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

Showing posts with label wall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wall. Show all posts

Friday, February 26, 2016

Ghost Language Tanka

snow on snow ...
loneliness, a ghost language,
spoken wordlessly
to my drunken shadow
on the whitewashed wall


Revision, Ribbons, 12:1, Winter 2016

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Promised Land

What will you do if they uproot your trees?
What will I do? Only plant them again.
What will you do if they bulldoze your houses?
What will I do? Only build them again.

Facing the stone-wall silence of riot police, a large gathering of men, women and children sings louder and louder, but none concedes his or her position.

hazy half moon
the separation wall
where olive groves stood


German Translation

Das verheißene Land

Was wirst du tun, wenn sie deine Bäume herausreißen?
Was wirst du tun? Sie halt noch einmal pflanzen.
Was wirst du tun, wenn sie deine Häuser niederreißen?
Was wirst du tun? Sie halt noch einmal bauen.

Auf die steinwandige Stille der aufrührerischen Polizei trifft eine große Ansammlung von Männern, Frauen und Kindern, die lauter und lauter singt, aber keiner gibt in seiner Position nach.

verschleierter Halbmond
die Trennmauer
wo einst Olivenhaine standen

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Berlin Wall Haiku

twenty-five years after ...
he murmurs, the same full moon
over the Berlin wall


German Translation

fünfundzwanzig Jahre danach ...
der gleiche Vollmond, murmelt er,
über der Berliner Mauer

Chrysanthemum, 15, April 2014

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Past, Present and Future? A Haiku Sequence

Berlin '61
walls within walls
within walls?

the young girl smiles...
a large hole
in the Berlin Wall

summer twilight
alone in the attic, watching
Berlin '61

World Kigo Database (Berlin Wall)

Note:

I put three Berlin Wall haiku into the form of a haiku sequence.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Wall Haiku

summer twilight
alone in the attic, watching
Berlin '61


World Kigo Database (Berlin Wall)

Note:

My haiku was written in response to an op-ed piece, titled Tearing Down Berlin's Mental Wall: The fall of the Berlin Wall did not mean the end of the "wall in the mind," published today in The New York Times..

Friday, August 12, 2011

Wall Haiku

For Gabi

the young girl smiles...
a large hole
in the Berlin Wall


World Kigo Database (Berlin Wall)

Note:

My haiku alludes to one of iconic photos celebrating the East German government's historic announcement made on 9 November 1989: that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin.

The visual focus of this photo is a young West German girl smiling at her father as she points to a large hole in the Berlin Wall on Nov. 11, 1989, while a row of East German soldiers stand on the top of the Wall, turning their eyes away from the girl.