Three Poems
by L. Acadia
Do gods appear?
(translated and adapted from a news article in Taiwan’s United Daily News, March 2025)
“I’ve awaited you so long!”
called a flute-like iced soprano;
though only a long-bearded elder could I see
ununiformed guard over the trailhead
I descended—
mortals’ path for a furnace-fierce mountain
named for potential angles
known for wealth seekers
ascend to a Land God temple,
for young couples enjoy
Taipei basin’s bubbles of lights,
superficial pet-shoppers abandon
outgrown puppies and kittens,
artists near their end seek
a soulful place to launch;
I hunted
beetles to breed.
Boxes full after gloaming
sky darkens the hillside mood gloomy
pitched the voice spookily high
inhuman for an old man
now footnoted—
a dog points
nose tail and lifted paw towards me.
Would you have run?
Cushioned in my gamer’s chair
ringed with heat-lamp-lit beetle boxes
I consider my encounter
from an online forum’s safety,
“You met the Land God himself”
envious fortune hunters are incredulous
credulous devotees are envious
this furnace land god would favor, protect me
echo my nerve memory of gloom
aural impressions of girls’ voices
visual imprint of dog and man
who approached him at the trailhead
after soft high voices dissipated,
he heard
“you finally came down,
I’ve awaited you so long.
Never mind now; you survived.
No need to ask, nor even tell,
it’s enough, see that you know.”
A small hand symbol at the base of the article points to a disclaimer:
This article reflects folklore, not this news network’s position.
Please refrain now and henceforth from excessive superstition,
even during Hungry Ghost Month.
Apricot Forest
(translated and adapted from a news article in Taiwan’s United Daily News, February 2025)
Time warp in Tainan’s most haunted location?
In thirty years since violations
closed the clinic down
no one since has dared to buy
nor demolish the fabled hospital and its grounds.
No one has dared to enter
particularly when the gates of the ghost world
splay open for the seventh lunar month.
Like typhoon winds to sculpt the dunes
along the Strait’s rough beaches
conflicting whips of urban legend TV news
one horror film and online speculation
all shape the hospital’s
miasma of treacherous mystery
stirred today by new uncanny breath:
Five firefighters on two engines
rushed in sirens shriek
to rescue a ghostly figure fallen
down an uncovered elevator shaft
in the locked
condemned
Apricot Forest Hospital.
Many hands
flashlights
shouts,
over several hours
pulleys,
one rescue sling
and a rarely needed basket stretcher
later,
they recover
an obviously dead
body
many days into decomposition,
though only just seen falling,
of a local 48-year-old man
surnamed
Gently.
“Moonlit Night Sorrow”
creaks like disused voices
call
I freeze
unbreathing
(as are they)
I hear
only my own
pulse now
accelerate with dangers
I was warned
a house so old
to be lived in
implies —
Japanese officers
worked here
what work —
the literature museum
bought it, a location
so central can only mean —
I have noticed, mornings
stone sink water pooled
towel slid along the bar
tatami imprinted by
the door cracked open
crisp leaf by the bed
I am alone, tonight
(or so I thought)
yet feel a shift
echo of —
force my fear-stiff torso
over the bed side
denial- dilated,
I see green eyes
glow—
any night but this
the midpoint of ghost month
I might
only see
modem lights
I look again, tonight
and see…
* “Moonlit Night Sorrow” was a popular song during the Japanese colonial period, describing the streets like that of the Taiwan Literature Base’s colonial-era residency, where this poem was written.
BIO: L. Acadia has writing published or forthcoming in Kenyon Review, New Orleans Review, Strange Horizons, trampset, and elsewhere. An assistant professor of literary studies at National Taiwan University, a dog pillow at home, and otherwise searching Taipei for urban hikes and ghosts. Connect at acadiaink.com or IG and bluesy: @acadialogue