Poem with Dinosaur

Literary Review, Summer, 2004 by Leung Ping-Kwan

Poem with Dinosaur

   From the television screen across the room
   A roar
   A dinosaur seems about to appear
   People always believe that the appearance of dinosaurs
      can help solve every question.
   They line up as usual
      to buy noodles with ham and eggs
      and wear Chanel suits to work
   Further away there's a fight in the cake shop
   The window pane gradually fogs over.
   Can you announce a return to your inner being?
   A million trivialities stop you from
      believing in a world made up of words.
   Are you writing? Still writing
      On the form handed to you
      fill in your id number.
   Spots of dim lamplight on the ceiling
   are not an omen; light is not necessarily
      the worthiest adversary of darkness.
   Neither you nor I are watchmen of the night
   Take a nap if you are tired
   No point in delivering a grand manifesto
   Lamplight is for writing and reading
      for seeing more clearly the ones next to you.
   They keep kissing their mobile phones
      listening to their pagers sing
      wearing ragged jeans and cKone
      battling with helicopters.

   In the world you inhabit
      you can't decide the picture on the screen
   The screen keeps flickering
   The dinosaur has still not appeared
   I probably mistook this movie for a different one
   Since the dinosaur hasn't appeared, I'd better write a poem.

Translated from the Chinese by Agnes Chan Hung Chong and John Minford