chinese box - Che Qianzi

A poem by Che Qianzi translated from the Chinese by Jeffrey Twitchell.

Open a box, inside
Still another
Open this box
Inside still still
Open the box
In the opened box
Lies (like a feather
Lying on a dead bird's body) another
Box
Opened a box
Opened a box
Open a box open
A box

I want to find one
Containing no boxes
No matter how small
Empty box
As if when I have discovered they are emperors
I will already have been hovering in the sky

Walking on the earth, I drink water
The emperor takes off, in order to
Better enter
The time he would like to go into

All this
Painted on
The surface of the box

[Here is another translation of a poem in by Che Qianzi https://youtu.be/sKMMYnu_qtc ]

"Chinese Box" is taken from "Original: Chinese Language-Poetry Group"
published by Parataxis Editions of Brighton 1994

A special edition of Parataxis: modernism and modern writing
Number 7, Spring 1995

terms
chinese language poems in English translation