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

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Tiananmen Square Tanka

reading between the lives and writing between the lines, LXXXIII

Beijingers, young and old
stroll along Tiananmen Square
[everything's just fine]
my recurring dream, this sound
of rolling tanks and rifle fire



FYI: The New Yorker, June 2: The Shadow of Tiananmen Falls on Hong Kong

The anniversary of the massacre coincides with verdicts in the trial of the pro-democracy activists known as the Hong Kong 47.


AddedAgainst the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXVI: "shrapnel scars"

calm between fireballs
a boy fingers
his shrapnel scars


AddedAgainst the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXVII: "Rafah Crossing"

Rafah Crossing
a girl stares
at the borderless sky


AddedAgainst the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXVIII: "Kibbutzim"

home, sweet home!
each window has a vista 
of a blue horizon ...
the half-collapsed billboard
near the gate of Kibbutz Liman


FYI: This tanka is a sequel/poetic response to the following entry:

Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XXII: "punitive house demolition"

bulldozed house
now a bundle of belongings
on the bent back
of a Palestinian man ...
in his mind's eye re-homing