Homemade Bomb

POETRY Contemporary Taiwanese Poetry 2 Homemade Bomb by HungHung Expel the Indians To construct America Expel theJews To construct Germany Expel thePalestinians To construct Israel Expel the Manchus To constructChina Expel all the impure elements To cleanse a poem? Those unrhymed syllables Those unpoetic words Those corpses of language Those refugee camps of language An orphan breaks a baby bottle To make a homemade bomb 2005 One World, One Dream by Hung Hung forYang Peiyi Your faces smell likeapples Mine, like chewed green grass Your feetstride lightlyon thenight sky Under each step fireworksbloom Mine tread in sneakers That stink when theygetwet in the rain Hiding in theshadows by the window I listen to my voice singing It inspiresmy country It moves the world Someday my singing voice will grow coarse Trampled in theasphalt covering theearth Windows will be shatteredby thebooming ofpile drivers There'll be nomore shadows inwhich tohide Would you care to smell the fragranceof freshlychewed grass? 2008 Author's note: At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics, a tiny,pigtailed girl movingly sang "Ode to theMotherland." However, itwas later revealed that the girl was actually lip-synching the voice of seven-year-old Yang Peiyi. The authorities had decided that, "in the national interest," Yang Peiyi was not cute enough to project China's flawless image to theworld. Reportedly, all the children who appeared on stage during the song, representing the fifty-six ethnic groups of China, were ofHan ethnicity. 341World Literature Today

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