The Place With Weaker Sunlight
—To Chiayi Historical Prison*
Pek-êng Koa / in translation by C. J. Anderson-Wu
The sun over where you are located is weak
having traded off the sins with dignity of your dwellers
The bright future is a seductive trap
one day after another forms a depressing chain
A group of numbers exchange words with bloodless lips
Fan-shaped cells and corridors
waft out mildew of despair and isolation
quarrels between fetters and ankles are heard
Under the rusted windows
empty eyes are calculating
the temperature of rotting lives
No matter how sharp a needle of youth is
it fails to stitch up the deteriorating cracks
No matter how fragrant the redwood of the building is
it is unable to cover up the stale odor of dying souls
You often hear
a gecko squeaking from the ceiling
mindlessly shattering the prisoners’ long dreams
Sometimes you see
God Amaterasu-ōkami’s eyes
and from them the tender streams unintentionally drifting
Yes, the bustling ninety years is over now
Indifference slides over the snow in your heart
You no longer feel with what tricks that time has
passed from the morning to the dusk
Yes, aged, so what; dilapidation, so what
Months and years, so what
In silence, you pretend to be unconcerned
retreating under the lazy sun
you practice meditation under the glances of hurrying tourists
*Chiayi Historical Prison was constructed in 1919, by the Japanese colonial government, and inaugurated in 1922. Ninety years later, its restoration kicked off in December 2009, and was completed in 2011. It is the Chiayi Prison Museum now.
Pek-êng Koa is an award-winning poet in Taiwanese language, he also teaches poetry writing in Taiwanese language. Having been imprisoned for 17 years with two charges of robbery, Koa’s poetry is often about incarceration as he started learning this language and writing with it during his time in prison.
C. J. Anderson-Wu is a Taiwanese writer. In 2017 she published Impossible to Swallow—A Collection of Short Stories About The White Terror in Taiwan and in 2021 The Surveillance—Tales of White Terror in Taiwan. Based on true characters and real incidents, her works look into the political oppression in Taiwanese society during the period of Martial Law (1949-1987), and the traumas resulting from the state’s brutal violation of human rights. Currently she is working on her third book Endangered Youth— To Hong Kong. C. J. Anderson-Wu’s Facebook page is /cjandersonwu1.