Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

The Other 9/11 Tanka

written for the 50th Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup in Chile

La Moneda
bombed and blanketed
in a veil of smoke ...
my friend mourns, Life was split in two
long before the Twin Towers fell



FYI: Democracy Now, September 11, 2023: “The Other 9/11”: Ariel Dorfman on 50th Anniversary of U.S.-Backed Coup in Chile That Ousted Allende

...“the other 9/11.” Fifty years ago today, September 11, 1973, a U.S.-backed coup led by General Augusto Pinochet ousted Chile’s President Salvador Allende, a democratic socialist who had been elected just three years earlier. Allende died in the palace on that day. Under the Pinochet military dictatorship, which lasted until 1990, more than 3,000 people were disappeared or killed, some 40,000 tortured as political prisoners.


Added: Re-Homing in the Maple Land, XII

the urge to crawl 
as Ken inside the DreamHouse 
to live forever 
with my Curvy Barbie ...
yet this real life's fourth wall


FYI: Ls 2-4 refer to Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse (TV Series 2012–2015). 

And the fourth wall is an imaginary wall that separates the story from the real world. This term comes from the theatre, where the three surrounding walls enclose the stage while an invisible “4th wall” is left out for the sake of the viewer. The 4th wall is the screen we’re watching... excerpted from "Breaking the Fourth Wall: Definition, Meaning and Examples," StudioBinder, June 21 2020


Added: reading between the lives and writing between the lines, LXXIX

for many years
with two faces and two selves
in this promised land
I strive to cross the border
between life and dream


Added: 

collapse of mud houses ...
a girl closes her eyes at last
and the world ...disappears