Cheng Chiung-ming / 鄭烱明

Cheng Chiung-ming（b.1948）, an internal medicine doctor, is currently Director of Literary Taiwan Foundation and Publisher of Literary Taiwan. He was the executive secretary of 2005 Word Poetry Festival（Kaohsiung）and 2007 Taiwan-Mongolian Poetry Festival, both held in Kaohsiung. Among his published works of poetry are Songs of the Sweet Potato（蕃薯之歌）and Trios（三重奏）.

E-mail：literarytaiwan@seed.net.tw

    Missing /失踪

It is surely no fun

The day you notice my absence.

Soon form the enclosing wall

Someone will release a herd of ferocious dogs

Which run swiftly

Barking and smelling all along

And hunt for me

In the flashlight searching grove.

Who is bawling at the doorway:

With tight surveillance

How can we miss his tracks?

Unless …

It is because I feel so bored

That I want to fool them.

I take a pill to hide myself for a time,

Yet my soul still keeps vigilance.

In the monotonous room

I am not missing.

Sitting on the ground,

I laugh into my heart.

After returning one by one wearily,

They might beat me up

With their stupidity

Upon seeing me.

   My Father / 父親

Father no long recognized me

In the cool autumn afternoon.

When I greeted him.

He simply gazed into the distance

Motionlessly.

Only after I raised my voice to call him Dad

Did he turn around

To smile to me.

Family members used to chat casually

Since I could remember from childhood

Until the end of the Second World War

When the Japan-bound ship Father took was struck by a torpedo.

Yet Father still sat quietiy

As if hw were listening to a strange story from afar.

It dawned on me that when Father finally forgot the war

Death went after him closely.

   A Name /名字

When I die someday

I refuse

To become a soul without a name.

I wonder

Why I cannot possess my own name.

I wonder

Why you deny my existence.

Please tell me

Who am I ?

Who am I after all ?

Your denial

Is the illusory fantasy of power

That can never prove anything.

I am independent.

I am independent for good.

I simply want to have a name

That really represents my existence.

In the silent night

I can clearly hear Mother’s calling.

                          Translated by Hsu Wen-hsiung