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Memories of Murder
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On 5th Avenue, Xing Lu Cao, Nanjing, Dec. 13, 1932,
Thirty Japanese soldiers invaded a house.
They killed the owner who opened the door,
And shot the hostess who shouted, “Why do you kill me?”
Shah, a tenant of the house, kneeled
and begged them to spare his family. The soldiers killed him.
They raped Shah’s wife, stabbed her with bayonets
and plugged a perfume bottle into her genitalia.
They stabbed and killed a baby crying beside her as well.
The soldiers found Shah’s parents and four daughters in the next room.
First, they fired their guns into the two elderly.
Next, they raped 16 and 14-year old girls, and murdered them brutally.
The 8-year old girl under a blanket was stabbed with bayonets.
The youngest girl, also under a blanket,
Suffered brain damage instead of death.
Before the soldiers left the house,
They brought the owner’s two children shivering outside
For the final ceremony.
They stabbed the younger boy, and cut off the older boy’s head.
For 15 days, the 8 and 4-year‐old sisters,
The only survivors in the house,
Stood beside their mother’s body, eating rice flakes.
When the International committee entered the house,
And saw the raped dead girls on the table,
And the overflowing blood which had not yet dried up,
Neither God nor Buddha was there.
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Jeong Han-yong: poet, born in 1958, poetry 『How to Make a Mink Coat』 etc.
Translated by Seth Feldman(Canada, b. 1977) is a teacher, writer and musician
