Andrew C. Ferguson
Chinese Ghost Stories
In the old stories, the Goddess Tchi-niu
becomes wife to a faithful son,
the first tea-bushes grow from a monk’s severed eyelids
the Emperor’s soldier dies in the rebel camp, but lives on
a porcelain-maker trades his soul for a vase made flesh
a woman’s bones give her father’s bell a perfect tone.
In the modern China, on the other hand
Hu-Jia is haunted by the authorities, their low-rent men:
boredom cloaks them as they follow his pretty wife home,
while she, exposing their souls with a flickering lens
takes his medication to the police office when he disappears
and waits at home, haunted by visions of their unborn son.
Andrew C. Ferguson lives in Fife. A poetry pamphlet co-written with Jane McKie, Head to Head, is now available from www.knuckerpress.com. Andrew is on Facebook and at www.myspace.com/andrewcferguson.
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