Let Me Praise My Shoes!
—A Personal Displacement in Six Parts in the 20th Century
*
1905
Grandfather Shao Kang Ning 邵康宁
was born in the small village Gao Liang Pu
His name had his parents’ wishes:
Kang is Health Ning is Peace
His century had neither
Grandfather was born in the rice field
While his mother was digging the mud
Born in the mud, played in the mud
ate and shit in the mud
He would have died in the mud 93 years later
If he had not left
Peasants, the hardest-working group
Their life was like a house of mud
Old folks wanted to be buried where they were born
The world to them was the endless yellow earth
*
He who cut his enemy’s head off was a Japanese samurai
He who cut open his own stomach was a great samurai
But not samurai’s swords but bullets came
The Japs bombed towns along the Yangtze River day and night
People escaped to hand-dug caves in mountains
Those who stayed hid in the bamboo chicken coops or pigsties
Hi, 八歯の道 Hachi ha no michi, 八格牙路
The Japs cursed in a mixed language
Aunt was born in a cave one night
The newly born was almost frozen
For her whole life she dreamed of running and hiding from the Japs
No joking, she would say repeatedly
A samurai’s bayonet pierced someone’s chest
searching for the young man’s beating heart
A pregnant neighbor was too scared to run
Her unripened fetus was taken out of her womb
Thirty Japs had her for the whole night
Where is her resurrection?
Chrysanthemum
Sword
cherry blossom
bushido loves the beauty
kiss or kill
Mother fuckers, you know why they hate you
Everlasting
BTW: JAPANESE NEVER APOLOGIZE
Years later a retired Jap soldier came to Nanjing seeking his redemption
Nobody could save anybody really
*
Behold
Blessed are those who suffer
Blessed are those who left home early
Blessed are those who are not loved enough
The 20th century continued over there
Since the Russians had their revolution
Since the Americans had a big step on the moon
There was a new way of talking
A Cat in the Hat is jumping
She who refused to give up her seat on a bus was not going far
She who loved purple was not born purple. She was born colorless
Smoke spiraled up from her house
rose slowly over the cornfield under the southern sky
Sister, she screamed
How many colors did sky have?
Among many styles she had to choose one
Sister, S I S T E R, 妹妹
How could I save you?
*
One of those days
A man was howling on the other side of the Pacific
San Francisco, whose home are you?
Howling of loneliness, howling of helplessness
He started to vomit and spat on his paper
Look, Sir, those are poems
Are birth control pills useful?
Everybody went crazy after Ginsburg
In 1974 Fluoxetine was created
Mother swallowed ten pills when she first got hold of it
Too late
Anne Sexton already killed herself
She borrowed someone’s words to think
To displace her transformation bundle
*
To be or not to be?
Fear of the millennium
A computer bug, a whatever bug
the end of the world is coming
From Grandfather’s century to Granddaughter’s
all that is available now will be at .com
WWI WWII WWW
World War What World War Web
WWW is a new world in itself
Salt no longer salty
Sun no longer sunny
Everyone is everyone’s honey and sweetie
Sister, see you later alligator
Son, all my inheritance to you will be my three email accounts
Here are the passwords: xxxxxx878kilw@!?
No word no walking no home no world
WWW.com = World Without Walking
WWW.com = World Without Word
911, can someone send an email to God?
He surely has an email account
Who are we after all?
Shao Wei was raised near the Yangtze River in China and came to the United States in 1996. She earned an MA in Creative Writing from New York University, an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in Arts & Humanities from University of Texas at Dallas. Her books include Pulling A Dragon’s Teeth (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), Nine Songs. Females (limited edition, Hong Kong 1993), and a memoir, Homeland (Taipei 2010). She lives with her son and her mother in Orange County, California, where she works for a nonprofit organization.
