Yu Guangzhong's "Double Bed" (余光中的『雙人牀』)

In this poem, written in December 1966, the Cultural Revolution had already started.  Wherever war, conflict and disputes might happen, the poet thought that thye should never take place within the bed. He was listening to the sound of shells overhead like a swam of fireflies their heads, probably referring to the daily shelling of Matsu and Kam Mun, the two Taiwanese islands closest to Fujian, by the PLA. But to the poet, what is most important is making love, the path to a kind of provisional eternity. His veiled reference to the female breast as "bouncy slope", love act  as "rhythm" and "heavenly kingdom swirling into the eddy of your four limbs" , as hot, delicate and pure madness are very all suggestive. The political and military struggles between the two Chinas are transformed by the poet into the heavenly or eternal struggles of love within the bed by two lovers.

雙人牀                                             Double Bed

讓戰爭在雙人牀外進行          Let the war be carried on outside the double bed

躺在你長長的斜坡上              Lying upon your long long slope

聽流彈，像一把呼嘯的螢火  Listening to the stray shells, like a batch of howling fireflies

在你的，我的頭頂竄過          Swishing above your head and mine

竄過我的鬍鬚和你的頭髮      Swishing above my beard and your hair

讓政變和革命在四周吶喊      Let political change and revolution roar everywhere

至少愛情在我們的一邊          At least love is on our side

至少破曉前我們很安全          At least we shall be quite safe before daybreak.

當一切都不再可靠                  When everything is reliable no more

靠在你彈性的斜坡上              Lying upon your bouncy slopes

今夜，即使會山崩或地震      Tonight, even if mountains tumble or the earth quakes

最多跌進你低低的盆吧           I would fall into your very low basin at most

至少有六尺的韻律是我們       6 feet of rhythm would be ours at least

至少日出前你完全是我的      you would be wholly mine before daybreak at least

仍滑膩，仍柔軟，仍可燙熱 still smooth, still soft, still able to scorch

一種純粹而精細的瘋狂          a kind of pure and delicate madness

讓夜和死亡在黑的邊境          Let night and death stay at the edge of darkness

旗號和銅號在高原上舉起      flags and brass bugles raised high on the plateaux        

發動永恆在第一千次圍城    to mobilize eternity for the thousandth seige on the town 

唯我們循螺紋急降，天國在下 Alone, we follow the sharp touch down along the conch's spiral 

捲入你四肢美麗的旋渦。     the realm of heaven swirling into the beautiful eddies of  your 4 limbs below.