Poems, Yeng Pway Ngon

While at Singapore, we had a wonderful time interviewing Yeng Pway Ngon, an inexhaustible author, who published 26 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, plays and literary criticism. We spoke about Yeng Pway Ngon’s talent to write across genres, his first award, the reasons why he has chosen to publish in Taiwan, the imagery in his poems and why truthfulness is important. Yeng Pway Ngon also gave us permission to publish two poems from his Collected Poems’ collection, ‘Café’ and ‘Missing’.

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Missing

I was confounded
and fell into moping, even flirted
with heavy drinking, really simply
trying to camouflage my old
sores

you wrote me a poem. i understand
you are tired of all this
you are done, fed up of being on the run, about to
disappear incognito. in fact
for a long time 
you haven’t cared about
the bloody clashes, or those riverfulls of red

regrettably this old enemy
still cannot
forget the old you
your body
your tattoos

tonight the wind is high
i sit up, pull on my jacket. suddenly
I think of your tipsy banter, think of
how it’s been so long since i’ve read your poetry
think of you over there - 
your night, which now
is darker, deeper… 

think of how I should write a poem for you
even though you have long run out of poetry
for me; although
you may see it, although
you may not

i write a poem for you
but have nothing to say, just to say
i’m still so easily
moved, still so easily
reduced to angry tears, especially when
in the middle
of writing a poem for you. 

8 November 1983, morning

Yeng Pway Ngon, ‘Missing,’ Poems, translated by Alvin Pang, Judith Huang, Goh Being Choo. Singapore: The Library Centre, 2012. 

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 Cafe

And some begin to shake their legs
some jabber at the top of their voices
some stir their coffees
some sip endlessly their lemonades
some smoke
some do nothing much at all

[Anthony cautiously brings up the morning weather
Maria seems perfectly happy]

this is how they slit into this dark place
to which they have been given neither map nor key
and the door
has yet to be opened

put it this way: there is no flower power here
they are not on some assignment
nor are they wasting their time

(Anthony carefully alludes to the morning’s weather
Maria looks utterly delighted)

it’s just that some species of flora need to be kept
in the dark to sprout
or flower or bear fruit
or perhaps have never been capable of anything
at any rate the door has yet to be opened

(Anthony discreetly mentions the morning’s weather
Maria appears completely ecstatic)

meanwhile many shoes drum past street after street
and many windows open on steel and concrete
and calculators busy themselves squabbling

(Anthony casually broaches the morning’s weather
Maria is apparently overcome with joy)

23 April 1968

Yeng Pway Ngon, ‘Cafe,’ Poems, translated by Alvin Pang, Judith Huang, Goh Being Choo. Singapore: The Library Centre, 2012.