Tan Kim-sun / 陳金順

Tan Kim-sun（b. 1966）was born in the northern Taiwan, and at the age of 40, he moved to reside in the sunny, southern Taiwan. He is a vegetarian with the life style of environmental protection. Since 1995, he has devoted himself in literature writing using the mother tongue of Taiwanese, and he had been the editor-in-chiefs of two Taiwanese literature magazines. His writing genres include modern poetry, novel and prose. He has published four poetry collections, three novel collections and one prose collection. In 2014 he attended screenplay writing classes for learning film and video screenwriter skills. He is now a writer and a freelance actor.

e-mail： wagi.siraya@gmail.com

        雨

天公伯仔的目屎

袂輸

千軍萬馬

        Rain

Tears of God

Not less mightier than

The marching military forces

        毋捌

                 ──寫予戰亂世界的囡仔

毋捌食過營養的早餐

毋捌看過無雲的藍天

毋捌啉過清氣的溪水

毋捌聽過浪漫的melody

毋捌穿過齊整的新衫

毋捌欶過自由的空氣

毋捌蹛過堅固的厝宅

毋捌耍過正常的童年

毋捌坐過四序的轎車

毋捌讀過和平的歌詩

銃聲是早時響袂停的亂鐘仔

炮彈是暗暝伴阮入眠的燈火

        Never

                To the children of the war-torn world

Never ate the nutritious breakfast

Never saw the cloudless blue sky

Never drank the water of clean stream

Never heard of the romantic melody

Never wore the neat new shirt

Never breathed the air of freedom

Never resided on the sturdy homestead

Never had the normal childhood

Never rode the comfortable sedan

Never read the song poetry of peace

Gun sound was the non-stopping ringing of the old alarm clock

Artillery shells were the night lights accompanying us in sleep

        楓仔葉

一片楓仔葉

唯冰天雪地的

北國漂浪薄日的南島

十二點鐘的飛行機

飛過二十外冬的

時差

秋裡的光景

春風原在

Evergreen一幅

時間素描

                【後記】二十外冬後，佇台南佮國中恩師相會。

        The Maple Leaf

One leaf of maple

From the icy, snowy northern country

Drifted under the evening sun to the southern island

Via that airplane of 12 hours flight

It glided over the time lag of

More than 20 years

In the scenes of autumn

There is still the spring breeze

One roll of the Evergreen

A sketch of time

Postscript: Reunited in Tainan with middle school teacher

                      after 20 plus years