Snake Tree
By Yang Lian
1
fatal fancy grafted beyond the window
this instant the
garden is part of a toxic city
green perfected in a flood
swollen horse or
crow pecking at rotten guts
a child stares at a tree and says snakes
a fizzing in sunlight’s torpid ears
2
storm brings you alive
storm artist
lashing the snakes
twice-fictional branches
tails sealed knots on shrill flutes
like acrid embryos imprisoned in the womb
3
finger
that prises spring’s scales open that’s covered in spittle
that slides on its belly
4
where to begin
these are trees and those are
snakes
from one dead person to another
how does the snow in the body bear the pain of sloughing skin
and fall outside
5
the garden is part
of a toxic poem
all the weather has just been folded up
all the trees
follow
what hatched into a snake
what was fear in a child’s eyes was fun
teeth held deep in your throat
inventing that birdsong
night sky
pressed down into a dark green swamp
crawling in opposition to a piece of blue
freely famished words
bearing plentiful fruits of madness
6
in every minute how many breaths
in every breath how many snakes
in every snake tree how many organs that yearn for death
7
shape that sin hangs in the innermost hear gathering
ground
branches continually growing from your persistence
curling down a
circumcising rod of pure flesh
putting out a bud that fears no poison
four seasons
expound a sombre aesthetic of winter
cold blood seeps into any fragile joint
feet regressing in the wind tangled as tongues
and the poet still stripping the leaves
when the stripped snake is more cruel it’s just a plant
using associations of childhood
to run the child through
like a snake tree accidentally achieved in leisure
From Notes of a
Blissful Ghost, by Yang Lian
