6 pages of poetry broadcast yesterday on Extraordinary Voices, hosted by Omar Sakr: https://www.uqp.com.au/podcasts/episode-2-ev4et-omar-sakr-and-ouyang-yu
Till Covid-Infinite: A Suite of Poems by Ouyang Yu
Ban on Australia
no barley
no beef
no coal
no iron ore
no travel
no students
no more relation ship
What next?
Refer back to history
and read that poem:
‘Those bad Chinese! Those bad Chinese.
Foul scatterers of strange disease.’
A fragment, remembered
The interviewer asks:
‘What does being Asian mean to you in this country?’
You answered straight away:
‘It means you don’t have a friend’
Now, you thought to revise it as:
‘And never will no matter how hard you try’
But thought better of it by deleting it like this:
‘And never will no matter how hard you try’
Cing
I have been practicing social distancing ever
since I came to this country 29 years ago
In fact, I now think, Australia is the best
country for that type of cing, I mean thing
Racial distancing, for example, like the ageing guy yesterday in Bunnings Warehouse
where he mumbled ‘I’m sorry?’ as I raised my head to see a distancing face
Then, this morning, as I was moving my bowels, I wrongly read social distancing
as facial distancing and, in that instant, all the faces, distanced over the years
came rushing back, faces of colour, black, brown, dark and daunting
as well as those of no colour that they say is white
a facial distancing accompanied by heart distancing
and mind distancing, two varieties that are so well practised in Australia
that all these cings are here to stay
for longer periods of time than you and me till Covid-infinite
Comments on Capitalism
a. According to him, Covid-19 will be followed by the collapse of capitalism
b. In China, public health is for everyone and for free
c. To be number one in everything is to be that in the number of deaths
d. If money is the only thing important, poverty can’t be cured
e. Black lives don’t matter because money does
f. A recommendation: Run America like a socialist state in capitalist ways
g. When it comes to violence, America matches China or vice versa
h. Why blame each other if everyone has uncleaned shitty bums?
i. Have nothing more to say. Wait till capitalism revises itself in its demise
Listen
They have the freedom to impose human rights
They have the freedom to violate the human rights by imposing them
They have the freedom to stop you speaking if they don’t want to hear what you say
They have the freedom to freely reject or accept you
They have the freedom to feel good and better
They have the freedom to impose political, economic, literary, poetic and moral sanctions
They have the freedom to say I know you are right but I am the editor
It's the Ovid-19 time
But the sun wants us to remember that this is the best time
And the trees want us to remember that there's no more work, at least for a few more weeks
And the skies are happy that no more planes will cut them open from time to time all the time
And the birds are happy to see more people idling away like they are no longer busy
And the nights can now enjoy as quiet a sleep as their human counterparts
And things are so pretty when the world has stopped turning around profit
And the poet, left alone and permanently unemployed, gets very busy with his poetry
The Killer Virus: a description
It enters by nose
It enters by mouth
It enters by eye, or ear or tooth
The way it enters
resembles very much love
igniting fire from fire to fire
Then, it goes into hiding, like love also
not wanting to be detected
least of all known
Two weeks after, it begins reaping
seeing people fall, out on the street
putting them away, from the locked down cities
For once, streets of the country are thoroughly happy
because free from traffic
and constant feet, the most resistant part to it
Now, worldwide and most famous
let me welcome it and call it ‘Killer Verse’
Yay
I'm in despair
。
there's no incentive
。
it's been isolation like this ever since
。
I came to this country
。
social distancing to the degree
。
of self-destruction
。
who contacts who?
。
who is supposed to approach who?
。
self-imposed isolation
。
self-imposed distancing
。
self-imposed ignoring
。
to be a migrant in this country
。
is to be a disease
。
a pre-existing virus
。
who wants to know who?
。
who needs who?
。
am I a fictional character of my own?
。
am I a fiction of my self?
。
I hear you, I hear you, for you say: 'Why don't you die, now?'
。
I did see, though, my own corpse last night
。
people busy moving around me and I not a word
。
is that how post-life feels?
。
the chasm is vast
。
so vast we can't even begin talking
。
eyes looking the other way
。
never caring to meet
。
even in the same city
。
until the obituary
。
a self-supporter, a self-isolator, a self-distancer
。
you always have been
。
because of the circumstances
。
because of no because
。
self-reliance, self-whiting, self-pleasing
。
to the degree of self-dying
。
now, a builder of self-graves, you
。
have no visitors
。
not even virtual
。
time to die, to go, to disappear, to self-white-out
。
why bother breathing
。
the same breaths breathed out by
。
strangers who befriend you but you never want to know?
。
the Silence, the Quietness, the Quietude, the Solitude
。
are so oppressive now
。
billions of mouths, unemployed
。
are howling in no sound
。
fine with me
。
it's all fine, with me
。
I'm but another disease that is no longer novel
。
quit me in poetry
。
if that's what you want
。
let's welcome Vivid-19nism
。
here to stay and for always
。
and it's good company, yay
A/F
As if nothing worked
As if we were still alive
As if it’s a fake country
As if things did seem to matter
As if we had lived trillions of years
As if I were not we
As if sex mattered little now
As if memory were a graveyard
As if words were sands were words
As if the past were right now
As if clouds were my eyes
As if he could make himself a king standing like that in the photograph
As if they were always correct
As if you spoke the same language when you speak it
As if a book were a walking corpse, a group of them
As if night were day turned inside out
As if writing mattered and etc (no it doesn’t, it matters even less, with tik tok, with fb, with this and that, with these and those, let’s see writers die en masse, giving way to a future of
less and less)
As if death were life
Wuhan
I came from Wuhan
I lived there
I loved there
I gave birth there
I wrote about it in my third, actually my second, published novel
I wrote about it in my trilogy published in Taiwan
I wrote about it in many of my as yet unpublished poems
I wrote about it in another novel as yet unpublished
Don't start trying to fend me off
I had done all that before 4 May 2019
when I headed back for home in Melbourne
'They told me
to fuck off
to go back to my own country
to be better than I always am
to write to an absolutely acceptable degree
to keep silent when a voice is in high demand
to revise and keep revising until nothing of me remains
to say nothing good about the country where I was born and bred
to always divide me against my self
to stay away in perpetual lockdown unless they have a book launch they want you
to go to and buy a copy
to watch and keep watching their TV commercials so all you ever think of is buy, buy, buy
to not want to know them because they don't want to know me
to remember that people from my own country are never good enough, have to be wiped out
one day or subdued as total slaves
to internalise all the anger resentment fury frustrations disappointments despair till I turn into
a human-sized atom bomb'
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