Poetry from The Literary Review
City
Louise Ho
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No fingers can claw at the bronze gauze Of a Hong Kong December dusk, Only a maze of criss-crossing feet That enmeshes the city In a merciless grid. Between many lanes Of traffic, the street-sleeper Carves out his island home. Or under the thundering fly-over, Another makes his own peace of mind. Under the staircase, By the public lavatory, A man entirely unto himself Lifts his hand And opens his palm. His digits Do not rend the air, They merely touch As pain does, effortlessly.
I It’s been snowing heavily and streets with cars and other things are completely covered with snow. Funny, snow always (especially at two in the morning) gives a sense of permanence, unchangingness. It arrests time and things stay. Like a flood it covers all and swamps all but unlike a flood it moves nothing and is in itself unmoving. It reminds me of a Japanese sand garden with patterns raked into the sand. It stays for as long as you leave it, then you flatten it and rake up a new pattern. Cars come and make furrows in the snow, these stay until other cars make other furrows. II For every mask that we take off there is always one more left on—an endless recession of masks, of depths of withdrawal. As long as there is life, there is the ability to recede further. The self is infinitely reductive and is never reduced to nothing. Alternatively, one can reach out and touch infinitely into the other person, the other thing, the outside, and having always to reach yet further.
feet that paddle in the shallows hands that sieve through slimy weeds eyes that reflect the thousand lights give only secondary sensations the toes are booted the fingers are gloved the eyes are shaded we talk of cultural vacuity we talk of flux and instability the sophisticated talk of inevitabilities to explain away inconsistencies nevertheless we walk firmly though we walk on stilts we walk only where stilts are safe schooled in our system of indirect transmissions we run like clock-work and go on ticking till we stop on the dot
Yes, I remember Marvell, Dryden, Yeats, men who had taken up the pen While others the sword That would have vanished Were it not for the words That shaped them and kept them. The shadows of June the fourth Are the shadows of a gesture, They say, but how shall you and I Name them, one by one? There were so many, Crushed, shot, taken, all overwhelmed, Cut down without a finished thought or cry. Presumably, that night, or was it dawn, The moon shone pure, As on the ground below Flowed the blood of men, women and children. The stunned world responded, and Pointing an accusing finger, felt cheated. But think, my friend, think: China never Promised a tea party, or cakes For the masses. It is we, Who, riding on the crest of a long hope, Became euphoric, and forgot The rock bottom of a totalitarian state. Then, this compact commercial enclave, First time ever, rose up as one. Before we went our separate ways again, We thought as one, We spoke as one, We too have changed, if ‘not utterly’ And something beautiful was born. As we near the end of an era We have at last Become ourselves. The catalyst Was our neighbour’s blood. Whoever would not For a carefree moment Rejoice at a return To the Motherland? But, rather pick ears of corn In a foreign field Than plough the home ground Under an oppressive yoke. Ours is a unique genius, Learning how to side-step all odds Or to survive them. We have lived By understanding Each in his own way The tautness of the rope Underfoot. Editor's Note: Louise Ho's poems were originally published in Local Habitations, Hong Kong: Twilight Books, 1994. |
