迈克尔·翁达杰的诗集

洞见诗刊 5/19

迈克尔·翁达杰（ Michael Ondaatje，1943－）是一位以诗闻名的加拿大作家，但使他跻身国际知名作家行列的，还是那部获得布克奖的富有如梦如幻般魅力的小说《英国病人》。

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From 洞见诗刊

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迈克尔·翁达杰诗集

声音的诞生
 

夜里，大狗拉长身子发出最私密的呜呜声。

伸展最后的懒腰

躺在屋外幽黑的过道里。

孩子们翻了翻身子。

一扇窗想要隔绝冰冷

另一只狗在地毯上扒拉着抓虱子。

我们都很孤单。

（金雯 译）

夜间的格里芬

我的双臂抱紧儿子

噩梦后汗湿

一个小我

嘴里含着手指

另一只手在我头发里握紧

一个小我

噩梦后汗湿

（金雯 译）

驾照申请

两只鸟的爱情

是一团红色烈羽

绽开的棉球，

我从它们身边驶过，它们没有中断。

我是个好司机，看什么都无动于衷。

（金雯 译）

Application For A Driving License

Two birds loved

in a flurry of red feathers

like a burst cottonball,

continuing while I drove over them.

I am a good driver, nothing shocks me.

疤痕周边的时间

曾有一个女孩，和我几年没有联系

没在一起喝咖啡

就疤痕写了一段话。

疤痕躺在她的手腕上，光滑洁白，

吸血虫的大小。

那是我的杰作

出自我挥动的一枚崭新的意大利小刀。

听着，我边说边转身，

鲜血喷涌而出落在裙裾上。

我妻子的疤痕如水滴

散落于膝盖和脚腕，

她和我提起破碎的暖房玻璃

我能做的只是想象鲜红的脚

（好比夏卡尔画笔下的一个树妖），

脑海里撑不起这个场景。

我们总能回忆起疤痕周边的时间，

它们封存无关的情感

把我们从眼前的朋友这里拖走。

我记得这个女孩的脸，

漫开而上升的惊奇。

这道伤痕

当她与爱人或丈夫协动的时候

是会掩盖还是炫耀，

抑或是收藏于玉腕，

当作神秘的时钟。

而在我的回忆里

它是一枚纪念无情的徽章。

我现在就愿意和你见面

也希望那道伤痕

当初是与爱一起

来到你手上

只是爱，与你我的缘分无关。

（金雯 译）

The Time Around Scars

A girl whom I've not spoken to

or shared coffee with for several years

writes of an old scar.

On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white,

the size of a leech.

I gave it to her

brandishing a new Italian penknife.

Look, I said turning,

and blood spat onto her shirt.

My wife has scars like spread raindrops

on knees and ankles,

she talks of broken greenhouse panes

and yet, apart from imagining red feet,

(a nymph out of Chagall)

I bring little to that scene.

We remember the time around scars,

they freeze irrelevant emotions

and divide us from present friends.

I remember this girl's face,

the widening rise of surprise.

And would she

moving with lover or husband

conceal or flaunt it,

or keep it at her wrist

a mysterious watch.

And this scar I then remember

is a medallion of no emotion.

I would meet you now

and I would wish this scar

to have been given with

all the love

that never occurred between us.

拿来

这是一种形式上的需要

对待我们欣赏的人

要把花骨朵从他们肉体中吮吸出来

再偷偷种在自己的头颅里

在孤独的花园里催生果实。

学着倾泻钢铁般精准的

曲线，柔软而疯狂

直到它击中页面。

我曾抚摸过他们的情绪和语调

那些辞世百年的男男女女

艾米丽·迪金森的大狗，康拉德的胡子

然后，为了我自己

将他们从历史川流中分离出来。

我已经品尝过他们的头脑。听过

几声垂死时发出的湿咳。

他们想象的无暇时刻就是现在。

流言前赴后继

流言前赴后继

种进土里

直至成为脊梁。

（金雯 译）

像乌鸦一般甜蜜

致赫蒂.柯利亚, 八岁

“僧伽罗人无疑是世界上最没有音乐天分的一群人。

几乎不可能比他们更缺乏音调、节奏和韵律感。”

保罗.波尔斯

你的声音像一只蝎子被推着

穿过一根玻璃管子

像一个人踩到孔雀

像椰子里嚎叫的风

像锈蚀的圣经，像有人拉扯着刺钢丝

拖过铺着石块的院子，像快淹死的猪，

像瓦塔卡菜在煎炸

像晃动着骨头的手掌

像一只在卡内基大厅演唱的青蛙。

像一只奶牛在牛奶中游泳，

想一只鼻子让芒果击中

像皇-托板球赛时候的人群，

像承载双胞胎的子宫，像一条流浪狗

嘴里叼着一只喜鹊

像来自卡萨布兰卡的红眼飞机

像巴基斯坦航班的咖喱，

像着了火的打字机，像一百只

扁豆脆薄饼被捏碎，像一个人

在黑漆漆的房间里点火柴，

像把头伸进海水里去听到的礁石哒哒声

像一只海豚对着昏睡的听众背诵史诗，

像一个人对着电扇扔茄子，

像贝塔集市里切菠萝的声音

像槟榔汁打到半空中的蝴蝶

像一个村子的人在街上躶体奔跑

把布裙撕碎，一个愤怒的家族

像把吉普车推出泥沼，像针尖上的尘土，

像自行车后座堆着的八条鲨鱼

被关在厕所里的三个老妇人

就像我下午打盹时候听到的声音

好似有人戴着脚环穿过我的房间。

（金雯 译）

悬 崖

他躺在床上，醒着，握着她的左前臂。凌晨四点。他翻了个身，眼睛粗鲁地瞪着夜空。透过窗户他能听到溪流声——它没有名字。昨天正午他沿着清浅的溪水散步，溪流上覆盖着雪松，旁边是芦苇、青苔和豆瓣菜。那景象犹如绿灰肤色夹杂的身体，一幅繁复的骨架，他在里面穿着一双旧匡威跑步鞋跌跌撞撞地走着。她在上流仔细勘察，而他自顾自探索，时而钻到连根拔起枝桠颤动的树下。粗长的树干横亘在溪流上。他用左手抓住巨大干枯的树根钻到底下的白色溪水里去，感受水流在身上起伏。衬衫浸湿了，他跟随着水流的肌理迅速滑到树底下去。他早些时候的梦境一定早就预示了这一切。

他在河里寻找一座他们前一天走过的木桥。他自信地走着，白色的鞋子不经意地离开树干踏入深水，穿过砂砾和豆瓣菜，之后吃一只夹着豆瓣菜的奶酪三文治。她在走回小木屋的路上已经咀嚼了大半个三文治。他转过身来，她便僵住了，大笑起来，嘴里还嚼着豆瓣菜。他除此之外没有更多可以说爱她的办法。他假装生气，大喊起来，但是奔腾的溪水声掩盖了他的声音

她知道他也同样喜爱河水的质地。看到一条河流或溪流，他就会走到水边。会走进齐腰深的水流，听水流和岩石的声音将他包裹在孤独中。如果他们间距超过五英尺，周围的噪音就会迫使他们停止交谈。直到后来，他们坐在水池边，腿靠着腿，才能开始说话，话题散漫，包括亲戚、书籍、最好的朋友，路易斯和克拉克的历史，他们共同拼接起来的过去的碎片。除此之外，水流声包围着他们，如今他单独一人与水中精灵共行，劈啪声和飞溅声，嫩枝断裂声，假如有什么事发生在一臂距离之内，他就被那一个声音占据。现在，他在寻找一个名字。

不是给地图找名字——他知道有关帝国主义的论争。是给他们的名字，给他们词汇的临时指令。一个暗号。他钻到倒下的树下，握着雪松的根就好像握着她的前臂。他短暂地悬空，湍急的河水拉扯着他。他紧紧抓住雪松，像抓住她的前臂，理由也一样。心灵河？手臂河？他写道，在黑暗里和她喃喃而语。身体从一边晃到另 一边，他一只手挂在树上，满是狂喜，无法控制自己，还是牢牢抓着。然后他跳下来，背脊触碰砂砾和木屑水流盖过他头顶，像是戴着手套的手鼓掌。他睁着眼睛，河流推着他站立起来的时候，他已经向下游冲了三英尺，从震动和寒冷中走出来，走到阳光里。眼光洒下字谜，随地乱掷，覆盖整条弯曲的河流，所以他既可以踏入阳光也可以踏入阴影。

他想起了她所在的地方，她的命名。在她附近的草地上，盛开着膀胱草，恶魔画笔草，还有不知名的蓝色小花。他冰冷地站着，在高耸大树的阴影下一动不动。他为了寻找一座桥已经走得够远，还没找到。继续向上游走。他抓住了雪松的根，就好比抓住她的前臂。

（金雯 译）

(inner Tube)

On the warm July river

head back

upside down river

for a roof

slowly paddling

towards an estuary between trees

there's a dog

learning to swim near me

friends on shore

my head

dips

back to the eyebrow

I'm the prow

on an ancient vessel,

this afternoon

I'm going down to Peru

soul between my teeth

a blue heron

with its awkward

broken backed flap

upside down

one of us is wrong

he

his blue grey thud

thinking he knows

the blue way

out of here

or me

Kissing the stomach

Kissing the stomach

kissing your scarred

skin boat. History

is what you've travelled on

and take with you

We've each had our stomachs

kissed by strangers

to the other

and as for me

I bless everyone

who kissed you here

What were the names of the towns

What were the names of the towns

we drove into and through

stunned lost

having drunk our way

up vineyards

and then Hot Springs

boiling out the drunkenness

What were the names

I slept through

my head

on your thigh

hundreds of miles

of blackness entering the car

All this

darkness and stars

but now

under the Napa Valley night

a star arch of dashboard

the ripe grape moon

we are together

and I love this muscle

I love this muscle

that tenses

and joins

the accelerator

to my cheek

Michael Ondaatje

Bearhug

Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight

I yell ok. Finish something I'm doing,

then something else, walk slowly round

the corner to my son's room.

He is standing arms outstretched

waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.

Why do I give my emotion an animal's name,

give it that dark squeeze of death?

This is the hug which collects

all his small bones and his warm neck against me.

The thin tough body under the pyjamas

locks to me like a magnet of blood.

How long was he standing there

like that, before I came?

Elizabeth

Catch, my Uncle Jack said

and oh I caught this huge apple

red as Mrs Kelly's bum.

It's red as Mrs Kelly's bum, I said

and Daddy roared

and swung me on his stomach with a heave.

Then I hid the apple in my room

till it shrunk like a face

growing eyes and teeth ribs.

Then Daddy took me to the zoo

he knew the man there

they put a snake around my neck

and it crawled down the front of my dress

I felt its flicking tongue

dripping onto me like a shower.

Daddy laughed and said Smart Snake

and Mrs Kelly with us scowled.

In the pond where they kept the goldfish

Philip and I broke the ice with spades

and tried to spear the fishes;

we killed one and Philip ate it,

then he kissed me

with the raw saltless fish in his mouth.

My sister Mary's got bad teeth

and said I was lucky, hen she said

I had big teeth, but Philip said I was pretty.

He had big hands that smelled.

I would speak of Tom', soft laughing,

who danced in the mornings round the sundial

teaching me the steps of France, turning

with the rhythm of the sun on the warped branches,

who'd hold my breast and watch it move like a snail

leaving his quick urgent love in my palm.

And I kept his love in my palm till it blistered.

When they axed his shoulders and neck

the blood moved like a branch into the crowd.

And he staggered with his hanging shoulder

cursing their thrilled cry, wheeling,

waltzing in the French style to his knees

holding his head with the ground,

blood settling on his clothes like a blush;

this way

when they aimed the thud into his back.

And I find cool entertainment now

with white young Essex, and my nimble rhymes.

Last Ink

In certain countries aromas pierce the heart and one dies

half waking in the night as an owl and a murderer's cart go by

the way someone in your life will talk out love and grief

then leave your company laughing.

In certain languages the calligraphy celebrates

where you met the plum blossom and moon by chance

—the dusk light, the cloud pattern,

recorded always in your heart

and the rest of the world—chaos,

circling your winter boat.

Night of the Plum and Moon.

Years later you shared it

on a scroll or nudged

the ink onto stone

to hold the vista of a life.

A condensary of time in the mountains

—your rain-swollen gate, a summer

scarce with human meeting.

Just bells from another village.

The memory of a woman walking down stairs.

Life on an ancient leaf

or a crowded 5th-century seal

this mirror-world of art

—lying on it as if a bed.

When you first saw her,

the night of moon and plum,

you could speak of this to no one.

You cut your desire

against a river stone.

You caught yourself

in a cicada-wing rubbing,

lightly inked.

The indelible darker self.

A seal, the Masters said,

must contain bowing and leaping,

'and that which hides in waters.'

Yellow, drunk with ink,

the scroll unrolls to the west

a river journey, each story

an owl in the dark, its child-howl

unreachable now

—that father and daughter,

that lover walking naked down blue stairs

each step jarring the humming from her mouth.

I want to die on your chest but not yet,

she wrote, sometime in the 13 th century

of our love

before the yellow age of paper

before her story became a song,

lost in imprecise reproductions

until caught in jade,

whose spectrum could hold the black greens

the chalk-blue of her eyes in daylight.

Our altering love, our moonless faith.

Last ink in the pen.

My body on this hard bed.

The moment in the heart

where I roam restless, searching

for the thin border of the fence

to break through or leap.

Leaping and bowing.

Nine Sentiments (IX)

An old book on the poisons

of madness, a map

of forest monasteries,

a chronicle brought across

the sea in Sanskrit slokas.

I hold all these

but you have become

a ghost for me.

I hold only your shadow

since those days I drove

your nature away.

A falcon who became a coward.

I hold you the way astronomers

draw constellations for each other

in the markets of wisdom

placing shells

on a dark blanket

saying 'these

are the heavens'

calculating the movement

of the great stars

Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman

Since my wife was born

she must have eaten

the equivalent of two-thirds

of the original garden of Eden.

Not the dripping lush fruit

or the meat in the ribs of animals

but the green salad gardens of that place.

The whole arena of green

would have been eradicated

as if the right filter had been removed

leaving only the skeleton of coarse brightness.

All green ends up eventually

churning in her left cheek.

Her mouth is a laundromat of spinning drowning herbs.

She is never in fields

but is sucking the pith out of grass.

I have noticed the very leaves from flower decorations

grow sparse in their week long performance in our house.

The garden is a dust bowl.

On our last day in Eden as we walked out

she nibbled the leaves at her breasts and crotch.

But there's none to touch

none to equal

the Chlorophyll Kiss

Speaking To You

Speaking to you

this hour

these days when

I have lost the feather of poetry

and the rains

of separation

surround us tock

tock like Go tablets

Everyone has learned

to move carefully

'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'

is a memory

a tableau behind trees of law

In the midst of love for you

my wife's suffering

anger in every direction

and the children wise

as tough shrubs

but they are not tough

--so I fear

how anything can grow from this

all the wise blood

poured from little cuts

down into the sink

this hour it is not

your body I want

but your quiet company

Step

The ceremonial funeral structure for a monk

made up of thambili palms, white cloth

is only a vessel, disintegrates

completely as his life.

The ending disappears,

replacing itself

with something abstract

as air, a view.

All we'll remember in the last hours

is an afternoon—a lazy lunch

then sleeping together.

Then the disarray of grief.

On the morning of a full moon

in a forest monastery

thirty women in white

meditate on the precepts of the day

until darkness.

They walk those abstract paths

their complete heart

their burning thought focused

on this step, then this step.

In the red brick dusk

of the Sacred Quadrangle,

among holy seven-storey ambitions

where the four Buddhas

of Polonnaruwa

face out to each horizon,

is a lotus pavilion.

Taller than a man

nine lotus stalks of stone

stand solitary in the grass,

pillars that once supported

the floor of another level.

(The sensuous stalk

the sacred flower)

How physical yearning

became permanent.

How desire became devotional

so it held up your house,

your lover's house, the house of your god.

And though it is no longer there,

the pillars once let you step

to a higher room

where there was worship, lighter air.

The Cinnamon Peeler

If I were a cinnamon peeler

I would ride your bed

And leave the yellow bark dust

On your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek

You could never walk through markets

without the profession of my fingers

floating over you. The blind would

stumble certain of whom they approached

though you might bathe

under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh

at this smooth pasture

neighbour to you hair

or the crease

that cuts your back. This ankle.

You will be known among strangers

as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you

before marriage

never touch you

--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.

I buried my hands

in saffron, disguised them

over smoking tar,

helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once

I touched you in the water

and our bodies remained free,

you could hold me and be blind of smell.

you climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women

the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.

And you searched your arms

for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it

to be the lime burner's daughter

left with no trace

as if not spoken to in the act of love

as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched

your belly to my hands

in the dry air and said

I am the cinnamon

Peeler's wife. Smell me.

The Great Tree

Zou Fulei died like a dragon breaking down a wall...

this line composed and ribboned

in cursive script

by his friend the poet Yang Weizhen

whose father built a library

surrounded by hundreds of plum trees

It was Zou Fulei, almost unknown,

who made the best plum flower painting

of any period

One branch lifted into the wind

and his friend's vertical line of character

their tones of ink

—wet to opaque

dark to pale

each sweep and gesture

trained and various

echoing the other's art

In the high plum-surrounded library

where Yang Weizhen studied as a boy

a moveable staircase was pulled away

to ensure his solitary concentration

His great work

'untrammelled' 'eccentric''unorthodox'

'no taint of the superficial'

'no flamboyant movement'

using at times the lifted tails

of archaic script,

sharing with Zou Fulei

his leaps and darknesses

'So I have always held you in my heart...

The great 14th-century poet calligrapher

mourns the death of his friend

Language attacks the paper from the air

There is only a path of blossoms

no flamboyant movement

A night of smoky ink in 1361

a night without a staircase

To A Sad Daughter

All night long the hockey pictures

gaze down at you

sleeping in your tracksuit.

Belligerent goalies are your ideal.

Threats of being traded

cuts and wounds

--all this pleases you.

O my god! you say at breakfast

reading the sports page over the Alpen

as another player breaks his ankle

or assaults the coach.

When I thought of daughters

I wasn't expecting this

but I like this more.

I like all your faults

even your purple moods

when you retreat from everyone

to sit in bed under a quilt.

And when I say 'like'

I mean of course 'love'

but that embarrasses you.

You who feel superior to black and white movies

(coaxed for hours to see Casablanca)

though you were moved

by Creature from the Black Lagoon.

One day I'll come swimming

beside your ship or someone will

and if you hear the siren

listen to it. For if you close your ears

only nothing happens. You will never change.

I don't care if you risk

your life to angry goalies

creatures with webbed feet.

You can enter their caves and castles

their glass laboratories. Just

don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.

This is the first lecture I've given you.

You're 'sweet sixteen' you said.

I'd rather be your closest friend

than your father. I'm not good at advice

you know that, but ride

the ceremonies

until they grow dark.

Sometimes you are so busy

discovering your friends

I ache with loss

--but that is greed.

And sometimes I've gone

into my purple world

and lost you.

One afternoon I stepped

into your room. You were sitting

at the desk where I now write this.

Forsythia outside the window

and sun spilled over you

like a thick yellow miracle

as if another planet

was coaxing you out of the house

--all those possible worlds!--

and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at forsythia now

without loss, or joy for you.

You step delicately

into the wild world

and your real prize will be

the frantic search.

Want everything. If you break

break going out not in.

How you live your life I don't care

but I'll sell my arms for you,

hold your secrets forever.

If I speak of death

which you fear now, greatly,

it is without answers.

except that each

one we know is

in our blood.

Don't recall graves.

Memory is permanent.

Remember the afternoon's

yellow suburban annunciation.

Your goalie

in his frightening mask

dreams perhaps

of gentleness.

Wells II

The last Sinhala word I lost

was vatura.

The word for water.

Forest water. The water in a kiss. The tears

I gave to my ayah Rosalin on leaving

the first home of my life.

More water for her than any other

that fled my eyes again

this year, remembering her,

a lost almost-mother in those years

of thirsty love.

No photograph of her, no meeting

since the age of eleven,

not even knowledge of her grave.

Who abandoned who, I wonder now.