#ji xian

[mournfulroses]

Ji Xian, from a poem titled "Your Name," featured in Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology

[wellconstructedsentences]

Hibiscus leaves Yellow and drop one by one; Rustling Soughing In the cold spell. I, too, am deciduous And never act like an evergreen.

A Winter Poem by Ji Xian

[zhugeliangs]

When the day comes when there is no magic And no God All heavenly spheres have gone flat And ichthyological specimens begin to swim Maybe Man We'll have a happy reunion On the perilous edge of a planet shaped like a clock

Ji Xian (紀弦), from "To Maybe Man", The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner

[zhugeliangs]

Ah, the starry sky! Solemn, glittering, mysterious Up there is timeless structure, regular motion, eternal order Can what is lost be regained? There's no upheaval in the stars of a summer night

Ji Xian (紀弦), from “The Lost Telescope”, The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner

[zhugeliangs]

Through the bullet holes in the sky Flashes the light of the stars

Ji Xian (紀弦), from “Bird Variations”, The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner

[zhugeliangs]

But when we are intimately joined in a single body We will race fast as a horse Sketching with our shadow 16 futuristic boundaries Upon the boundless tundra

Ji Xian (紀弦), from “To Maybe Man”, The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner

[zhugeliangs]

She is singing of the overflow of a dried-up river And the annihilation of an army of dreams.

Ji Xian (紀弦), from “Pipesmoking Psychoanalysis”, The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner

[zhugeliangs]

Use your intuition, Your instinct, Comprehend it, Oh Maybe Man And give me the answer Precisely Jotted on your scratchpad: The unknown X of life

Ji Xian (紀弦), from "To Maybe Man", The Flowering of Modern Chinese Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from the Republican Period, tr. Herbert Batt and Sheldon Zitner