Mo Yu / 莫渝
Mo Yu（b.1948） is pen name of Lin Liang-ya, graduated from Taichung Normal College and the French Department of Tamkang University. He started writing and published poetry in 1964 and has published various books of poetry including “Wordless Spring”（1979）, “Love Song of The Earth“（1986）, ”Clouds“（1990）,”The Mirror of The Water” （1998）, ”Poems, The First Aurora“（2007）,”Going the Spring Rain”（2011）, “ Lilies in Spring”（2011），”Light of Sky”（2013）. On the other hand, he is also a translator of French poetry and a commentator.
Email：yu0917@gmail.com
Bitter Bamboo / 苦竹
Whether you like to listen, or whether
you like to look, it makes no difference.
I am always the same,
straining bodily on to where you write poetry
at the window.
Nor does it makes no difference whether it’s spring or not,
I always put on an eternal green for you.
When autumn comes,
I will at most drop a few leaves
which will drift to your window,
and I will still be faithful for you.
I keep closely to your house,
My roots sink deep in the soil;
This is good enough,
nobody can remove me.
When there is wind,
I assume an even more gently posture
To arouse your attention.
（Translated by Kuo-ch'ing Tu 杜國清譯）
Rains at night / 夜雨
Rains nonstop
That night
The more it rained, the stronger it became
Darkness blanket the ground
Downpours tuned into torrents
Devils from the hell tramped upon our fields
No more banks or dikes
Torrents blurred up borders
Landmarks shaved up
Mountain tops hunched under streams
The day waters ruled
Relentless rains struck us that night
We didn’t see the sky
As land and sky clung together
Soaked and darkened
Blurring our ways home
Throughout that night
Gods of floods practiced rituals
Wearing g masks of ghosts
Parading in and out of the fields
The whole village fell asacrifice
Immaculate, an apple of the gods’ eyes
（Translated by Nga-i TeN 鄭雅怡譯）
The Scaffold / 絞刑架
── To Victims Crucified for Taiwan
Attracted by Taiwan, a throng of fleeing pirates occupied the island and set up three huge scaffolds along her coast. The first one embodies the spring of 1947, when the 228 massacre took place. The second one was used to suppress Taiwan’s political movement during the Beautiful Island Incident, which was happened on December 10, 1979. The third one marks the 2009 Tan Chui-pinn incident, in which dignity of Taiwanese people has been tramped upon.
Day after night
I heard sobs from the sea-bound gusts
I felt sighs from three crucifixes
Atheists we are
How shall we raise our eyes to the heaven?
How shall we pray for justice in the earth?
How shall I define “torture”?
They refuse to chop off your throat in a second
They enjoy scraping skin and muscle off layer by layer
Slowly, gracefully, they grind their knives
Their well-trimmed suits never gets stained
They love groans
Sounds of sorrow excites their souls
Witnessing their kindness for prolonging lives
Kind on surface and hypocritical in practice
They posed themselves as super-philanthropists
How shall I define “torture”?
They refuse to reach a verdict in a short period
They prefer to grind our souls bit by bit
Slowly, carelessly they enjoy watching us
Some of them point fingers at us
They long for begging
Sounds of sorrow feed up their desires
So they can re-claim the authority of the law
Which they never observe but has surplus values
They behave as law-abiding porcupines [1]
So well they learn about mechanism of tortures
So thorough their research is on phil-hipocracy-sophie
Torture means tramping upon our dignity
Till it crumbles into particles
We’re treated as subhuman
When they heard our moaning, our whining
They laugh and triumph
As malignant officers in traditional operas
If we refuse to bow down
They upgrade techniques of tortures
They ravage our bodies
Poisoning our souls
They pack textbooks with tortures
Dwarf us, disrupt us
Night after day
They laugh aloud in gatherings
These pirates strut around
Declaring ownership of the island
They do whatever pleases them
They’re evil as devils
Irony in history recurs
Beggars drove priests away [2]
Pirates turned into empresses
As their forebears states
Money-stealers become burglars,
Nation-stealers become aristocrats
They aimed at taking big chunks of lands
So the stolen lands fell into their hands
‘Tis wiser than fight, they hailed
For a narrow strand
‘Tis more profit-yielding
Pirates
Fleeing from the continent
Sneaking into every corner
Till they seized on the island
Turned it into an entrepot
Occupied every piece of the land
Looted them
Dried up every resource
A boat nears the shore
Three scaffolds tower straight in whirling winds
Crucifixes of martyrdom
Mark three memorials
Blood stains on them pioneer footsteps upcoming
Day after night
I heard sobs from sea-bound gusts
I felt sighs from three crucifixes
Atheists we are
How shall we raise our eyes to the heaven?
How shall we pray for justice in the earth?
We must “clear up our throat, unleash our strength” [3]
Flare up our morale, focus on our goals
Never give up, never fall flat
Persist and persevere
Let us weave a long, strong rope
Tie up and pull off the three scaffolds
Let the seashore revive
Let beauty and peace resume
[1] German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) nicknamed gentlemen
“porcupines”. The information derives from Chinese writer Lu Shin’s work, “ a
metaphor”.
[2] “The beggar drove the priest away” is referred to a Taiwanese saying. It means a
late-comer grabs power, persecuting his/her predecessor.
[3] This sentence derives from Taiwanese writer Loa Ho’s poem, “Mountain top under
low pressure”
（Translated by Nga-i TeN 鄭雅怡譯）
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