The tiniest flower

blossoms into life

at the needle's point
but soon declines to reveal
her hiding place

each time she flowers

it is a dark plum-red

today there's the

thready whiff of blood
to quicken the void
mingling with the smell
of grass and trees

a whole wilderness blooms

spilling the body's vast silence

Chi Lingyun
Hill Song

My first image of the cosmos:

a fallen power pole in a courtyard
on an ochre mud floor
east of the village;
a mule-cart returning,
whip flailing; not the same one
that came in the days of plenty.

The loudspeakers pour forth

the “Flowing Waters” overture,
its honeyed notes giving way
to a rousing army chorus.

A poem is like a village

on a north-facing hillside
shouting, like me, its grief to the skies.

The carvings on the shutters

left behind in a cold room
where I must once have stayed
make windows on passing clouds.

I reach out, finger

the most exquisite
tear in the fabric of the world
as if to feel the starlight
linger on the window paper.

The crow’s nest behind the house

is a rough teardrop held close
by far-away eyes.

I walk to the end of the poem,

dazzled by past hurts
that hang like chilli peppers
from the door-jamb
to dry.

Qin Xiaoyu
Hands Free

Those hands in your pockets.

Take them out!

Free them
from counting money.
Free them
from penning verse.
Free them
from handing your boss a smoke.

Free the hands that Held High The Banner,

hands that once gave Appreciative Applause.

Free the hands that were raised to be counted.

Free the hands that were raised to swear oaths.

And the hands thrown up

in surrender.

Free them all.

Xu Xiangchou