ANNA KEIKO

ANNA KEIKO

Hope

Like the eyes of the earth waiting to be blessed,

it is not the fire and what I yearn that comes.

But it burns my brain.

A wounded bird is unable to fly home

though its home is just across, on the opposite side.

TRANSLATION: STANLEY BARKAN

Shadow

Everyone has my shadow,

Everyone is some of the broken me.

Some and some more again.

I am split up and inside everyone.

In those split parts,

I can be found in both shortcomings and advantages.

Any split lens has similarity,

Some more, some less.

They synthesize a telescope

And take me to the camera that I haven't been close to.

TRANSLATION: STANLEY BARKAN

 

Profound Words Asleep

The Prologue of a Group of Twenty Poems

Underneath the earth in deep sleep,

in an illusory world of assumptions,

the soul trudges to knock on the door of history.

Time cleanses darkness before the rosy dawn rises.

Fragments of memories are recovered forming pictures,

showing the images of our predecessors thousands of years ago.

Not many have ever witnessed

the resurrection of spirits in the ruins.

Violent lightning stimulates sleeping hormones;

and the words sprout from the decayed tree roots.

Eyes from the tree branches sparkle and pay tribute from the high place.

Tears from the vault of heaven soothe our dry throats.

People suffer from irregular sleeplessness.

They sleepwalk,   go through outer prosperity,

but look for belief on the brink.

Swans seek solitude while the sea calls out.

The wheels of time lose their direction.

Fierce winds disrupt calmness and curl up waves.

Violent streams of rain drown flowers just poking out of the soil.

Embankment is no longer on shore;

the ocean is no longer there in the sea.

Pain and drunkenness spread wings of dreams.

Branches and leaves grow strongly out of rotting logs.

Postmodernism brims with spirit.

Symbols for decrees fill the paper.

Saliva and salt are cast onto barren lands.

Utterances throughout the millennia permeate paper and ink.

Asleep, the profound words awake from deep inside the walls.

Eyes from the grave gaze out in fright.

Trembling hands stretch into the noon sunlight and the library.

Dawn and dusk tell.

TRANSLATION: NOAH

ANNA KEIKO

ANNA KEIKO, pseudonym for Wang Xianglian, was born in Wuyuan, Jiangxi Province, but lives in Shanghai. She is member of Shanghai Pudong Writers Association, president and editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Spring Breeze Literature Association, vice president of the Shanghai Haipai Poetry Society and represents in China the international cultural association ITHACA. Her poetry appeared in more than 50 publications in China and abroad, including in the "American Poetry" magazine, at a French poetry blog Arbresalettres, in "Universal India”, in “The World Journal of the Philippines", in the "New Zealand Herald", in “Overseas phoenix poetry”, in “British translation society”, in “Canadian literary poetry society”, the “Jiangnan Times” and “Yangtze River”. A large number of her poems have been published in Chinese, English, French, German, Dutch, Hindi, Arabic… She received many awards. In 2019, the Silver Prize of the first "Zuolong Right Tiger Cup International Poetry Competition", the second prize of the Shanghai Folk Poetry Competition and the National Network Popularity Award. Her poetry collection "Deep Sleeping Language," has been broadcast by Shanghai People's Broadcasting Station. Anna Keiko is also author of prose, lyrics, essays, comedy and drama. She is an active international poetry promoter. In collaboration with the Spanish cultural organization ITHACA, she publishes since 2018 weekly in Chinese the Poem of the Week, so far poetry from more than 54 poets from 21 countries.