Singapore, India, Malaysia and Taiwan, and anthologized in China and Singapore. Ng is one of the awardees of the Singapore National Arts Council Arts Creation Fund 2009.

 

 

Yeo Wei Wei is a teacher, literary translator, and writer. Her interest in translation began during her PhD in English at the University of Cambridge. Her translations have recently been published or are forthcoming in journals in India, Taiwan, and the U. S.  She is currently working on a translation volume of Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng’s poems (to be published in 2010). She lives in Singapore.

 

 
 
 
 

书虫                     
 
毛毛虫
吞吐一部份诗行
成可口香叶
 
一部份张贴在蛹
的内壁
 
取光
 
 
Bookworm                
 
The caterpillar
Munches a few lines
Tasty leaves for its repast
 
Lining the walls of its cocoon
With the uneaten parts of the poem –
 
Therein and whence
The light.
 
 
 
家事       
                                       
（一）灯火  
 
水退以后
额头火红
 
犬吠声
篱笆好
一片月
住下， 就是一生：
 
彩电
蕃薯
枪声
女人
齐齐蹲下
 
凝视远方的老鼠
时间似猫眼
 

（二）马戏

 
独眼牛
在杜撰的钢索上
平衡祖先
了无新意的
困境
 
猪在肥
水灾在雷
 
 
(三) 晚餐
 
武装
                   革命结束之夜
                   摸着石子
                   过河回来的元帅们
                                            
晚餐生蚝
                    佐以京戏：
                    黑猫 白猫
                    穷追老鼠
 
 
 
 
From Family Matters
 
1. lamp light
 
After the flood recedes
foreheads red as fire
 
dogs barking
sturdy fences
a sliver of moon
To stay is to settle down, a lifetime:
 
colour tv
potatoes
gunfire
womenfolk
neatly crouching
 
time spies on mice in the distance
with watchful cat eyes
 
 
 
2. circus act
 
One-eyed bull
on the steel wire of fancy
calibrates the ancestors’
unoriginal
circumstance
 
pigs fatten
floods follow suit
 
 
 
3. dinner
 
In fatigues
the night the revolution ended
stepping on stones
the generalissimos cross the river, returning
 
raw oysters for dinner
peking opera for company
black cat white cat
hunt in vain for mice
 
 
 
 
十二月                
 
 
如常的警笛声
 
果核纹路分明的下午
 
天蓝如此
 
下课以后球就会滚到另一边
 
雨后无辜的蘑菇
 
则不免让人分心
 
地表, 板块, 土拨鼠: 松动的日子
 
说不定难免就是
 
湿翠的菊花无端开落
 
 
 
december                              
 
the police siren makes familiar rounds
through the seed grooves of an afternoon.
thus the blue sky surveys:
a ball rolls from one end of the court to the other, after class.
mushrooms, newborn after the rain,
daintily lead the eye and mind astray.
these days of unwinding, a palpable reprieve tingling soil and sundry:
earth’s surface, tectonic plates, groundhog.
moments, perhaps, for spectatoring and speculation:
chrysanthemum flowers, bursts of moistened jade, bloom and fade, just so.
 
 
 
 

父亲素描                                  
 
 
晚年
他的脸开满菊花
 
南中国海过的眼睛
不再潮汐
耳，继续路往天籁
鼻穴， 深埋梁祝
嘴， 沉默得很大声
 
唯双眉翔不出
翔不出
铁蒺藜，以及
铁蒺藜那边的泥土
 
 
 
Portrait of My Father                 
 
In the twilight years
His face bloomed into chrysanthemums.
 
The eyes that crossed the South China Sea
Were weaned off the tides.
The ears followed still the trail of nature’s sounds.
The nose, buried deep in the legend of the butterfly lovers,
The mouth spoke loudly without words.
 
Time and again his brows made the mad flight
Flailing again and again
before the barbed wire fence,
exiled by the barbed wire fence,
from the land over there.
 
 
 
想起杜甫                                           
 
– 纪念与梅剑青同游悉尼的日子
 
风停了废墟开始浮出水面
急急急带雨: 床在异地, 前世是码头
天空系在脑后, 我们是风里来火里去的云
高人江湖满地, 踢踏过唐人街, 已是中年
猿声多一阵少一阵, 人倚斜了天涯
啸过冬天漫长的边境
哀伤的头颅内住着完整的瓷

                                        

 
Remembering Du Fu                                  
 
– in memory of the time spent with Boey Kim Cheng in Sydney
 
After the wind died down, ruins rose from the water.
The rain poured, making haste, making haste:
our beds are remote from home; our past lives, a quay.
 
Sprawling behind the mind is the sky –
while we who have no care, we clouds blazing through wind and fire,
what care have we for the masters? Already there are too many in the world –
enough that Chinatown was our playground until middle age caught us playing truant.
 
Marking the rise and ebb of monkey cries, man leans to rest and the horizon slants.
Ranting and raving along the borderlines of winter;
The pained skull shelters a piece of porcelain, perfection no less.
 
 
 
Note:
In July 2006 I was in Sydney for the launch of Boey Kim Cheng’s book After The Fire: New and Selected Poems. It was a holiday as well as a work trip for me. We spent quite a lot of time traveling by car and we listened to his CDs of Du Fu’s poems.