Duo Han Longbow
translated by Yun Qin WangWeak Theology
A frenetic morning! On the balcony, the crow spins out a second head—it follows a sickly cat that is leaping through the trees then cuts all the way up; the cold mist is sliced into the shape of a python. A day of miracle. But I can't breathe, in such pure animalic moment. ((((( Come out! Come out! Come out! ))))) If things must learn to disembody themselves and become traces once they come in, will the disappearance of the door throw everything out of order? You did this: You reddened the door with Your liver, forged the lock from shits and gold, bred the poisonous weeds for them to crawl over both sides of the door so news would only pass through the peephole. We’d like to do this: we bang the door open with Your severed head; we point at the thorn-covered doorway and command You: ((((( Step down! Step down! Step down! ))))) Then we look outside. The crow’s wingtips burn and burn and grow bigger and warmer, blood and rice gushing out of a tree’s wound. A morning on which life would rather be annihilated than be humiliated. But someone forbore the myth and led us into a rectangular, scorching noon— ((((( You )))))!
2023 spring
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Weak Theology
To trip over an icy fine bone of a tall grass and to step onto the thorn of a bamboo shoot in the filthy
soil
would be perfect It’d be like a wolf splitting its own body down the center into halves—so the wolf
evolves wings
The spider silk shimmers All it tells is rumors I believe them all
Terrified, its preys keep saying it’s all but a myth
But myths always hunger before they become history
2023 spring
––––
Weak Theology
Hangzhou
The lake sinks into every fold of the air.
Above the tunnel, a glowing celestial body in bondage.
Sooner or later, water will flood this place. The trembling water
will signal Earth’s mantle to fly. The Earth’s heart
fly-like, will hover in delight. The cave
will return as a phantom voice, but just once.
The cave’s black interface will crawl over the grass
-green ECG cable. I am in its electrode tonight.
To be delivered to the cross-road chosen by the dead.
But the veins
suppress me.
––––
Duo Han Longbow (b. 1999, Changchun) works across writing, live performance, and photography, and is the author of the poetry book Gold of Doom. duohanlongbow.com
Yun Qin Wang is a poet. Their work has appeared in places including Annulet, Works & Days and poets.org. They live in Shanghai.