FLAMES:

POEMS DEDICATED TO VINCENT VAN GOGH

ROAD

[van Gogh: “Road with Cypress and Star,” 1890]

The workers are coming. Their blurred faces

impress on me the hardship of creation

Locate the roots of things

My breath flows through those roots

as if the flames of my whole body

surged up a cypress standing tall

Like a road twisting in the soul's uncertainty

Pale shell. Crying of wheat unsown

The human “past” shrill in the moonlight

Seeds sleeping in despair. The “future”

a good horse. Where the road is

open, perfect necks break with the strain

Still the bones of the cypress spit flames

From each drop of resin a squatting beast

vaults into the night, roars out starry

stars. Night is his vibrating gong

His claws rake human faces

THE BURNING SILK VEIL

[van Gogh: “Wheatfield with Cypresses,” 1889]

Pale yellow world, color of my

heart fallen to the ground

listening to the land's anger

as mountain peaks stamp their feet

winter encroaching step by step

The stones in my flesh, in my eyes

swirl in the burning veil

The sky, great flat-bottomed basin

traps a child. Dead flowers in poverty

Who is behind me, walking in wrath

dragging my life along

pushing me to the earth

exhausted, the fields around my body burning

Who is life's slave? Take

the veil—throw it into the pit of “living”

“Death” shivers among a tangle of roots

A land intimidated can only be poor

Wheat still grows. The stones, incapable of sprouting

sink into endless silence

Take autumn away. Who is it who

uses this world's language

conceives within bitter

strength, makes children, attacks

the sky, grins at mankind? Is it

you, poet, each stick of your

skeleton a monkey wrench in the way of the world

The silk veil burns at your throat

Fire spurts from the sockets of your eyes

Those grains of wheat, those delicate gold

tongues of flame—I want to hold them

Earth. Clouds. You've hurt me before

The land's predators hold you tight

In the same way that this sad face, stuck onto

art, takes on a life, I—like

the others—have profited nothing

SOWER

[van Gogh: “The Sower,” 1888]

When the soil wakes from its deep sleep

sun paints the field's edges, revealing

a mouse's footprint baked into its surface

Wild geese begin their game with summer

Take their eggs, place them

over the lizard's fragile burrow. Fields

bulge up. The horses have galloped off

Give the odor of their groin to the swaying

cradle of the moon. I sit

inside the daisy girl's long flute

and feel earth's burgeoning desires

And just at this moment, you come

striding out of the sun, long stride across the

lumpy earth. Joy's radiance

turns your whole body to the dark

Grains gnaw at you. The land bleeds

You hear fruits crack open in the sky

Thinker among cattle, human

tongue of steel, your body

pressed to the dirt. All winter

you clutch the seeds and when you

open your fist, I wake to spring

watching your golden wheatfields sprout in blood

What joy! A mental halo

glazes the growing field

Your coming is mankind's primal song

I follow a foal as it wanders the riverbank

grazing on fruit blown down in the dusk

THE GLEANER

[van Gogh: “Peasant Woman Stooping,” 1885]

Pure ox horn. Then cows curved over wooden buckets

Gold husks buried in mud. The earth, nourishment

Men slaughtering no one for grain

Then the land was given. At harvest time

houses went up between fields of wheat

Babies in baskets crying like tumbling fruit

Then you, a simple peasant girl

Your basket, from which a hare drank

and eight baby rabbits singing in your eyes

Grain! The village where childhood lived

where birds flew glittering like gold

attaching themselves to the neat river's face

Peasant girl! Round arms of a crescent moon

and bent like a crescent. Show me

how your forebears turn to gold in the soil's gift

Your fingers gleam with brightness

Wheat like a shower of diamonds

Watching you move with pious step

Girl, this heart—my heart—how

can it keep from falling into despair

in the ray of sunlight, close and airless

POPPY FIELDS

[van Gogh: “Field with Poppies,” 1890]

Summer ripens across the land. Swallows

transport southern waters into the orchard

Pomegranates shine like foreheads full of thoughts

Our hosts lie supine in berries

staring at the poppy-covered sky

The little animals are quiet

left paws crossed over right

Quail bob-white in their jars. Horses

strike fire near the house of white pines

O my life, take a break now

hang hunger on the poppy's hook

Sniff fruit pits, squeeze a handful of soil

See the sharp flames on golden pears

Close your eyes. Summer

slips into your sleep. As you wake

hear flowers chatter in the basket of the field

See endless sunflowers burning

like a hundred horseheads spinning madly in the sun

THE FIELD COVERED WITH CROWS

[van Gogh: “Wheat Field with Crows,” 1890]

Waves of yellow wheat cry in my throat

I stand on the heights

Everything ripens! Seeds tremble in the storm

singing towards the death-house. Crows

messengers of the abyss, wings with the gleam

of lilies. I come. I walk

My loneliness is like crystal

Who listens to my voice in poverty

gives me his hand, sustaining me

My sadness is a mirror

glistening in obscure human faces

I give up art, renounce religion

I stand on the heights. Gazing at the past

is like staring down an abyss of animal lairs

like casting my whole life into a battle with beauty

The spear of fantasy tilts at my throat

The fields are ripe. In ominous presentiment

crows, from my feet

soar up through my veins

O pure wheat

seven pair of silver forks stab into your pit

The storm carries you back

—far away, a bright nothing

trembles in stone as far as eye can see

I come. I'm lost

outside the weakness of art. What

can undo the crime of humans who insult the soul

On the heights

—the gate of death trembles over autumn waters

The sky folds, like a compressed spring

My heart! Look again at the fields. Grasp them

as if grasping the maelstrom that swallows up

your love. Cry that you love

it is the peak of death

The loner grows fruit-bearing limbs

Cry! Cry, brother, towards the nothing, crows

circling over crops, cawing their

cry to mankind

CHURCH

[van Gogh: “The Church at Auvers,” 1890]

Sacred music unsounding

I stare at you

flowers, roots of the grass. A woman defaced

I stand before the true altar

listening ever for the voice of gods

Weeds everywhere

the neigh of pursuing horses

My life of devotion

ignorant of evil

At sight of the mute solemn stone

my heart begins to bleed

Teach us how to love

Facing earth's molesters

facing the furious dying father

He has cleft the place that oppressed him with darkness

Tell us! how can we unfurl into the day

the banner of joyous purple fir

Birds and we embrace

Buildings stand erect. Lionesses bless herbivores

Babies kick in the bellies of men

like rivers on a rampage dividing the land

Holy spring! In my blood there‘s

an altar-stone onto which music descends

Worship! Soil, petals of glass

the pinnacle! There my heart

registers simple songs of the sky

All things on earth revive ten thousand times from death

Now, my heart, pray for them all

INJURED PORTRAIT

[van Gogh: “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe,” 1889]

When music deserts the human heart, when

squirrels leap into pine cones, when antelopes

frisk on the ocean floor

when leaf shrinks back to branch, refusing point blank

to fall

we will all be empty vessels, our

vague eyes anthills strung along

beams of light, insect eggsacs

cemented to the heart, mouths

reduced to maledictions against barnyard animals

Everything, everything enrages me: this

nation of wild beasts, falling into decline

And as for poetry: a

stick between the jaws to block my bite

My ear: a sky-blue gem

touched by the crying of bugs

—summer lives inside. Place for a badger

to warm his paws night long. O deep

blue flame. Blue gem. My grandmother's

hands gripping the cow‘s udders

my irritable father: behold

a village, stately, its lonely glow

lighting my forlorn heart

Swarm of locusts! your chomp

encompasses earth. The people

are deaf and dumb, their ears no better than

saucers tied together by a string through the skull

Crocodile! Crocodile! my loved one, blue

blue gem, my aching

aching heart. Lop it off! Light

Light barricades my head. The sun

suddenly drops, warming the creatures

prancing in my blood

O gem, kingfisher-blue, to whom

shall I give you? who will

take you? Only the unstopped ear

Whose heart will hear the sacred harmonies

WHITE CHINESE ROSES

[van Gogh: “Still Life: Pink Roses in a Vase,” 1890]

Flowers bloom in the house. Milk

shines on leaves. Amid a

cry of nightingales

my wife holds out the corolla of her hands

Rose! Chinese rose! Tell me

when did I lose

my peace

Cotton crosses the surface of the vase

Lambs gambol on tree tops. My daughter

lies among the bush's roots

Her nails, sharp thorns from the

dark, make my heart howl in nightmare

nightlong. Chinese

rose! Chinese rose! Tell me

where did I lose

my happiness

Songs spin on my forehead

Deep beauty! Gold claws

throw life into the abyss of pain

My love opens in brief summer

like injured feelings in final

battle with the death of land

Rose! Chinese rose! Roses

burst in my chest. Tell me

when will those who begin to understand

remember me in delirium

and forgive the dying

DRAWBRIDGE

[van Gogh: “The Langlois Bridge at Arles,” 1888]

Bright pure water

one side of the ferry hidden in reeds

The boatman's hand brushes catkins

magpie calls from the corolla

A sunny day. Birds shiver

Young women gather at the riverside

their wash-sticks like flower stems

unfolding on the smooth stones

The river ambles

Bristly thistles drowse day long

pheasants scout out their house

and stick tail-feathers in the donkey's bells

Who's in there chewing olive leaves

lying in the dark shade of the cypress' belly

Eyes that are covered by water chestnuts

chat with summer as it sports in the river water

Blue quivers in a cat's eyes

Noon expands the exquisite silk

Who's in there, pale of face, biting the roots of reeds

agape at the delicate frame of the distant drawbridge

A carriage ticks in the sun's pendulum

Trembling, he presses his heart

too overcome to speak a word

facing the boundless peace and silence

Holy day of sun

the present of grape juice from your lover

Your heart leaps with a string nailed in memory

The lotuses in a music reach out, hands under the field

to smooth away the pain of your life

give you calm and let you lie at ease

on the open wing of a dahlia

Cruel! Brief happy time

SCENE

[van Gogh: “Plain Near Auvers,” 1890]

Plants ripen, their round

mouths draw water from the soil. Their

slim waists sway before barn doors

Seeds sing in tiny gowns

Fields stretch, like ponies, their shining hair

spread across the land

Who has heard the fall of

food on the rock? Children

play in the farmer's hand

A poet wakes up. He sits on the roots of a

yellow tung tree. The roots grow into his flesh

His face glows with the happiness of a plant

Houses at a distance bathe in the fields

Red pine glitter from bright rifts in the clouds

Land! you are innocent and boundlessly deep

Who weeps behind earth

refusing to give his heart

The heart is ripe, fragrant

Wheat leaps in the stomachs of cows

My brother! in your throat

sings the priceless diamond of memory

A mare gives birth to six colts. Walnuts

carom from their hooves into

the bell of the noon sun's trumpet

Who, this moment, nestles

roughened chest flat against the

lonely earth, crying with muffled sobs

SUNFLOWER

[van Gogh: “Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers,” 1888]

Sunflower claws walk the earth

across starving stones

A light, a call

a face full of seeds

shouting to get nearer the sun

The face unfolds in pain

proud tolerance

A sharp flame

burns at the sun's throat

Sun! I feel from beneath my feet

your rising power

and your madness

penetrating my skull! A bright drill

cuts open my skin

A hundred of my hot-tempered hearts

rush towards you

life upright on the wings of a giant beast

cutting the dark

with a wheel of light

Here is your palace

Oleander, pomegranate, cypress

in a throng of gray mice

alive and satisfied

Stags sparkle. In the pain of struggle

I'm granted a

favor and my life is established

on the land extolled by

those I love. My head held high

to hold the sun

before I break

Yellow! color of dreams

Light with a rolling tongue

takes over my words and my pulse

Sky fortissimo among opening sunflowers

Life! sun where my father lives secluded

Flame! surrounding me

beholding my glory

burning me suddenly from inside

My heart, contorted in chasing you

sings furiously, shackled in blood

TONIGHT

[van Gogh: “Starry Night over the Rhone,” 1888]

Rock, September! A dark-skinned child

lights the lamp in the tower

Its golden orange shines at the moon

Rock, September! Tap on your water jar

in the evening breeze

My days are filled with secrets

But when? Can I make those I

love understand my wishes

by describing the chrysanthemum's pistil

My brow is covered with candles

Trumpets bend towards happiness

trumpeting my joy

to the peaceable Rhone

Love me! the Rhone where antlers

disappear. Stars shine out above me

Songs from happy lips

as this wine jar of tonight's sky

tilts towards my delight

Love me, September! Rock

Rock me with tripod feet

Shake me with the warm charm of your glaze

The dark-skinned boy is going home to the river

Tonight, my heart, here

you will feel no pain, no loneliness

STARRY NIGHT

[van Gogh: “Starry Night,” 1889]

Evening is a trembling amber

People, tiny insects

curl up in the horseshoe-shaped air

Language calls out in the dark

Who is it races the fear in our souls

to describe the distant light

to open the constellations, flames licking the sky

With a strength that crosses village and cypress

I call out to Nature: I'm in pain

Brother, give me your hand

Two animal claws will come to grips

My poem, the roaring of wounded animals

The sky's giant teeth gleam over mountaintops exposed

Love is at war, a bird flies high

and changes his feathers as the river suddenly divides

Ah, what kind of drum

will stretch your skin and mine

Blood flows through evening sand

Our creativity is the drummer

grimly tapping out our hearts

In the deserted night

we hear them howling at our dream of life

PORTRAIT

[van Gogh: “Self-Portrait,” 1889]

Say, who can grasp pain with its whirlpool claw

its boiling sulphur. My eyes quake in acid

That heart, in the place you despise, tortures you

after you're safely home

Across a suffering sea. Defeated sails

sag over water lying like a marble slab

Tormented ships tremble

their souls adrift

Cries for help harden

in the smile on every survivor's face

I hang my head and sob

Your face sparkles in my night-long pain

The eyes of a she-wolf who has lost her children

a narwhal writhing on the rocks

watching its own blood stain the ocean

Pain. Human to shrew in a single day

My bones go up in flames

Their marrow becomes condiment

O my soul, like a hurricane

every impure evening, they

pull down the empty house in your

always troubled outlook

Art, bridging ideograms, sees where life

comes from. The land is shaking. I treasure

the pearls in my heart, presented, evenings, in

salt, to the traveler

BLUES

[van Gogh: “The Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles,” 1888]

The hand stirring coffee

in obscure night

tugs at the shirt of some passerby

Light is like a moth

fluttering. In the berry's pit

the claw of the beast moves

Before sleeping he pours blood

down his raw throat

Night, I hear you bawl into the mike

“Not a thing in the world to do—drop

your drawers, baby”

Human beings sit on chairs

tread on plants, looking stern

Clocks tick off numbers of insulted souls

The mike in the neck sings madly out

“Dark heart, dark night and my

lover, the well-known card-sharp”

Homeless. Loiterers

scratch their faces, echo the song

Derelict! displays animal skin in the warm

night, showing off magnificent houses

Pines tremble in the shiver of souls

beasts pass in mobs, not daring to look back

I feel fear on distant lands

Seed is buried all about me

The waiter faces me, eyes at a loss

A man out cold hangs on to a shark's fin

navigating a caffeine fantasy

The coffee shop sings hoarsely in my ear

Babies cry their unfortunate destinies

Ancestors panic in the very stones

Shall we simply throw this land away

Artists: sad and poor, you have

only poetry, bright sunlight

the music that turns people inward

to themselves! Nothing else to cling to

XUE DI

trans by Wang Ping and Keith Waldrop