Lianbin Ni (Edward Li)


NO TITLE (translated from Chinese by author)


No Fire


Morning-Sun, one of the addresses more west than

Sunset. Kashgar, Baghdad and Samarkand

Married to several dots on the map

No longer interested in you. Bury the window,

Sketch a wild goose, an act seems so frivolous today

Socks refunded you ten Yuan. Before dark

You don’t have to worry your father’s long-handed hoe

Forgot which green tree nearby Jiangdong Road.

Who has abducted the footsteps of your westbound trip?

A compass, a Linden and a book of Journey to West

Sold all year long at the 2nd floor of Xinhua Bookstore.


“Pitter-Patter”, a lighter ignited

An US $ bill. An arrogance owed to Hongkong Gangster Films

Lowering the hat-brim of 1980s,

Hurried out of Zhaozai Lighter’s Commercial Street.

Taklamakan Desert and Honkong Young wiseguy

Confirm one after another: Among all other trivial,

scattered adventures of the world, there is still a little bit

Yiwu left. The mirage has sold the far distance,

Renting a Foot-Massage-Store at No. 300 Jiangbin Mid-Road.

The short hand understands even at midnight

To poke Yiwu River Water a hole unaccessible.High Telecom Building

Collapse one day, searching quartz clocks and the caller ID

There will be no rain throughout the evidences all.


Keep rubbing that ten-Yuan in your hands

Wait for a pair of socks blackout.


Kerry Shawn Keys

Northern Lights


Snowmen brought the winterkill of wheat,

brown splintered ice from polar floe,

daylight eclipsed by the earth’s long shadow,

cold winds at night and teeth upon ice.

Snowflakes fell like swandown torn to song,

all night, the springwood, winterbourne.


Out of the sea rose Botticelli’s gift,

froth spun from a burning star,

salt-rime or hoarfrost, unseen,

untaken, less sea than wind.


Pine sap choked with seaweed, ambergris, no man

to yield the sign, to find the form from ice.

No man to warm the goddess in his bed. No eye

unbent for violets under the wine.


Old salts have all the facts nailed down:


From snow, men carved a winter shell,

snowmen working till they thawed in the sun.

Then, eager for love’s kill, the winter-wind,

teeth lined with frost, the pack of the wind,

drove the goddess to the coffined boat.

There, shiftless with space,  the impassioned star,

imprisoned in polar arms of the night,

drifts down the black light’s long spiral claw.