Myths of the T Century

A. The Birth of History

in the wake of retreating forces
a witch with the flu
has seduced a feverish king
the sly cards are strewn over the floor

the witch’s broom flew long ago
into a militant white sky
no one sweeps the floor which is scattered with falsehoods

the diabolical crystal ball
flaunts not the queen’s wrinkles
but the emperor’s
new clothes

history is stranded
on a lone rain-drenched island
the only mailbox of mine
contains your final letter:

            the rain in the desert is in danger of erasure
            there is the heat of the sun and the chill of the dunes
            when rain and sand mingle
            a sheet of quicksand is spread on the ground
            holding a conference of heavenly bodies
            idealism and illusion are fused in incest
            this holy convention’s so-called yearning
            is the thirst of saints
            and the gaze of commoners

finally I realized

even after the can was opened
what’s more,
the enemy breeds cats

I. Losing Childhood’s Favor

childhood dreams
are parched as the well
in our Quanzhou home’s courtyard
it was not the function of the water faucet
to quench longing’s thirst

I cannot find a wishing well
for the coin I smuggled from my hometown

when childhood dreams awaken
reality and desire turn traitor
capturing a cat
buried in a rubbish heap,
it chomps ravenously
on news headlines
amidst naked words,

its rotund belly reminds me
that

when childhood dreams die
stony coins and sable cats queue to offer incense
while the photograph on the headstone
steadily yellows

W. The Death of Idealism

please don’t think that sending a registered letter
on
entails a postscript of gravity and guilt

my mailbox has long been locked, barren
in it rests one letter only
severing bonds with the postman
in its last breath

of course
once you were the mist drifting at sea
I was an Italian sailor’s ears
compulsively listening, quivering in the wind
and when I diverted my vessel towards life
there were pirate ships storm cyclones whirlpools perilous shores
routes already determined
waves compelled to heave

you must acknowledge
that those raped by civilization are no longer virgins—
they conceived at dawn miscarried at dusk hanged themselves at midnight
fate will not raise a bastard
who does not know his real father

I worry that the baby unable to find a breast
will, amidst her howls, see through
the maternal instinct

I woke in the wee hours of the third of June
ideals are as inescapable
as a sailor’s rope a hunter’s bow
the waves are fierce brutality has spread
the sailor is engulfed the hunter cuts his own throat
these endings inevitable, like you
ideals are bobbing in death’s sea
your backward glance a raft a thousand miles away
floating growing more and more obscure

dawn the fifth of June
I was a boat carrying a crucifix
let those of the air confess to the winds
let those of the sea collapse with the waves
let those traveling by ship answer to
reflections in the sea

in the straits of postmodernity
there are no so-called stateless waters
while wooing ideals in desire’s tempests
between you and me
abstinence
is all there is

A. A Testament Reborn

time congeals—
it is as if I have been dreaming
and one day wake with a start
to discover an islandful
of wet dreams

slimy Sense challenges
pallid Reason
to chess at the apex
of the zeitgeist’s pyramid—
everyone surrounding them
whether they are standing back
                        deriding
                        waving flags
                        or rubbing salt into wounds
seems to be witnessing
castigations

my testament is a voting slip
reincarnated on recycled paper
five millennia old
on it, a scarlet flag
springs to life!

N. Nadir/Nirvana

from the lessons of history
we can infer
that after the crimson snow has melted
the tree roots of this country
need time to laze in bed

as that chilly dawn retreats,
spring winds approach
but my melancholy is like cotton fibers
about to be dispersed
by the wind
when my wind vane fails to register your draughts
it will forever point towards the path
we last left

once
we believed blindly
that the end of the Qing dynasty
was sand was dust was soil
among the burial goods
there was even a bible

so there is also
a God
for this Republic

yet after pedigrees and pigtails ceased with Confucius
and before the coming of Jesus
the steady practice of benevolence
was still not enough
to enter paradise together
besides, that communion cup
you lost as a child
wandered along the Long River
following its eighteen meanders
down
to
hell
your descendants
will have to lap at
their holy water

I hear a new church has been built
on a bank of the Yellow River
every day the bells
begin to batter at the nerves
supporting the tail bone of my soul
dawn and dusk remind me
of the limbs which throb
this chapel baptizes memories
every Saturday night of that year
finds it deserted
even God and Confucius
have fled together

at parliamentary sessions
Satan flashes me a grin
revealing by accident
a shameless mouth
devoid of teeth

translated from the Chinese by Teng Qian Xi

“W. The Death of Idealism” was first published in Some Kind of Beautiful Signal: Two Lines World Writing in Translation Vol. 17.

Read the original in Chinese, Simplified

Listen to the poems read in the original Chinese by the poet:

Read translator's note

In this sequence of poems, taken from his collection 《造剑地》 (Where Swords are Forged), Singaporean poet Tan Chee Lay structures his unearthly narratives of Taiwan’s history using its English name—the T Century is made up of A, I, W, A, and N. The reader does not need to have much knowledge of Taiwanese or Chinese history to savor the mythical tropes and imagery Tan uses—when I was working on this translation more than ten years ago, it was the superbly surrealistic exploration of political themes that held my attention. Given my own preoccupation with the political oppression occurring in Singapore, it was easy to transpose those concerns onto the rapacious creatures and perilous landscapes in these poems.

Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the allusions in “Myths of the T Century” are very much influenced by Tan’s university years in Taiwan in the mid-nineties, and his observations of Taiwan’s move towards a more democratic government. He began studying at National Taiwan University in 1992, only a few years after President Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law in 1987. The persecution of dissidents during the White Terror was still fresh in the memories of the Taiwanese, and the Chinese-speaking world had been particularly shaken by the Tiananmen massacres of June 1989. By the time Tan graduated, he had also witnessed the painful clashes between different ideals during the runup to Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996.

It is no surprise, then, that the speaker of the poem treads warily through Tan’s dreamlike landscapes, chronicling the helplessness of ideals against political forces. Ideals are compared to “a sailor’s rope” and “a hunter’s bow”—tools that human beings devised to control the natural world, but which are ultimately powerless to hold back “waves compelled to heave,” and their demise is only paid lip service by the “sable cats” of economic pragmatism. Tan’s vision of twentieth-century Taiwanese history offers little hope, but these poems have a bleak beauty that will resonate with anyone overcome by their own helplessness in the face of political injustice.

Read bios

Tan Chee Lay was born in Singapore. He is now the Deputy Executive Director of Nanyang Technological University’s Singapore Centre for Chinese Language. He was educated in Singapore, Taiwan, and the UK. Tan’s Chinese publications include 《隔岸观我-- 陈志锐文集》 (Gazing At Myself from the Opposite Shore, critical works and essays, 2000), 《造剑地》 (Where Swords are Forged, poetry, 2002), 《黄色雨衣》 (The Yellow Raincoat, prose, 2006), 《陈志锐散文集》 (Essays by Tan Chee Lay, 2009), 《剑桥诗集》 (Cambridge Poetics, 2010), and 《原始笔记》 (Original Poetics, 2012). Tan has won various prizes in fiction, poetry, and literary criticism in Taiwan and Singapore. He was awarded the Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council in 2004 and the Singapore Youth Award (Arts and Culture) in 2006 for his literary and pedagogical achievements.

Teng Qian Xi is a writer and translator based in Singapore. Her translations have appeared in Some Kind of Beautiful Signal: Two Lines World Writing in Translation Vol. 17 and Asymptote, among other publications. Her poetry has appeared in Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia (Ethos Books), Language for a New Century (W. W. Norton), Mudlark, and Softblow. Her poetry collection, They hear salt crystallising (firstfruits publications), was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2012. She majored in Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University. She can be found at her blog and on Tumblr.