Ballads for Bad Children

These poems are translated from the ones in Chinese by Bao Huiyi (包慧怡), who called herself Madame Blavatsky. As you can see, her poems contain a celestial mysticism and magical imagination. You can go to her BLOG for more of her original works. Bao Huiyi is also the Chinese translator of Margaret Atwood's Good Bones.


Desert Giant

My dear dearest girl
please don't blame my rudeness
don't blame me
for swallowing you into my chest
without your permission

Calm down and mind your skirt
my gullet is probably damp
and my throat might be dark
just stay calm, don't be panicked

Turn around that curve
and you will see my heart
dry and spacious, burning
white candles give off a lovely scent

For you, my dear
I went to France and swallowed beignets
piled on the table neatly in order

For you, my dear
I went to the East and swallowed the chinaware
containing the nectar of lilies

Of course
I also swallowed many other things my throat resists--
a pair of silk dancing shoes
an ivory harp
a birch forest
and a pond filled
with sweet flag grass
I'd even swallow a little boat
so you could row it adrift
I'd even swallow a swarm of bees
and let them fly about by your hair

My dear, dearest girl
if there is anything I've forgotten
please forgive my short memory
please forever and ever
live in my heart
no turning back or whatsoever
I will be careful and make sure
it'll be a warm and peaceful place like never



My Lovers

My lovers
have always been the same one
tall and walking in hesitancy, none of the others
but always bearing the water zodiac signs
when smoking, his face looks like ceramic in profile
when walking in the sun, he is weightless almost unnoticeable
He wrote poems for me, asked me out on the phone in a low voice
and kissed me only at sunset
He never made decisions, but always kept his ambitions
as fragile as me, we were the best people
He bid me farewell with a smile, caring about me no more ever after
like two friends knowing each other so well

My lover grows a thorn that reaches inwardly
with so many enduring bronze blades
a pair of ebony hands find nowhere to land
his white face can be written on
his white eyelashes blink without an answer
a gloomy heart-beating happens once and for all
I pushed the door open and went out in the morning
the flowers were calm and elegant, silently the dews imploded
the clouds assumed an air of some sort
I thought I was a lovely being then

I thought I could love a different one
I thought I could move on anytime, and leave cape jasmine stems
on my way to gauge the border of the island
stand in the water for a bit when tired
and let the rhinoceros beetle
stand on my eyebrow for a while
I though I could plant those transparent zebras

I thought my heart was huge and grand
I even thought I could finish this song
without being sad


A long train is piercing through my rib cage
but I think I will see it again



I can Still Look at You

I can still look at you
like I've never met you before
also like
we have been in love for so long
a leopard walks out of the moonlight
by the window a basket of jelly fungi is covered in dust
If I love a man
I will only kiss his left cheek
If I'm loved
I only want to be touched on my eyebrows