Poems, by Ningli Deng

Ningli Deng’s poems explore some of the largest of questions through focussing on the smallest of details — the pitted skin of greengages in a jar, or a reflection glimpsed in a mirror on the wall.

The original poems were written in Chinese. Translations into English by Ningli Deng with Will Buckingham.

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

在合罗山

我或许不该在意
那镜子，
在这片屋檐下，还有别的
可以看的东西，比如死

但那件庞然大物
比我还高，倒吊着，
并且始终空着，
嘶哑得就像回忆

它仅有的语言
是它自己的目睹
它无尽的疯狂
在倒过来时却是清醒的

如果我像它那样看
一切会近得像一场拷问
毕竟，一面镜子，
本身就是一种见证

和它一样，我的目光
也曾被活着砌入
一堵墙，
并且在那之后幸存下来

匿藏已经成为了我们的
第二天性，
反射
则是共同的生理特征

当它描述地上的
松针，焚烧味，
以及穿行其间的死者，
它用的是空旷，悠远的空旷

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

At Mount Heluo

I probably shouldn’t mind
that mirror,
under this roof — there were other
glaring things, like death —

but that colossus
taller than me, hanging upside down,
was always empty —
hoarse as a memory

Its only language
was its own witnessing,
its endless delirium
sobered when hung upended

If I looked at things the way it looked,
everything would be close
as an interrogation under torture. After all
a mirror is itself a testimony.

My gaze, like its own,
was once, through living, built
into a wall. Only after this
could it endure.

Concealment has become our
second nature,
reflection
our shared physiology.

When it described the pine needles
on the ground, the smell of burning,
and the dead who passed through them,
what it used was emptiness —
distant emptiness.

Note: the Mount Heluo in the title of the poem refers to a cemetery in Zhuhai.

菠萝蜜

它们繁殖得太快
多于你和我
能用眼睛数出来的数量

它们的壳是用
一把带木柄的砍刀劈开的
它们住在一辆木板车上

明黄色，在夜色中
堆积起来的刺，
一种慷慨的甜，总是那样迅速

你触碰它们
凉，有着一定的厚度
如同被剖开的肌肉组织

我漫不经心地告诉你
这黄澄澄的
带核的果实的名字

我没有告诉你的是
它的成熟与悬挂有关
那棵记忆中的树与我的初恋有关

是你的惊讶拦住了我
是果肉中那危险的漦 ①
和那层湿滑的粘膜阻隔了我

我只能和你一样惊讶
接受它比我们更丰盛
更张扬的存在

我们听到这硕果
在木头砍刀下的簌簌
让那辆小车不堪重负地呻吟

那天晚上，你带回的仅限于一个名字
和泡沫塑料上的甜
我带回的是南方：我的整个童年

① 粤语，粘液

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

Jackfruit

They multiplied too fast,
more than you and I
could count with our eyes.

Their shells were chopped open
by a wooden-handled machete.
They lived on a wooden cart,

bright yellow, in the night,
their heaped-up spines.
A generous sweetness, always so swift.

When you touch them,
they are cool — a certain thickness,
like muscle tissue cut open.

I casually told you the name
of this canary,
pitted fruit

I did not tell you
that its ripening relates to how it hangs,
or that the tree of memory
relates to my first love.

It was your surprise that stopped me,
the deadly spittle in the flesh,
it was the slippery mucus membrane
that obstructed me.

I could only be as amazed as you,
accepting its greater abundance,
its existence more flamboyant than ours.

We heard the fruit,
its rustling under the wood machete
making the little cart groan
beneath the unbearable weight

That night, all you brought back
was a name and the Styrofoam sweetness.
What I brought back was the South:
my whole childhood.

家酿青梅酒

我蹲在厨房里
为装在罐子里的青梅而着迷
它们在最靠近地面的木架上
在近乎幽暗的光线中闪耀

已经没有人需要它们了
但它们是那样地饱满
斑点，凹陷和沉积物的颜色
在一个密封广口瓶里堆积

我注视七个月以来的结晶
一段艰难准备着的时光
但我关心的只是它们
离开透明酒液后的样子

如今一个一个叠起的
三天后会按次序被捞出
到那时，酒精的度数已经破坏了
原本在里面的结构，当你

一口咬下去，就像衔住一朵火焰
果实本来的酸也会被
冷和软所代替，这些我都清楚
但我仍然被眼前的事物所迷住

在澄清的酒液里，轻轻地
漂浮着一团僵硬
隔着玻璃，我几乎能够碰触到
它的坚定，它紧致，富张力的表皮

我倾听瓶子里的安静，一如我倾听
七个月前养老院病房里的沉寂
她躯体的沉渣，当时也是这样
停栖着，将近一个世纪的酿造已成熟

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

Homebrew Plum Wine

I crouched in the kitchen
obsessed with the greengages in a jar
on the wooden shelf, closest to the ground
glimmering in the dim, faint light.

No one needed them anymore
but they still had their fullness,
the colour of speckles, depressions and sediments
heaped in the airtight jar

What I saw was the result of
seven months of crystallisation,
the difficult time of preparation,
but I only cared about how they would look
when they left the transparent liquor.

Now, stacked one by one,
over three days, they’d be scooped out in turn,
by this time, the alcohol would already have destroyed
their original inner structure. When you

take a bite, it is like holding a flame in the mouth,
the fruit’s original sourness replaced
by cold and soft. I know all this
but I am still mesmerised by the sight of them,

In the clarified liquor, gently
floating, a stiff mass
through the glass. I can almost touch
the firmness, the tight, taut skin.

I listened to the silence in the bottle, as I listened to
the silence in the nursing home seven months before —
the dregs of her body, then too
resting, ripened by almost a century of fermentation.

藏獒

那时我们刚搬来这里，
我学写诗，磕磕绊绊
我和我的语言寻找
能押韵的事物，
靠的是一点运气，还有足够多的决心

也就是在那时候，我第一次看见它
在一个初秋的傍晚，夕阳
的赭红色还没有散尽，
我们出去散步，在
经过那个大邮筒的时候
我们看到了它。毫无预兆，骤然
从街角出现，庞大、高耸的
漆黑。一切是寂静的，连同环绕它的空气
也是沉稳的，没有一丝波动。它就这样闯入
了我们的生活，随即脚步轻盈地离开了我

我们只记得
那种被震撼和被穿过的印象，
它的威严是那一整天唯一的动词
在那以后长久地把我们留在原地。
我没有试图把它写进一首诗，当这只野兽
与我的目光相交，把它落在纸上总像失去了什么
或许我只是担心
文字无法描述那些真正重要的：
一个关于皮毛和项圈的梦，它是
无疆界的，不受命名所管辖的

打那以后有许多东西进入过
我的诗，但只有其中一些留了下来
又过了好几年，我什么也没有写，
并且认为那一部分的自己已经死去
我不期盼再次见到它，然而在某个平淡无奇的早晨
当我登上人行通道台阶，从地底来到
地面上，它再一次出现在我面前，
这一次，愤怒很快变成了怀疑：
它的主人在哪？是谁把它带到这里来？
为什么它并没有被绳子拉着，或是戴着一个项圈？

它不理会所有这些问题
它伫立着，高大，森严，独自一个……
仍旧是一团漆黑，在日光下
前所未有地坚固。我从未这样近地看过它
它把全部注意力
集中在一小块地面上，外部世界的看法
对它来说无关紧要，它的行事风格
与它所在的地方格格不入，这里不是它的故乡
我的语言碰也不会碰，尽管它站在那里
垃圾桶旁的一个奇迹，远高出所有
日常生活中的事物，黑得近乎发白
不掺一丝杂质——
如同我们头顶那个炽热的白太阳

这一次，
我是先离开的那一个。我确信自己
不会把它写进一首诗，我的词语不需要
寻找它，它的呼吸和缄默
一直在我的印象里，每当我想要
为记忆扩充容量的时候，它都会在那里
它已经是一首诗，有着自己的
节奏和平仄，与我十年前本来想写的那首
并不相像，它自己选择去做一头没有姓名的野兽
不是为了我，也不是为了我的诗

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

Tibetan Mastiff

When we just moved here,
I learnt to write poetry, stumbling,
both me and my language searching
for things that rhyme,
relying on a little luck
and a lot of determination.

And that was when I first saw it,
on an early autumn evening, the ochre red
of the setting sun not yet dissipated.
We went for a walk, and when
we passed the big mailbox,
we saw it. Without warning, suddenly,
it emerged from the street corner, a vast
towering darkness. Everything was still; even the air that surrounded it
was serene, without a trace of vibration. It just broke into
our lives, and a moment later, lightly stepped
back out again.

All we remembered
was the imprint of how were were shocked, pierced through,
that day, its majesty was the only verb
and for a long time afterwards, it held us there.
I didn’t try to write a poem about when the beast
met my gaze. Putting it on paper felt like losing something.
Perhaps I was just worried
that words cannot describe the things that really matter:
a dream of fur and collar, it was
borderless, not governed by naming.

Since then many things have entered
my poems, but only some of them have remained.
Years passed, I wrote nothing,
and believed that part of me was dead.
I didn’t expect to see it again, but on some unremarkable morning
When I climbed up the walkway steps, from the underworld
to the surface, it appeared in front of me once again.
This time, anger quickly became suspicion:
Where was its owner? Who had brought it here?
Why wasn’t it being pulled by a rope, or wearing a collar?

It ignored all my questions.
It stood motionless, tall, rigid, alone…
still pitch black, under the sunlight,
stronger than ever. I’ve never seen it this close —
all its attention was centred
on a small patch of ground, indifferent
to the outside world, it’s bearing
at odds with where it was. This place was not its home
My language touched it without touching it, although it stood there
a miracle beside the trash can, towering above everything
the things of everyday life, its black was close to whiteness
without a trace of impurity —
like the blazing white sun over our heads.

This time,
I was the one that left first. l was sure
I would not write about it. My words had no need
to search it out — its breath and its silence
were always there. Whenever I wanted
to broaden the scope of my memory, it would be there.
It was already itself a poem, it had its own
rhythm and melody, quite unlike the poem
I wanted to write ten years before.
It itself chose to become this nameless beast:
not for me, nor for my poems.

智齿

当第一个我被摘掉时
我没有叫喊，
一小团染血的棉花，
这就是她存在过的全部，

当第二个我被拔除时，
我也没有迷惘
没有什么能描述她，
除了被水冲淡后的血

为我做准备的护士
带走了第三个：
这一个喜欢在我耳边
重复听不懂的告诫

第四个人陪伴着我。
她的平静安慰了我
对于剧痛，
她经验丰富

当她沉淀下来
剥我身上的陌生
她是被刮掉的
被用棉球抹去的

最后一次尝试
一个器械型、纯感官的我：
弯曲而纤细的疼痛
变形为一根针。

我经历过手术
如今恢复了正常，
我走出医院，
处在麻木当中

外面宽敞而明亮，
走廊无人经过
有人递给我一张纸：
请注意保护血凝块。

我尝到了舌头，
正如许多个她的联合
我尝到了诗歌
一个在我体内延伸的缺口

⊹⊱✿⊰⊹

Wisdom Teeth

When the first me was removed,
I didn’t cry out,
a small ball of blood-stained cotton,
that’s all she’d ever been.

When the second me was uprooted,
I did not waver,
nothing could describe her,
except blood diluted with water.

The nurse who prepared me
took away the third,
this one liked to repeat
unintelligible admonitions in my ear.

The fourth one kept me company,
her calm comforted me,
her experience abundant
in excruciating pain.

As she settled down
peeling the unfamiliar from my body,
she was scraped away,
wiped clean by a cotton ball.

The final attempt —
an instrumental, purely sensual me,
the curved and slender pain
transformed into a needle.

I underwent surgery,
then things went back to normal.
I walked out of the hospital,
still recovering from the numbness.

The outside was spacious and bright.
There was no one in the hallway.
They handed me a piece of paper:
be careful to protect the blood clot.

I tasted it with my tongue,
like so many of her unions.
I tasted poetry —
a gap yawning inside me.