朱朱中英双语诗选（李栋 译）
up the stairs
this moment countless men up the stairs
upstairs, chopin already in the dark.
downstairs, die alone in a crowd.
楼梯上
此刻楼梯上的男人数不胜数
上楼，黑暗中已有肖邦。
下楼，在人群中孤寂地死亡。
small town saxophone
men in rain, a thin and fine halo of hair,
they walk like brown trees, so spread apart.
the street looks like a big thick saxophone running by.
a line of light unfurls along undulating roofs,
threads of rain fall upon children and dogs.
leaves and lamp on the wall silently burn.
i walk into this small town on the flatland,
a basket of chestnuts sits in town.
i walk to the door where human lips and the saxophone touch.
小镇的萨克斯
雨中的男人，有一圈细密的茸毛，
他们行走时像褐色的树，那么稀疏。
整条街道像粗大的萨克斯管伸过。
有一道光线沿着起伏的屋顶铺展，
雨丝落向孩子和狗。
树叶和墙壁上的灯无声地点燃。
我走进平原上的小镇，
镇上放着一篮栗子。
我走到人的唇与萨克斯相触的门。
the kitchen song
so strong a wind
blows from the facing mountain range
to the hanging apron in the kitchen,
the roof trembles along like a rusty pendulum.
we are furthest apart from the ambulance
in the street and the cemetery before the eyes,
like a penchant for the embroidered peony on the apron,
we love every colored illustration of history.
there is a water-pot and a few bottles of wine,
a pear, its moist sucked dry by the air,
and the chopping board that moves modestly to the water pipes.
in the sunlight,
the kitchen looks like a wild duck combing its feathers.
the kitchen looks very much like its owner,
or his lover’s vanishing hands.
strong winds flip open hidden cupboards.
and blow the apron down by the feet.
stains scraped off by the stove,
the box of desire opened bright by autumn,
we need to sprinkle salt calmly on wilted grass,
and stir pepper into sleep.
powerful winds,
they have some more special gold
to give to the jeweler.
we wait merely in between hunger,
what to accept, what is worth a meticulous description.
厨房之歌
多么强大的风，
从对面的群山
吹拂到厨房里悬挂的围裙上，
屋脊像一块锈蚀的钟摆跟着晃动。
我们离街上的救护车
和山前的陵墓最远，
就像爱着围裙上绣着的牡丹，
我们爱着每一幅历史的彩图。
有水壶和几瓶酒，
水分被空气偷偷吸干的梨子，
还有谦恭地邻近水管的砧板。
在日光中，
厨房像野鸭梳理自己的羽毛。
厨房多么像它的主人，
或者他的爱人消失的手。
强大的风掀开了暗橱，
又把围裙吹倒在脚边。
刮除灶台边的污垢，
盒子被秋天打开的情欲也更亮了，
我们要更镇定地往枯草上撒盐，
将胡椒拌进睡眠。
强大的风
它有一些更特殊的金子
要交给首饰匠。
我们只管在饥饿的间歇里等待，
什么该接受，什么值得细细地描画。
i am françois villon
let me take a look at your halberd,
dear night watcher,
i am françois villon.
past midnight in search of
the sunlit side of a slanting slope,
i want to catch lice there, listen to hoarse drips of water.
the engulfing snow is my immense itch,
paris like a cage, in whose arch,
everything past expands outward,
this is my half
what about a sip of wine?
on some porch rests a lady’s body
you can entertain yourself while the body is still warm.
or i can teach you how to manage time
with only a handful of dices
and a few parsleys in the golden bowl,
i can mimic howling of a storm,
to blow and rekindle fire in the chimney,
my dear uncle.
it is so hot in heaven,
when angles flutter down their feathers,
our saliva freezes to ice around mouth corners,
what about a sip of wine?
long long winter,
a wolf looks for the forest’s words.
我是弗朗索瓦•维庸
借你的戟一看，
巡夜人，
我是弗朗索瓦•维庸。
经午夜寻求
斜坡向阳的一侧，
我要在那里捉虱子，听低哑的滴水声。
这漫天的雪是我的奇痒，
巴黎像兽笼，在它的拱门，
全部的往事向外膨胀，
这是我的半首《烤鱼歌》，
赏一口酒如何？
某处门廊下停着一具女尸
你可以趁着微温行乐。
或者我教会你怎样掌管时间，
只要一把骰子
和金盆里几根香菜，
我还能摹拟暴风发出一阵嚎叫，
把烟囱里的火吹燃，
我的叔叔。
天堂里多热，
当天使抖落身上的羽毛，
我们的口涎却在嘴角结冰，
赏一口酒如何？
漫长的冬天，
一只狼寻找话语的森林。
弗朗索瓦•维庸（Francois Villon，1431—1463？），法国诗人。
empty ground in the woods
i gain peace, peace after execution, head left aside.
around, sympathetic roofs line up, leaning against each other tight. shadows of villagers fleet past, only after they disappear into deep alleys, heated cries sound.
林中空地
我获得的是一种被处决后的安宁，头颅撂在一边。
周围，同情的屋顶成排，它们彼此紧挨着。小镇居民们的身影一掠而过，只有等它们没入了深巷，才会发出议论的啼声。
blue smoke
I
clear bangs;
a coiled bun,
a standard little lady.
her oval face looks like a peach
that repays the climate ahead of its time.
crossing her legs, turning her body half-way around, an elbow on a small table,
a burning cigarette between her fingers (once the cigarette is finished,
someone will hand her another one and then walk away). in the room
she must maintain her pose until the end,
a photographer walks back and forth, a painter stares at his canvas,
a fly wants to fly through the glass, she watches and wants to vomit.
at night, she wraps her arms with a towel of ice.
II
they continue to work the second day. she sits again
on the small round stool, lights a cigarette. the painter
talks to her briefly in a low voice, and asks where she comes from and her name.
the photographer has not come yet, perhaps he will not come?
through the window behind the painter’s back, she can see the bund.
the river beats upon wood stakes. a sloop sails toward the deserted island on the other
shore. /
a trolley rushes by in the ringing of the rickshaw bell. she
thinks of soft cushions at guanshengyuan, thinks of her bottom
that is not round enough, not as bubbly as a black lady.
now she forgets that she is being painted, and smokes as usual,
rings of smoke slowly spit out.
something behind the easel bangs on the ground.
the painter’s shady eyeholes aim on her again and startles
her. she slows her head, while smoothing
over the cheongsam that has already curled up the deep of her thighs.
today it goes by much faster.
III
the next few days she feels
that she does not have to fill up her pose, or
leave it completely unoccupied.
she sits there, as if wrapped
in a thin mask of expression, thin as her blue and while cheongsam.
inside the mask—
she is already wandering the streets, already
lazily lies on a long couch and parts her legs
yawning in a loud voice, already
runs in the canola fields by the edge of the sky that yellows the streams.
the photographer appears once again.
the thin and unbelievably long lens pokes out
of the leathered body, so close that it presses on her face,
she yields and smiles him a sweet smile.
a record player:
“rose rose blossoms everywhere”:
yongchunhe sends someone over to keep them company.
IV
she starts to run out of the mask,
and stands by the painter to see the painting:
the lady in the painting looks like and not like her,
he puts on too much make-up on her face,
the hand that holds the cigarette too delicate,
her breasts in his painting hide behind instead of bulging under her silk clothes
and he paints the wall in her shadow
as a strange waterfall
stiff and static.
only a wisp of smoke that rises from between her fingers
looks as if it floats, floating in the air.
she also finds out that this painter
in fact has long finished this painting,
and the long days after, every day
he did nothing but fiddled with that wisp of smoke.
青烟
Ⅰ
清澈的刘海；
发髻盘卷，
一个标准的小妇人。
她那张椭圆的脸，像一只提前
报答了气候的水蜜桃。
跷起腿，半转身躯，一只手肘撑在小桌子上，
手指夹住一支燃烧的香烟（烟燃尽，
有人会替她续上一支，再走开）。在屋中
她必须保持她的姿势至终，
摄影师走来走去，画家盯住自己的画布，
一只苍蝇想穿透玻璃飞出，最后看得她想吐。
晚上她用一条包满冰的毛巾敷住手臂。
Ⅱ
第二天接着干。又坐在
小圆凳上，点起烟。画家
和她低声交谈了几句，问她的祖籍、姓名。
摄影师没有来，也许不来了？
透过画家背后的窗，可以望见外滩。
江水打着木桩。一艘单桅船驶向对岸荒岛上。
一辆电车在黄包车铃声里掣过。她
想起冠生园软软的座垫，想着自己
不够浑圆的屁股，在上边翘得和黑女人一样高。
这时她忘记了自己被画着，往常般吸一口烟，
烟圈徐徐被吐出。
被挡在画架后面的什么哐啷地一声。
画家黑黝黝的眼窝再次对准了她，吓了
她一跳。她低下头扯平
已经往上翻卷到大腿根的旗袍。
这一天过得快多了。
Ⅲ
此后几天她感觉自己
不必盛满她的那个姿势，或者
完全就让它空着。
她坐在那里，好像套着一层
表情的模壳，薄薄的，和那件青花旗袍一样。
在模壳的里边——
她已经在逛街，已经
懒洋洋地躺在了一张长榻上分开了双腿
大声的打呵欠，已经
奔跑在天边映黄了溪流的油菜田里。
摄影师又出现过一次。
把粗壮奇长的镜头伸出
皮革机身，近得几乎压在她脸上，
她顺势给他一个微笑，甜甜的。
一台电唱机：
“蔷薇蔷薇处处开”；①
永春和②派人送来 陪伴他们的工作。
Ⅳ
她开始跑出那个模壳，
站到画家的身边打量那幅画：
画中人既像又不像她，
他在她的面颊上涂抹了太多的胭脂，
夹烟的手画得过于纤细，
他画的乳房是躲在绸衣背后而不是从那里鼓胀，
并且，他把她背影里的墙
画成一座古怪的大瀑布
僵立着但不流动。
唯独从她手指间冒起的一缕烟
真的很像在那里飘，在空气中飘。
她还发现这个画家
其实很早就画完了这幅画，
在后来很长的一段日子里，每天
他只是在不停地涂抹那缕烟。
① 20世纪三十年代盛行上海滩的百乐门爵士歌曲之一。
② 全称为永春和烟草股份有限公司，即雇用诗中的妓女做广告模特儿的商家。
the wild great wall
I
label of the earth surface
or a strangled trace deep in memory, vanishing
upon invasion of sand-storms and draughts
into mountains whose skin tone is ever closer to ours.
we were once here. even
a young solider drafted from a small town
would stand straight and with the heart of a rich man
judge aliens through piles of arrows,
the herd of people, nothing but animals crawling in wasteland.
here, we have already built a giant bathtub,
our day-to-day a kind of soaking in warmth and somnolence.
when women play on a swing in the garden,
men’s eyes are drawn toward finding reflections in the water;
barely-cooked bloody meat too vulgar,
the eaves of our civilization
now exacting to the last stretch of an upward tip.
II
now, go through
the most thorough of all destructions:
forgetting—like
a reptile spine
moving toward the end of its weathering,
mountain ridges full of jurassic quietude,
as the __set__ting sun moves away, the engine dies slowly down,
the remaining light falls like rusty arrows.
i come to trace the life that disappeared long before our birth,
as if the philological fingers knock in anguish
the ridge of an empty shell,
whose inside has been picked clean.
III
in the peach trees on the steep slope,
bees hum and buzz around,
they choose a few nearby
broken jar-like beacon towers
as their campsite.
their song seems to say:
everything returns to nature…
wild grass like fingers deep in the earth,
like a fiery ghost troop holding halberds and lances high
climbs onto collapsed steps,
this moment, countless startled landscapes
must be fluttering and fleeing off the walls from museums everywhere.
野长城
Ⅰ
地球表面的标签
或记忆深处的一道勒痕，消褪在
受风沙和干旱的侵蚀
而与我们的肤色更加相似的群山。
我们曾经在这边。即使
是一位征召自小村镇的年轻士兵，
也会以直立的姿势与富有者的心情
透过箭垛打量着外族人，
那群不过是爬行在荒原上的野兽。
在这边，我们已经营造出一只巨大的浴缸，
我们的日常是一种温暖而慵倦的浸泡。
当女人们在花园里荡秋千，
男人们的目光嗜好于从水中找到倒影；
带血的、未煮熟的肉太粗俗了，
我们文明的屋檐
已经精确到最后那一小截的弯翘。
Ⅱ
现在，经历着
所有的摧毁中最彻底的一种：
遗忘——它就像
一头爬行动物的脊椎
正进入风化的尾声，
山脊充满了侏罗纪的沉寂，
随着落日的遥远马达渐渐地平息，
余晖像锈蚀的箭镞坠落。
我来追溯一种在我们出生前就消失的生活，
如同考据学的手指苦恼地敲击
一只空壳的边沿，
它的内部已经掏干了。
Ⅲ
在陡坡的那几棵桃树上，
蜜蜂们哼着歌来回忙碌着，
它们选择附近的几座
就像摔破的陶罐般的烽火台
做为宿营地。
那歌词的大意仿佛是：
一切都还给自然……
野草如同大地深处的手指，
如同蓬勃的、高举矛戟的幽灵部队
登上了坍塌的台阶，
这样的时辰，无数受惊的风景
一定正从各地博物馆的墙壁上仓惶地逃散。
small town
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
–Charles Baudelaire “L’invitation au voyage”
I
early in the morning before the window i
drink coffee, before the eyes, the hotel’s
big garden, flowers in bloom,
bushes trimmed even;
on a gravel lane
stands a statue of a half naked goddess,
around me, soft murmurs of people talking,
their elegant manners, closely resemble
glasswares on the table
and reflective silverwares.
II
yachts pulled in full in the old harbor,
ropes on the sagging mast as if strings
wait to be tightened to be flicked violently by wind—
most tables in cafés along the shore still empty;
thousands of tourists
will come in time in summer.
when i walk along the pine forest
to the beach, past those mansions
and a big park—
in the cold and clean air
there is a void
different from the taste of poverty and despair,
more like a velvet-carpeted prison,
or a hospital with a foundation where the high and rich stay.
III
late night i stroll alone in the city,
and find a bar by its music,
and sink myself
in the golden foams of beer,
deep in my distressed mind
the verse of baudelaire like a curse
lingers still, as if i
was him, half-way in the voyage
a night stuck in the mauritius bay,
listening to whipping slaves in the deep forest
as if poems of mine written in the past
ring in my face.
IV
is it that when a man walks too far,
he wants to return to pick up his name,
family history, and the broken cradle?
is it that he hates shadows’ following him
and once gone,
freedom means boredom?
isn’t it that i am already estranged
like a rusty spring,
its elasticity lost?
isn’t it that in complete darkness
i can only feel existence?
like a whirlwind or engulfing torrents,
sharp hidden reefs
and terrifying swirls of water,
that bring to sailors the feeling instead,
of having a life squarely snatched in arms.
V
my memory heavy, in a split of a second,
can turn lips to dirt,
my love sticky, like an
unbreakable umbilical cord—
my happiness, a perishable rope fence on the cliff,
my landscape, an ancient abyss.
unable to sleep in this midnight hotel,
i open the window to suck
on the ice-cold sea wind, i long to return
—as i longed for the first sail.
our entire life is
the peach blossom spring and its foe.
小城
一切只是整齐和美，
奢侈，平静和欢乐迷醉。
——夏尔•波德莱尔《邀游》
Ⅰ
当我在早晨的窗前
喝着咖啡，眼前是旅馆的
大花园，鲜花盛开，
灌木丛被修剪得平整；
在一条砾石的小径旁
矗立着一尊半裸的女神，
在我周围是低低交谈的人声，
他们优雅的举止，酷似
桌上的玻璃器皿
和反光的银器。
Ⅱ
老港湾里停满游艇，
松垂在桅杆上的绳索如同琴弦，
等待被绷紧、被更迅猛的风弹奏——
沿岸咖啡馆的大多数桌子还空着；
成千上万的游人们，
他们将会在夏天到来。
当我沿着松林走向
海滩，经过那些别墅
和那座大公园——
寒冷而清旷的空气里
有一种空虚
不同于贫困与绝望的滋味，
很像一座铺满天鹅绒的监狱，
或者是显贵们居住的带喷泉的医院。
Ⅲ
夜深时我独自在城中闲逛，
循着乐曲声找到一家酒吧，
将自己淹没在
啤酒的金色泡沫里，
而在我沮丧的大脑深处
波德莱尔的诗句好像咒语
始终在盘旋，好像我
就是他，在航行的半途
受困于毛里求斯的港湾之夜，
听见丛林深处抽打奴隶的鞭子
就像我往昔写下的诗篇
回响在自己的面颊。
Ⅳ
是不是一个人走得太远时，
就想回头捡拾他的姓名、
家史，和破朽的摇篮？
是不是他讨厌影子的尾随
而一旦它消失，
自由就意味着虚无？
是否我已经扭曲
如一根生锈的弹簧，
彻底丧失了弹性？
是否在彻底的黑暗中
我才感觉到实存？
正如飓风与骇浪，
尖利的暗礁
和恐怖的旋涡，
反倒带给水手将一生
稳稳地揣入怀中的感受。
Ⅴ
我的记忆沉重，转瞬间
就能使嘴唇变成泥土，
我的爱粘滞，像一条
割不断的脐带——
我的欢乐是悬崖上易朽的绳栏，
我的风景是一个古老的深渊。
难眠于这子夜的旅馆，
推开窗户吮吸着
冰冷的海风，我渴望归期
一如当初渴望启程，
我们的一生
就是桃花源和它的敌人。
the creeper
she is wild, soft palms
now morphed to tiger claws and suckers,
which, from the first leap, cover,
layer, devour the whole wall, stitch
the whole room, dim all the lights;
she never backs off, even if stepping into a void,
will turn into a spiraling shield;
even if all the leaves wilt in winter, she still
decorates herself with a string of holes
after the sewing threads are pulled away;
she has the tenacity in a stalemate, the pleasure
of being crushed, and the reward of self-aggrandizement,
like sticking densely packed little flags in a sandbox,
as if thorny waves thought they had slit the crag;
she despairs, unable to enter the room,
but at least she camouflages everything outside,
year after year, she truly loves.
爬墙虎
她是疯狂的，柔软的手掌
已经蜕变成虎爪和吸盘，
从最初的一跃开始，覆盖，
层层叠叠，吞没整面墙，缝合
整个屋子，黯淡下全部光线；
从不退缩，即使步入了虚空
也会变成一队螺旋形的盾牌；
即使入冬后枝叶全部枯萎，仍然
用缝纫线被抽走后留下的成串针孔
镶嵌自己的身形；她有僵持的决心，
被粉碎的快感，和春天到来时
那一份膨胀的自我犒劳，如同
在沙盘里插上密密的小旗，
如同蜂拥的浪尖以为扎破了礁岩；
她是绝望的，无法进入到屋中，
但她至少遮蔽了外面的一切，
年复一年，她是真的在爱着。
to the north
i dream of the laundromat a street away,
herds of washing machines roar and growl.
soiled clothes are going through tortures,
as they are sucked into the swirl of the machine belly,
devoured and snarled, twisting in torrents of water,
then sagging like sea grass, long fibers
afloat in the rising clear water, becoming more transparent;
a strange kind of warmth bakes from within,
until it crimps like a baby, curls up in sleep.
there, after i take off my dusty overcoat
naked, am thrown into another wash,
kiss and love-making, like a bush full
of real thorns with nettle rashes
sizzling in the flame; we consume
air, and only air would be enough.
everytime around, you are the flames that wash me,
and i am the legendary asbestos cloth.
寄北
我梦见一街之隔有家洗衣店，
成群的洗衣机发出一阵阵低吼。
透过形同潜望镜的玻璃圆孔，
能看见不洁的衣物在经受酷刑，
它们被吸入机筒腹部的漩涡，
被吞噬、缠绕，来回翻滚于急流，
然后藻草般软垂，长长的纤维
在涌来的清水里漂浮，逐渐透明；
有一股异样的温暖从内部烘烤，
直到它皱缩如婴儿，在梦中蜷伏。
那里，我脱下那沾满灰尘的外套后
赤裸着，被投放到另一场荡涤，
亲吻和欢爱，如同一簇长满
现实的尖刺并且携带风疹的荨麻
跳动在火焰之中；我们消耗着
空气，并且只要有空气就足够了。
每一次，你就是那洗濯我的火苗，
而我就是那件传说中的火浣衫。
south of yangtze, a republic
—before the grave of liu rushi
I
the tailor brings in the vermillion cloak,
which has a snow-white wool lapel, the hatter
brings in a leather rain hat, the shoe shop brings in long boots.
out the door, a pitch black horse already saddled—
i am dressed in my sunday best, sitting in the mirror, like
a vivacious young lady about to walk on stage, i play the role of zhaojun,
the hostage that crossed the border, the bride in political copulation
that won a moment of breath for her country.
now early summer, ice and snow are buried in the cellar,
in years past, the pagoda flowers were now made into honey,
this moment the city quiet, all the gates shut tight,
in the waves, only the rolling tide broadcasts horse hoofs on the other bank.
i am dressed in my sunday best, making up myself into an allusion,
stirring beauty into fables, i want to cross the city,
i want to walk up the walls, i want to horseback to the front of the shore,
for the sake of kindling the troop’s loosened morale.
II
i love watching those young soldiers
and their bearded lips, their eyes
shy and blunt, the devouring desire
rolls along their big adam’s apple, blood in the chest,
they are far better than those castaways by my side,
those complaining ladies who pass for wise women,
rubbing beads of heavenly ways wondering personal loss and win,
before the enemies, like in bed, falling quickly limp.
alas, i am repressed
like the old warden’s wife in his arms
long unsatisfied and takes the chance and walks
into the walled prison and harvests pleasures in the greedy prisoners’ eyes,
but deep in my heart there is
an obscure illusion that i dare not say
like the women of ??? looking forward to the days of invasion,
alas, decadent life, it needs a hard thrust from the outside.
III
early eve i come home, under the nakedly bright wick,
i use delicate and smart words,
like reflections of architectures on the water
to build a godly pagoda of civilization,
again, pride and calmness
wave in the heart, i believe
there is a depth that cannot be conquered, it is like
a kind of vagina that devours the most virile men.
i believe that every deep wound, every hard blow
are evanescent whirlwinds, afterward
a peach flower still wavers in clear mid-air,
water reflecting the vast sky, sound of pipa rumbling from deep alleyways.
江南共和国
——柳如是墓前
Ⅰ
裁缝送来了那件朱红色的大氅，
它有雪白的羊毛翻领，帽商
送来了皮质斗笠，鞋店送来长筒靴。
门外，一匹纯黑的马备好了鞍——
我盛装，端坐在镜中，就像
即将登台的花旦，我饰演昭君，
那个出塞的人质，那个在政治的交媾里
为国家赢得喘息机会的新娘。
已是初夏，冰雪埋放在地窖中，
在往年，槐花也已经酿成了蜜。
此刻城中寂寂地，所有的城门紧闭，
只听见江潮在涌动中播放对岸的马蹄。
我盛装，将自己打扮成一个典故，
将美色搅拌进寓言，我要穿越全城，
我要走上城墙，我要打马于最前沿的江滩，
为了去激发涣散的军心。
Ⅱ
我爱看那些年轻的军士们
长着绒毛的嘴唇，他们的眼神
羞怯而直白，吞咽的欲望
沿着粗大的喉结滚动，令胸膛充血，
他们远胜过我身边那些遗老，
那些乔装成高士的怨妇，
捻着天道的人质计算着个人的得失，
在大敌面前，如同在床上很快就败下阵来。
哦，我是压抑的
如同在垂老的典狱长怀抱里
长久得不到满足的妻子，借故走进
监狱的围墙内，到犯人们贪婪的目光里攫获快感，
而在我内心的深处还有
一层不敢明言的晦暗幻象
就像布伦城的妇女们期待破城的日子，
哦，腐朽糜烂的生活，它需要外部而来的重重一戳。
Ⅲ
薄暮我回家，在剔亮的灯芯下，
我以那些纤微巧妙的词语，
就像以建筑物的倒影在水上
重建一座文明的七宝楼台，
再一次，骄傲和宁静
荡漾在内心，我相信
有一种深邃无法被征服，它就像
一种阴道，反过来吞噬最为强悍的男人。
我相信每一次重创、每一次打击
都是过境的飓风，然后
还将是一枝桃花摇曳在晴朗的半空，
潭水倒映苍天，琵琶声传自深巷。
old shanghai
for s.t.
a carnival, our youth catches the last train.
the clock of the customs tower changes its movement,
its minute hand turns the whole city around. in the morning fog
whistles __set__ off, the bent bund already __drop__s its shackles,
the straightened iconic order reflects again the colonial age in the water.
do not miss watching the crowd on the street before eight o’clock,
millions of ants carry away a lie. everyday
is new, the jigsaw puzzle in the kaleidoscope,
you stand and adventures wave toward you. alas, too many blind spots
like shikumen windows, dim and damp and full of holes,
waiting in line to be exposed after brushing off overcast days.
a train bridge between two universities, you study literature
and i law, whatever we are learning,
we are learning to breathe freedom. when an
unfinished confession lies in the hospital and accepts admiration,
an underground library expands quickly: nietzsche, freud,
satre and dear theo…at the time elites in the city
can incubate eggs of flesh and blood, patches and detachable collars
loom behind the soul, poetry is a pass for the despicable and the noble,
toward friendship and dream, toward schizophrenia and trash
and the adultery bed of power, until the arrival of the eventual summer.
a spiritual carnival ends out of the blue,
i pack my luggage and feel that it is lighter than before,
like a whimper pressed under index finger; when
bulldozers level horizon of memory, when life’s
sails will never overlap, when our girls
turn into mothers, when shanghai becomes new york city,
for the past twenty years, i have been here fewer times, every time
i can hardly recognize it—how would we know
every night you sneak back to hidden mine fields, to wipe off
portrait frames of the dead, to swing wildly don quixote’s long lance?
you enter purgatory and bar all of us out.
旧上海
——给S.T.
狂欢节，我们的青春赶上了末班车。
海关大楼的钟已经更换机芯，
它的指针转动整个城市。晨雾里
汽笛齐鸣，佝偻的外滩已经卸掉刑枷，
伸直的爱奥尼亚柱在水中重现殖民时代的倒影。
别错过观看八点以前大街上的人潮，
飞奔的亿万蚁足抬走一个谎言。每一天
都是新的，都是万花筒里的七彩图形，
你站着而奇遇在涌向你。噢，太多的盲点
就像老石库门里暗湿的、布满窟窿的窗，
在移去了阴霾的日子里排队等待曝光。
两座大学之间隔着一座铁路桥，你读文学
而我读法律，无论我们在学习什么，
都是在学习呼吸自由。当一部
未竞的忏悔录躺在医院里接受瞻仰，
一座地下图书馆在迅速扩大：尼采，佛洛伊德，
萨特和亲爱的提奥……那时全城的精英们
能够孵化有血有肉的蛋，补丁和假领
映衬着灵魂，诗歌是高尚或卑鄙的通行证，
通往友谊和梦想，也通往自我分裂、垃圾堆、
和权力通奸的床，直到最后的夏天来临。
一场精神的狂欢猝然地中断，
我们收拾行李，感觉它比来时更轻，
就像摁在食指下的一声轻嘘；当
推土机铲平了记忆的地平线，当生活的
航线再也难以交叉，当我们的姑娘们
早已经成为母亲，当上海已经变成纽约，
二十年间我越来越少地到来，每一次
都几乎认不出它——我们怎能料到
你每夜都潜回那隐埋的雷区，来擦拭
遗像的镜框，来挥舞堂吉诃德的长矛？
你入炼狱，将我们全部禁锢在外边。
duolun road
under a sky cold and grey like a clamshell
rows of old red brick buildings. by the street corner,
before a café that plays silent films,
a female model wears a cheongsam and moves about
in the camera for the next issue of a fashion magazine cover—
often this city has the need to return to that age.
there is a small building in the nearby block,
as if smoke and coughs still fill up the room…
on a motley table by the window, he
uses a scalpel-like nib, to open
the chest of old china, to check its liver and gall bladder,
its lung, its stomach and respiratory tracts—
then, wash hands, go downstairs and accept
revered gaze of a young wife and his disciples;
during dinner he attacks his peers and patients,
attacks all the frail and amorous species.
he plans to revive the national etching business on his own,
and ask the works to look like kollwitz…
(in private he likes beardsley.)
he also attacks the surrounding concessions,
neon lights smeared with lipsticks devours
country moneybags who come to enjoy a different lifestyle;
business ladies in cheongsam everywhere, and
“tune of backyard flowers” played in a jazz tune,
the entertainment decibels overshadow mistress xiang lin’s sobbings,
speeches from revolutionary party members and the nearing gunshots.
his voice cold, stiff, points out one by one
every organ, every nerve and every kind
of death of hope, announces that the whole old continent
is a burning iron house, is a
lone island where plagues spread during tsunami;
do not wake anybody up,
for there is no way to escape…
he should be glad that he does not survive
the latter half of the century, what awaits him
“either shut up or go to jail,” no,
even if the mouth is shut, there is no escape from incarceration, and
together with all those whom he would never forgive
to be denounced to be insulted…his
days of fights are nothing more than a game,
and when he realizes his shortcomings it is already too late—
facing the same fate, apologies are useless.
if he would survive, it would be in the deep
of this living hell where tongues are ripped out, he would bear
the pain of ribs being kicked, clean toilets hunchbackedly, but
perhaps he would still never forgive anyone,
because he cannot walk out of that day until the very end—
the anatomy lesson of slide shows in the sendai medical school,
from that day on, he feels himself like bruno
thrown to death in the burning fire, flesh once destroyed
and morals fly straight up, like a vulture chasing after the rancid;
his charred eyes can see nothing no more.
多伦路
蚌壳般灰冷的天空下
成排的红砖老建筑。街边，
一家放映默片的咖啡馆门前，
女模特身穿旗袍，为下期
时尚杂志的封面走动在镜头中——
这城市经常有回到那个年代的需要。
邻近的街区里有一座小楼，
仿佛依旧满屋子的烟雾和咳嗽……
在窗边一张斑驳的大桌子上，他
用手术刀般的笔尖，剖开
老中国的胸膛，检查它的肝胆，
它的肺，它的胃和呼吸道——
然后，洗手，下楼，接受
年轻妻子和门徒们敬畏的注视；
晚餐时他抨击他的同行和病人，
抨击所有脆弱、多情的物种。
他有意以一己之力振兴民族版画业，
要求它们酷似珂勒惠支……
（私下里他喜欢比亚兹莱）。
他也抨击四周那围合的租界，
抹着口红的霓虹灯吞噬着
来开洋荤的乡下财主；
到处是穿旗袍的商女，和
以爵士乐来演奏的《后庭花》，
娱乐的分贝盖过了祥林嫂的啜泣，
革命党人的演讲，和越来越近的枪声。
他的嗓音冷，硬，逐一宣布
每种器官、每根神经，和每种
希望的垂亡，宣布整个旧大陆
是一座燃烧的铁屋，是一座
海啸时瘟疫也在蔓延的孤岛；
不要叫醒任何一个人，
因为已经无路可逃……
他该庆幸自己没有活到
世纪的下半叶，等待他的
“要么是闭嘴要么是坐牢”，不，
即使闭嘴也难逃铁窗的厄运，而且
是和他一个也不打算宽恕的那些人
一起，被批斗被侮辱……他
往日的好斗不过像一场游戏，
而他意识到自己的缺点已经晚了——
面对相同的命运，道歉已变得多余。
假如他能够幸存，一定是在这现世的
拔舌地狱深处，强忍住肋骨
被踢断的疼痛，弓身打扫着厕所；但
也许他仍旧一个也不打算宽恕，
因为终其一生他都无法走出那一天——
那堂在仙台医校观看幻灯片的解剖课，
从那天起他感觉自己像布鲁诺
被扔进了火刑堆中，肉体毁灭过一次
而道德感垂直起飞，兀鹫般追猎腐臭；
他焦灼的眼已经看不见更多。
the pioneer
one among them
though in a wheelchair, still loves raving,
and believes every sentence he says is true,
believes that his faraway apartment in a foreign land
would one day turn into a combat command,
whereas more people are tired
of hiding incessantly from the dazzling beams from patrol boats
that shine on them in the red marshland,
they want to go back to the streets, go back
to rekindle an everyday lamp on the faded maps,
they have returned and opened a childhood sky
in an old umbrella, in the night square
sip puddles of memory like migrant birds…
alas, absence for too long, and the stage
turns already to the other side, like the aloof flow of cars
hanging a busker on the overpass, when
your eyes become overcast as nobody can
remember the world past from your face,
when your accusations are nothing but self-mutterings, along
__drop__s of water in some pipes of an empty hallway,
when enemies become invisible in time,
impossible to encounter face to face—
you must stand this forgetting like a retiree
sitting on the park bench staring at the swirling dead leaves,
when the dream medal is yet to be given,
when the honorary memorial will not be completed before your death,
alas, dear pioneer, do not betray in the last few seconds before eternity.
先驱
他们当中有一个
尽管坐在轮椅上，仍然爱咆哮，
相信自己的每句话都是真理，
相信他远在异国的公寓房
有一天仍然会成为作战指挥部，
而更多的人厌倦了在芦苇荡里
不停地躲避缉私船那强烈光束的射击，
他们想要回到大街上，回到
褪色的地图上重点一盏日常的灯，
他们回来了，在一把旧伞中
撑开童年的天空，在深夜的广场上
候鸟般啜吸记忆的水洼……
哦，缺席得太久，而舞台
已经旋转到另一边，就像冷漠的车流
悬置起天桥上的卖艺人，当
你的眼神因为没有人能从你的脸上
记起昔日的世界而变得阴郁，
当你的指控不过是喃喃自语，伴随着
空旷的楼道中某处水管的滴答声，
当敌人在时光中变得隐形，
难以从正面再遭遇——
你必须忍受遗忘如同退休者
坐在公园的长椅上凝视枯叶的飞旋，
当梦想的奖章迟迟不颁发，
当荣誉的纪念碑注定在你生前建不成，
哦，先驱，别变节在永恒之前最后的几秒。
the invisible man
—a eulogy to zhang zao
an extended winter,
snow falling in march, no leaves
on the branches yet migrant birds return in time,
completing a great expedition; at tübingen,
your place of departure, you lay down your wings
tangled into shrouds and fly no more.
for a long time you are an invisible man,
poetry flies for you, casting shadows among us,
poetry followed and read; before
the carnival age crushed to ashes by continuous tank treads,
before i stagger to write the first line, you
have gone afar. an isolated nest by the edge of the black forest,
a tiny black dot moving on the aerial map, an anonymous drifting;
there, the experience of the first shocks on the journey,
like a hot red iron you fall into neckar river in winter…
after the sizzling disperses in the ripples, not only are there
clouds of thick smoke like the mythical beast pi xiu swinging shackled claws, but
roiling youth, and ears everywhere filled with blood for the sight of beauty—
strings not tuned by friendship, echoes of home,
resounding, a gesture to beckon ghosts,
charred like orpheus from the netherworld, unsure
whether true love follows right behind him? there,
alms of freedom cannot be exchanged for everyday bread,
outside the door of probation, a lonesome k and his rolls of castles.
alas, the surveyor doubled over in boredom; often
quiet snow covers night, you drink to yourself at the window pane,
body desirous of inebriation like a slowly sagging scale,
tired of weighing every word,
letting them go fluttering and buried
in the lichtenstein mountains in the white papers spit from the typewriter,
wide as horizon./
i saw you for the first time in shanghai. in
a narrow elevator your overweight body bloated,
not a sight of the prince from hearsay, then,
you showed off a card trick at a bar,
as if it would redeem your miraculous image—
i was taken aback by your boyishness, your bloated sweetness,
with a hard core; i was taken aback
by your snoring, loud as a muck car
waking up streets, like the “bad rhyme” you mentioned,
strenuously shifting in the two airs that you breathe—
rather than saying german is ice, chinese is coal, why not say
the present is ice, the past is coal, boiling inside of you.
china is changing! in the ruthless migration, all of us
view memory as a step backward, nostalgia as cancer,
crawling hastily like lizards, afraid of lagging behind,
but wherever we pass, everything cracks into abyss…
you draw in your wings by the static eaves of europe, dreaming
of long anguish, missing this chaotic epic.
you return, like a nightwatch man missing his latitude,
like diogenes of sinope daydreaming, carrying a lamp,
looking tirelessly…in the air there are no longer
fragrant words, the likes of zhong ziqi are going deaf,
laughter like a firework burning the suburb many years away;
only you spread out the map of the last age, stubbornly,
until the newly-appeared dagger turns you into your own assassin,
your heart breaks to nothingness, so a return becomes another disappearance,
down to a teacher’s pointer, to a table of wine,
a homemade prison of words; better off losing your voice,
snapping strings on the back of glamour, unwilling to linger
in the rhetorical politics on the tongue-twisting stage.
tonight, i pull your slim volume from the shelf,
after closing the book i see a comet dragging its opening tail,
down below, the cages of two continents open up—
just as poets are myths after death,
birds among apes, kings of no lands;
perhaps you never truly landed on earth.
隐形人
——悼张枣
Ⅰ
一个延长的冬天，
雪在三月仍然飘落，枝头
没有叶子但候鸟们如期归来，
履行了一场伟大的穿越；在图宾根，
你的出发地，卸下了翅膀的你
被卷进死亡的床单，永不再飞还。
很久以前你就是一个隐形人，
诗代替你翱翔，投影在我们中间，
被追踪，被传诵；早于
那狂欢的年代被坦克的履带碾成碎末，
也早于我踉跄地写下第一行诗，你
就已远走他乡。黑森林边一座偏僻的巢穴，
航摄图上蠕动的小黑点，匿名的漂流物；
那里，经历了航线最初的震撼，
你像通红的烙铁掉进冬日的奈卡河……
随一阵嗤响消散在涟漪的，不止是
那团貔貅般挥舞禁锢之爪的浓烟，还有
沸腾的青春，遍野为美充血的耳朵——
琴弦得不到友谊的调校、家园的回声，
演奏，就是一个招魂的动作，
焦灼如走出冥府的俄耳甫斯，不能确证
在他背后真爱是否紧紧跟随？那里，
自由的救济金无法兑换每天的面包，
假释的大门外，兀立K和他的成排城堡。
哦，双重虚空的测绘员；往往
静雪覆夜，你和窗玻璃上的自己对饮，
求醉之躯像一架渐渐瘫软的天平，
倦于再称量每一个词语的轻重，
任凭了它们羽翎般飘零，隐没在
里希滕斯坦山打字机吐出的宽如地平线的白纸。
Ⅱ
我第一次见你是在上海。在
逼仄的电梯间你发胖的身体更显臃肿，
全无传闻中的美男子踪影，然后，
在酒吧里你卖弄一种纸牌的小魔术，
好像它能够为你赎回形像的神奇——
我惊讶于你的孩子气，膨胀的甜蜜，
但有一个坚硬的核；我惊讶于
你入睡后如同渣土车般吵醒着街道的
鼾声，它如同你说过的“坏韵”，
困难地转换在你呼吸的两种空气——
与其说德语是冰，汉语是炭，不如说
现在是冰，过去是炭，相煎于你的肺腑。
中国在变！我们全都在惨烈的迁徙中
视回忆为退化，视怀旧为绝症，
我们蜥蜴般仓促地爬行，恐惧着掉队，
只为所过之处尽皆裂为深渊……而
你敛翅于欧洲那静滞的屋檐，梦着
万古愁，错失了这部离乱的史诗。
你归来，像夜巡时走错了纬度的更夫，
像白日梦里的狄奥根尼，打着灯笼，
苦苦地寻觅……空气中不再有
言说的芬芳，钟子期们的听力已经涣散，
欢笑如多年前荒郊燃放的一场烟火；
只有你固执地铺展上一个年代的地图，
直到闪现的匕首让你成为自己的刺客，
心碎于乌有，于是归来变成了再次隐形，
落脚于一根教鞭，一张酒桌，
一座自造的文字狱；宁愿失声，
在喧哗的背面崩断琴弦，
不愿盘桓修辞的政坛，饶舌的舞台。
今夜，抽取书架上你那薄薄的一册，
掩卷后看见一颗彗星拖拽开屏的尾巴，
下方，两座大陆的笼子敞开——
一如诗人惯来是死后的神话，
类人猿中的鸟科，无地的君王；
或许你从来就没有真正地着陆。
fine weather
terrific weather,
green cheers spill between opening branches,
the sky turns into blue ribbons and white clouds;
cleaners sweep streets,
birds in winterberry bushes, their feathers more brilliant than colored stamps.
everything is what they should be,
clear, bright, glittering with glaring dignity,
even the stain on the side of the building,
even the swarming flies around the opening of trash bags…
as if everything comes from the brush stroke of eternity. the weather
terrific, as if small eastern european countries
wake on the second morning from despotism,
long night gone, no more curfew,
no more fleeing, no more repression…
days like a cradle, like a swing, under the shade
of a country courtyard calling out sweetly; afar,
refugees want to return home, like a song on the throat
itching on the way to a date. yet melancholic like
norman manea, hesitating between return or not return,
he foresees what he sees more shocking than days past…
yes, there will be bad weather, there will be
long crises, enduring damage; suffering
that few are willing to inherit and turn into wealth.
evil, more cunning than ever, invisible wars have just started,
burned flags still fly in the head, in the act,
only the victors are unaware…
as for us, we still line up at the far end of meshed jetlag,
like a snail carrying a hard shell holding antennas,
we are nothing but witnesses of fine weather, antennas
occasionally poking out atmospheric holes.
好天气
天气好极了，
绿色的欢呼从张开的树枝间涌出，
在天空变成了蓝缎带和白云；
清洁工打扫着马路，
冬青丛中的鸟儿，羽毛比彩绘邮票还鲜艳。
每件事物都是它们应该是的样子，
清晰，夺目，闪动着光亮的尊严，
甚至大楼侧面的一道污渍，
甚至围拢在垃圾袋口的苍蝇……
仿佛都来自永恒的笔触。天气
好极了，这就像东欧的那些小国
从极权中醒来的第二天早晨，
长夜已经过去，不再有宵禁，
不再有逃亡，不再有镇压……
日子像摇篮，像秋千，在乡间小院的
浓荫下发出甜蜜的召唤；远方，
流亡者想要回家，就像约会的路上
歌在喉头发痒。可是，阴郁如
马内阿 ，踌躇于归与不归之间，
他预感到自己的所见将比往日更惊心……
是的，还会有坏天气，还会有
漫长的危机，漫长的破坏；痛苦
很少有人愿意继承，将它转化为财富。
恶，变得更狡诈，无形的战争才刚刚开始，
焚毁的旗帜依然飘扬在思想中，行动中，
胜利者自己却浑然不觉……
至于我们，尚且在时差格栅的远端排队，
就像蜗牛背负着重壳并且擎住一根天线般的触角，
我们只不过是好天气的观光客，触角
偶尔会伸出大气层的窟窿。
sansovino nocturne
june is a forever inflamed wound,
even in venice, i can still
smell the stinking odor of violence
tagging along sea wind; silent in the forbidden
grounds of memory for too long, we have become
the animal heads that bite on copper knobs on the self-closing iron door—
here, ripples of green waves
again and again rush on the hidden reefs of our hearts
and the rust on the tongue; on the other shore, the armory
displays quietly all the artifacts, the gondola
like a swing full of honeyed dreamscape,
pendulums toward night, from night toward day.
piazza san marco pours songs into cups
from a water jar pleasant to the ears, after night deepens
there are still small pubs like rolling pearls
in the folds of a siren’s dress calling tourists to pick them up…
water’s cane and light’s ribbon weave a cradle of a city,
swinging, humming, melting the longing for home.
lost in the deep alleys i smell a self that is unfaithful,
which shelters itself behind some window…
when volcanoes fall silent, there is no roaring in the air,
a flower plant on the balcony, an armchair in the living,
the buon fresco formed by light waves on the ceiling,
aren’t they all what we have as home?
tell me, after a great blow
can the corrugated heart unfold to sail?
why am i drunk in the medley of sea and sky, in the eyes
an unfinished crying still on the roll?
pillowed on weaves of the sea, the dome of the cathedral
like a candleholder in wind accompanies my vigil to morrow.
圣索沃诺岛小夜曲
六月是一道永远会发炎的伤口，
即使远在威尼斯，我也能
嗅到那份暴力的腥臭
尾随着海风涌来；在记忆的禁忌中
沉默得太久，我们已经变成
自我监禁的铁门上咬紧铜环的兽首——
这里，环行的碧波
一遍遍冲刷我们心底的暗礁
和舌苔上的锈；对岸，军械库
静静地陈列艺术品，刚朵拉
像一架架秋千满载甜蜜的梦境，
从昼摆向夜，从夜摆到昼。
圣马可广场以一只悦耳的水罐
不断地往杯中倾倒歌声，夜深后
仍然有小酒吧像塞壬的裙摺间
滚落的珍珠，让旅客动心于捡拾……
水的藤条和光的锻带编扎的摇篮城，
晃动着，哼唱着，溶解着乡愁。
迷失在深巷中我嗅出一个不忠的自己，
想要就此隐遁到某扇窗的背后……
当火山已沉寂，空气中不再有怒吼，
难道阳台上的一盆花，客厅里的扶手椅，
天光板上波光造就的湿壁画，
不就是我们还能拥有的全部的家？
告诉我，经历了重创之后
揉皱的心能否重新舒展为帆？
为什么我醉倒在海天一色之中，眼眶里
却滚动着一场未完成的哭泣？
头枕层迭的涛声，大教堂的尖顶
就像一座风中的烛台伴我守灵到天明。
story
—to my grandfather
Ⅰ
old, old like a boat facedown on the shore,
cabins gather echoes of waves and wind;
old like the oldest house on this street,
through the window an impenetrable darkness.
most of the time he falls asleep on the shabby cane chair,
his snore like a forever blowing bellows in the kitchen,
occasionally you see him raise his arms with difficulty,
to brush away a fly stuck on his nose tip.
when night falls, the kerosene lamp
twisted bright in the deep of the greyly black glass top,
his old age becomes the dirty water smelling of rust
and washes off grindstones—
Ⅱ
he begins to tell us stories.
his coarse voice, like a rising river,
wades over hidden reefs of asthma and abandoned harbors,
wades over valleys in mist into ancient battlefields.
along the way are brave soldiers who hold their plows tight, even
in sleep bulge their eyes wide open, upon hearing tides rising,
as if hearing the long blowing of horns, they rise up right away
to throw themselves into another long fight.
every clash of swords and every neigh of battle horse,
are fated to arouse roaring waves in our mind,
and in the tent sagging on the autumn wind,
a stream in a woman’s eyes, wet my face.
III
stories older than himself,
those stories that he heard in his childhood
from the elderly, and
stories found in every long journey, are
all the gold coins that he has saved in his poor
life, stored in his mind,
never lost, in every night
the pleasant clash resounds.
IV
now he sleeps long under the earth,
the black walnut box that holds his bone dust
is already like a radio and its waves
vanishing in the deep of the earth, now
the stories are covered by a hard shell
like specimens, whole and exquisite, lined up on the shelf;
occasionally i linger, flicking off dust,
paging through quietly, looking,
but i know all along, there will never be
true stories and those who tell them,
night so long, empty like an unfathomable abyss,
after light nipped, no longer rises a suspense in the heart, bright like morning stars.
故事
——献给我的祖父
Ⅰ
老了，老如一条反扣在岸上的船，
船舱中蓄满风浪的回声；
老如这条街上最老的房屋，
窗户里一片无人能窥透的黑暗。
大部分时光他沉睡在破藤椅上，
鼾声就像厨房里拉个不停的风箱，
偶尔你看见他困难地抬起手臂，
试图驱赶一只粘在鼻尖上的苍蝇。
但是当夜晚来临，煤油灯
被捻亮在灰黑的玻璃罩深处，
他那份苍老就变成了从磨刀石上
冲走的、带铁锈味的污水——
Ⅱ
他开始为我们讲故事了。
沙哑的嗓音就像涨潮的大河，
越过哮喘症的暗礁和废弃的码头，
越过雾中的峡谷直奔古代的疆场。
沿途有紧握耕犁的勇士，即使
在睡梦中也圆睁双眼，听见潮起
如同听见号角的长鸣，立即
就投入到一场永恒的搏斗。
刀剑的每次相交和战马的每次嘶叫，
注定在我的脑海里激起骇浪，
而低垂于秋风的帐篷里，
女人眼中的溪流，濡湿我的脸。
Ⅲ
那些比他还要年老的故事，
那些他很小的时候从很老的人
那里听来的故事，以及
每次远行中寻觅到的故事，就是
他赤贫的一生攒下的全部金币，
存放在他的大脑中，
从没有弄丢过，在每个夜晚
都会发出悦耳的碰撞。
Ⅳ
如今他已经长眠于地下，
盛殓他骨灰的那只黑胡桃木盒子
已经像一只收音机连同电波
消逝在泥土的深处。如今
那些故事裹上一层硬封套，
就像标本，完整而精美，排列在书架上；
我偶然地逗留，吹掸去灰尘，
在其中默默地浏览，寻觅，
但是我深知，不再有
真正的故事和讲故事的人了，
夜晚如此漫长，空如填不满的深渊，
熄灯之后，心中也不再升起亮若晨星的悬念。
the loud speaker
scorching summer not yet over, old pagoda leaves
curl in sunlight; in mother’s arms
i close eyes, to fake sleep,
in my palms the beloved glass beads roll quietly—
i hate afternoon naps, this fatuous family ritual,
out the door, cicadas sing on the low branch,
tadpoles hatch in the water, from the end of the fields
whistles pass as big ships pass the canals.
suddenly, saved! a sizzling electric flow
snakes around the quietude that sinks in the village bushes, adults
asleep with eyes half closed, drag invisible shackles under feet,
walk out of rooms, and gather by the electric pole,
light dazzling, a big loud speaker hangs high
like the bright helmet of wardens on the watchtower in a film
birdviewing the whole prison, the clear blue of the sky accentuates
a sentence coming to an end, the baritone announces the death of the leader.
this news, like a mason’s scraper
suddenly brushes off everybody’s expression, then,
with the dead march on, they circle into a dirt wall,
their sagging heads like sunflowers snapped by the stem.
i am wild with joy that mother’s hands clutch mine no more,
glass beads can jump in joy along dirt roads,
around ponds, straw piles and thrashing floors of wheat,
and roll to the small forest outside the village—
here, in the dead corner where horns cross shoot,
birds’ fluttering can be heard, bone joints
of shrubs cracking in puberty, the lowing of cattle can be heard
from the fields tearing apart like deadly funeral hall silence, through
branches like window gratings by the forest, i watch
the spreading wild grass devouring lanes of generations past,
the river that snakes to the edge of the sky in its bends,
like an empty stave, waits to be rewritten.
i do not know from then on, my steps
are already quietly moving toward the self-banishing adult years,
toward the continuous fated exile—for the sake of avoiding being
called back under the loud speaker again, like hostage, like ghost.
喇叭
酷暑还未销尽，老槐树的叶子
卷刃在日光下；在母亲的臂弯里
我闭上眼睛，假装在沉睡，
手掌里悄悄转动着心爱的玻璃球——
我厌恶午睡这昏庸的家庭制度，
外边，知了在低俯的树枝上唱着歌，
蝌蚪在水中孵化，从田野的尽头
传来大轮船驶过运河时鸣响的汽笛。
突然，得救了！一阵嘶嘶的电流
蛇行于村庄那没入草丛的沉寂，大人们
惺忪着睡眼，脚底拖动着无形的镣铐，
从屋中走出，聚到了那根电线杆下，
强光刺目，大喇叭高高地悬挂
就像电影里岗楼哨卫发亮的头盔
在俯瞰整座监狱，天空的湛蓝反衬着
一个停摆的刑期，男低音宣告领袖之死。
这消息像泥瓦匠的刮刀
瞬间抹平了所有人脸上的表情，然后，
伴随着哀乐声他们围成一面土墙，
低垂的头颈就像向日葵折断的茎杆。
而我狂喜于母亲的手不再将我攥紧，
玻璃球可以沿着泥泞欢快地蹦跳，
绕过水塘、稻草堆和打麦场，
一直滚动到村外的小树林——
这里，喇叭声之间交叉扫射的死角，
静得能听见鸟翅的扑动，低矮的灌木丛
骨节在发育的劈啪声，能听见旷野里
牛的哞鸣撕破灵堂般的死寂；透过
林边那窗栅般的枝条，我眺望
绵延的野草吞没了祖辈们的小路，
那弯垂中蜿蜒向天际的河流
如同空白的五线谱，等待着新的填写。
我并不知道从那时候开始，自己的脚步
已经悄悄迈向了成年之后的自我放逐，
迈向那注定要一生持续的流亡——为了
避免像人质，像幽灵，被重新召唤回喇叭下。
florence
a day of rush, a lost
and delayed itinerary. we study the map and forget
we are already in those pensively charming
streets and architecture, roaming ignorantly
in its suddenly recovered state of anonymity.
perhaps this is what florence longs for,
otherwise it would not close its churches so often
leaving tourists on the steps and in the square;
its magnificent marbles shield a somber quietude,
in the interior of the closed church, emitting voids.
every place corresponds to an image of somebody,
florence reminds me of an old lady,
standing behind deep violet curtains
looking outward, sarcasm biting the corner of her mouth, in her living room
a small privately-owned botticelli hangs.
i worry about her restraint, whenever people
praise our ancient art yet insist
that the chinese today should only write political poetry—
in their imagination, besides the bloodshed
we do not have the right to seek beauty like artists before us,
nor do we have the right to indulge in the mundane and song,
in the trembling morals, in the endless folds
of history, the touch of a life
estranged from itself, falling
into footnotes of hardships and inhumane colonies.
thus i would prefer that florence be brightly open,
simply even, like a plate in an open air café,
that waitress who comes to serve our deserts
slowing her steps as she notices that we are staring at her skirt,
which looks like a fluffy-haired overly-ripe beatrice—
afternoon sunlight unloads the weight of every tree,
the capillary of leaves expands in the wind, shadows
pass our forehead and turn into another linger,
guards talk to themselves in the arch hallways, looking
from every museum window, it is beautiful out and out.
佛罗伦萨
匆忙的一天。被迷路耽误了
行程。研究着地图而忘记
我们已经置身那些阴郁迷人的
街道和建筑，可以无知地漫游在
它突然被恢复的匿名状态。
或许这也是佛罗伦萨自身所渴望的，
否则它不会频繁地设定闭馆日
而将游客留在台阶上，广场上；
它用雄伟的大理石墙保护一种静穆，
在关闭的教堂内部，分泌空。
每个地方都可以对应某种人的形象，
佛罗伦萨让我想到一个老妇人，
她站在沉重的深紫色窗幔背后
向外看，嘴角挂着冷嘲，客厅里
挂着一小幅从未公开过的波提切利。
我戚然于这种自矜，每当外族人
赞美我们古代的艺术却不忘监督
今天的中国人只应写政治的诗——
在他们的想象中，除了流血
我们不配像从前的艺术家追随美，
也不配有日常的沉醉与抒情；
在道德剧烈的痉挛中，在历史
那无尽的褶皱里，隔绝了
一个生命对自己的触摸，沦为
苦难的注脚，非人的殖民地。
所以我宁愿佛罗伦萨是敞亮的，
浅平的，如同露天咖啡馆的碟子，
那前来送甜点的女服务员因为意识到
我们注意着她的裙子而放缓了动作，
像一个蓬松的、熟透的贝阿徳里采——
午后的阳光卸下了每棵树的重量，
叶子的毛细血管扩展于风，那些阴影
经过我们的额头时变成另一种逗留，
那些警卫在拱廊里自语：从任何
博物馆的窗口向外看，总是美丽的。
passing by
not a __drop__ last night, i woke
steeped in nocturnal inebriation – at a hotel
before a steamed mirror, in shock, i
listened to the car flow of the city. here
i know a friend, who brushed his gift aside
and indulged in capturing cheap praises; a
classic literature professor, who loved his words more
than he did others; a girl a music school graduate
lost love yet fell in love with the place,
had three jobs and little sleep,
--sadder than this was
that passions of several generations burned out in a split-second, everybody
rushed onward, cursed, complained,
like countless swords destined to be stuck together –
a usual spring day, who amongst them
could see my exacting longings?
let them keep their past in times past.
let me pass by without a visit and continue my journey—
throat dry, tongue burned by soldering iron,
words swirled in the dazed mind, slow to come,
so pray year after year,
embrace rain showers repeatedly, landscapes and forked roads.
frail like tree shadow, in the puddles of the road
i feel the pain of being rolled over by wheels;
i am cold, because there is no light on the other side,
when people meet, lanterns are nipped dim.
路过
昨夜并未喝酒，醒来
却带着宿醉——在旅馆
罩上蒸汽的镜子前，我怔忡地
倾听城区的车流。这里
我认识一位朋友，抛开了天赋
忙于捕捉廉价的赞美；一个
古典文学教授，爱自己的文字胜过
爱他人；一个音乐学院毕业的女孩，
丢失了爱情却爱上这个地方，
她有三份工作和少得可怜的睡眠，
——比这些更悲伤，是
几代人的激情转眼已耗尽，每个人
匆匆地走着，诅咒着，抱怨着，
冥冥中像无数把生锈的剑粘在一起——
这个平常的春日，他们当中有谁
能察觉我带有苛责的思念？
就让他们保持过去的时光中最好的的样子吧。
就让我路过而不拜访，继续孤单的旅程——
嗓子干渴，舌头被烙铁灼伤，
想说的话盘旋在昏沉的大脑里，如此难产，
为此需要年复一年地默祷，
反复地拥抱阵雨，风景，岔路。
我脆弱如树影，在路面的水洼里
感受着被车轮碾过的疼痛；
我冷，因为对面没有光，
人们相见时，都是捻暗的灯笼。
new jersey on the moon
--to l.z.
this is your tree, river, lawn,
your big house, your america.
this is your life on another planet,
you slow down the car to lead me through mountains,
like a documentary of a private life on the wide screen.
reprints of the impressionists hung on the wall in the living,
your daughter’s toys piled high on the floor,
during daytime when your husband goes to manhattan,
and your child to kindergarten, the streets fall silent
except for the conversation between the vacuum and the lawn mower,
on the treadmill, like the toy train
on its oval track you spin around and around…
here i am surprised at a kind of alienation,
not that you have already changed your nationality
or become someone’s wife, i am
surprised that your wanderings have so soon come to the end—
the dreamed of happy land in our youth
already abbreviated into a comfort cage,
and on the thick velvet couch,
as soon as we talk about china, a smirk curves the corner of your mouth.
i am saddened that you have missed an epic change in time,
a reversed myth of time in reality;
every one of your years here,
is a day that we have spent back home.
twilight, i return to the hotel in queens,
coat on the back of the chair, before my eyes
that wild girl floats by, loving
freedom more than carmen under mérimée’s pen, walking
among the marching parade, like a goodness in delacroix’s paintings.
…the spool of kite stays after memory,
i know i can no longer take you back,
even blessings seem unnecessary.
no entrusted mission, deep in the night
i dream of myself stepping over the pacific,
back to fire-bright smoke-thick battlefields,
loading crossbows and shooting down those toxic suns.
月亮上的新泽西
——致L.Z.
这是你的树，河流，草地，
你的大房子，你的美国，
这是你在另一颗星球上的生活，
你放慢车速引我穿行在山麓间，
就像在宽银幕上播放私生活的记录片。
大客厅的墙头挂着印象派的复制品，
地板上堆满你女儿的玩具，
白天，当丈夫去了曼哈顿，
孩子去了幼儿园，街区里静得
只剩吸尘器和割草机的交谈，
你就在跑步机上，像那列玩具火车
在它的环形跑道上，一圈又一圈地旋转……
这里我惊讶于某种异化，
并非因为你已经改换国籍
或者成为了别人的妻子，我
惊讶于你的流浪这么快就到达了终点——
我们年轻时梦想的乐土
已经被简化成一座舒适的囚笼，
并且，在厚厚的丝绒软垫上，
只要谈论起中国，你的嘴角就泛起冷嘲的微笑。
我还悲哀于你错失了一场史诗般的变迁，
一个在现实中被颠倒的时间神话：
你在这里的每一年，
是我们在故乡度过的每一天。
傍晚， 我回到皇后区的小旅馆里，
将外套搭在椅背上，眼前飘过
当年那个狂野的女孩，爱
自由胜过梅里美笔下的卡门，走在
游行的队列中，就像德拉克洛瓦画中的女神。
……记忆徒留风筝的线轴，
我知道我已经无法带你回家了，
甚至连祝福也显得多余。
无人赋予使命，深夜
我梦见自己一脚跨过太平洋，
重回烈火浓烟的疆场，
填放着弓弩，继续射杀那些毒太阳。
madrid, september
I
days even, like an olive forest
spread upon the slopes, not
too many high rises, not too much dust
or too many nouveau-riche neighbors;
shop doors sluggish, ajar in deep alleys,
sound of guitar gallantly accompanies a verbose lunch.
the expedition praise song lies flat on the book shelf,
revolution already over, the king remains,
on the roof a new line of hero statues.
bloodthirsty impulse oxidizes and turns
into exploding cheers for bullfight and soccer on a weekend;
kisses, in the dry air under a blue sky
splash everywhere and on the sponge soft
stretch of lawn __set__tle slowly into flowers.
II
long under clusters of shades waiting in a railway station,
out of the blue i feel tired of traveling and want to stay,
want to light up a lamp with a green cover
in a small apartment, dry a shirt
on the balcony, let the bipolar genes evaporate;
all the walked roads turn into a milk-white tail smoke
of a plane in the green and blue sky;
kindness, finally gathers __drop__ by __drop__,
and exchanges for minimum dignity in the crowd…
let things past cross the atlantic to come find me,
i love the beach during ebb-tide more than i love the present.
though blaming the self for being a deserter, though regretting
like a young girl married to a widower, to re-
turn, is to exile.
九月，马德里
Ⅰ
岁月安稳，如一片铺展在
坡地间的橄榄林，没有
太高的楼，没有太多的灰尘
和太多突然发迹的邻居；
店铺的门懒散，半掩在深巷，
吉它声殷勤地伴奏冗长的午餐。
远征的颂歌横躺在书架上，
革命已经结束，国王还在，
屋脊上多出几排英雄的雕像。
嗜血的冲动氧化，转变成
周末时为斗牛和足球爆发的欢呼；
吻，在蓝天下在干燥的空气中
火星般四溅，在海绵般柔软的
大块草地上逐渐沉淀成鲜花。
Ⅱ
伫候在火车站成簇的荫凉里，
我忽然厌倦了旅行而想要居留，
想要在一小间公寓里点亮
绿布罩的台灯，晾在阳台上的
衬衫，蒸发了燥狂症的因子；
走过的路全都成为苍穹中
一道乳白色的飞机尾烟；
善，终于可以一点一滴积攒，
在人群中兑换到起码的尊严……
让众多的往事越过大西洋前来找我吧，
我爱退潮的沙滩胜过爱现场。
纵然自责如逃兵，纵然悔疚
如嫁给老鳏夫之后的少女，但
回去，就是流放。
the bayou of time
a little girl’s bashfulness flutters in crow’s feet,
black glass frame weighs on her questioning tone;
do you still remember me? such a street encounter
drags you back to a summer afternoon of youth—
an attic in a relative’s house, on the wall hangs
the headshot of garbo, clothes and books in an equal mess,
a squeaking steel cot, a few threads rust and snap;
she comes every weekend then, her naked knees
dangling by the cot’s edge as if on a swing, love murmurs, caresses,
walks under moonlight, until the last bus takes her away—
her body is a key to open your manhood,
her back the most smooth skin that you have ever touched,
without her kiss then perhaps you would have died of thirst…
now your life seems like a river around a cape,
waterways widening, wrapped in more dirt, dust and boats,
and the attic has been taken down, even the whole block
like the negative of an ant cave has been destroyed in exposure—
in this encounter you run into the self haloed in hair
and a flood like the power of a visa officer: smile, listening, no approval issued…
watching the flush diffused on her face, you even think,
not without mischief, of tuberculosis held up in a romantic novel.
时光的支流
小女孩的忸怩漾动在鱼尾纹里，
深黑色的眼镜框加重了她的疑问语气：
你还记得我吗？如此的一次街头邂逅
将你拽回到青春期的夏日午后——
一间亲戚家的小阁楼，墙头悬挂着
嘉宝的头像，衣服和书堆得同样凌乱，
一张吱嘎作响的床，钢丝锈断了几根；
那时她每个周末都会来，赤裸的膝盖
悬在床边荡秋千，絮语，爱抚，
月光下散步，直到末班车将她带走——
她的身体是开启你成年的钥匙，
她的背是你抚摸过的最光滑的丝绸，
没有她当年的吻你或许早已经渴死……
现在你的生活如同一条转过了岬角的河流，
航道变阔，裹挟更多的泥沙与船，
而阁楼早已被拆除，就连整个街区
也像一张蚂蚁窝的底片在曝光中销毁——
从这场邂逅里你撞见了当年那个毛茸茸的自己
和泛滥如签证官的权力：微笑，倾听，不署名……
望着她漫上面颊的红晕，你甚至
不无邪恶地想到耽误在浪漫小说里的肺
geography teacher
a taped old globe
spins slowly by her fingertips,
she teaches vesuvius and mariana trench,
depression and tropic climate, how cold and warm fronts
merge above the pacific, how rain and clouds form.
yet her body teaches us another kind of geography,
that is what we really want to know—
along the opening of her v neck sweater, we
imagine ourselves as crawling pioneers in a film,
cutting electric fences with a pair of pliers, and
nervous that the searchlight will light up anytime,
until the ringing of the bell as if alarms went off…
we watch her leave, her back to us as if through a window
we peek at the handwritten manuscript on the table.
even with her thick layers and the firm barrier of a scarf,
we can still make out the swagging of flesh in the folds.
fairytales can weave night’s dreams no more, we
have grown up, like tadpoles in a glass jar ready to swim into rivers—
under the small town sky covered by a broken boat facedown, she is
cape of good hope, telling of __set__ting sun, ufos and jetlag.
地理教师
一只粘着胶带的旧地球仪
随着她的指尖慢慢转动，
她讲授维苏威火山和马里亚纳海沟，
低气压和热带雨林气候，冷暖锋
如何在太平洋上空交汇，云雨如何形成。
而她的身体向我们讲授另一种地理，
那才是我们最想知道的内容——
沿她毛衣的V字领入口，我们
想像自己是电影里匍匐前行的尖兵，
用一把老虎钳偷偷剪开电丝网，且
紧张于随时会亮起的探照灯，
直到下课铃如同警报声响起……
我们目送她的背影如同隔着窗玻璃
觑觎一本摊放在桌面的手抄本。
即使有厚外套和围巾严密的封堵，
我们仍能从衣褶里分辨出肉的扭摆。
童话不再能编织夜晚的梦，我们
像玻璃罐里的蝌蚪已经发育，想要游入大河——
在破船般反扣的小镇天空下，她就是
好望角，述说着落日，飞碟和时差。
on reading mrs. mandelstam’s memoir
a belated book. if i’d read it earlier,
a filament in my pupils would have gone off, the vocal cord
more transparent in the dark, rhyming with purgatory.
there were always a little giant and a woman who listened to him
attentively with pleasure, hungry,
fearing for her life. there were always encounters in the hallways
upon leaving early, to borrow a lighter, to mock
and laugh marching to the other side of the time. watch out,
your cinders splashed onto my skirt. no,
that was the big hole burned from the tacit public consent.
dare you walk further? where? do you want me
to shoot a bullet at the kremlin?
no, my dear, learn to let yourself go,
i can be in your company, no more, i must stay,
a ghost of reality, casting echoes.
读曼德施塔姆夫人回忆录
迟到的书。假如读得更早，
我瞳孔里的钨丝就会被引爆，声带
在黑暗中变得透明，押炼狱的韵。
总是有小个子的巨人，和善于倾听他的
女性，为耳福忍耐了别的：饥饿，
恐惧或自己的一生；总是有提早退场
而在过道发生的相遇，借个火，嘲弄，
一起大笑着走向年代的背面。当心，
你的火星溅到了我的裙子上。不，
那是在众人的默认里烧出个大窟窿。
还敢再往前走吗？哪里？是要我
回去再对着克里姆林宫放一枪吗？
不，亲爱的，要学会解脱你自己，
我已无法陪在你身边，我必须留下来，
做一个现实的幽灵，创造回音。
it comes to me this is nalan xingde’s city
it comes to me this is nalan xingde’s city,
a manchu man, a sharpshooter of the chinese language,
he is so close to power, so close to love,
yet neither belongs to him—this short life
has been booked by extravagant and lonesome boxes in a big theatre,
once he wants to cross over the fence and embrace anything,
everything disappears. alas, fated witness,
rare baritone, he breaks hundreds of years of silence—
even if he travels to fortresses along the great wall, that is not to battle,
but to bring back to poetry
the vast and the desolate. when his nib
falls to a pause soaking in icy rivers of the night,
soldiers upon the horns’ calling blow off light
in tens of thousands of tents. in endless third watch of the soul,
nowhere is home. living, for the mere
sake of a waking dream. in the capital of uneventful years,
rows of glazed roof tiles fade in soot,
flagstaffs bellow in wind from the sea;
the door to his residence faces a pond, inside the walls
savor a courtyard from south of yangtze, rains along eaves
brushed in smoke, bead curtains quivering and glittering, which mirror
a monk sitting quiet between words,
a man who begins his life from a full moon,
always questing for that first moving glance.
我想起这是纳兰容若的城市
我想起这是纳兰容若的城市，
一个满族男人，汉语的神射手，
他离权力那么近，离爱情那么近，
但两者都不属于他——短促的一生
被大剧院豪华而凄清的包厢预订，
一旦他要越过围栏拥抱什么，
什么就失踪。哦，命定的旁观者，
罕见的男低音，数百年的沉寂需要他打破——
即便他远行到关山，也不是为了战斗，
而是为了将辽阔和苍凉
带回我们的诗歌。当他的笔尖
因为吮吸了夜晚的冰河而陷入停顿，
号角声中士兵们正从千万顶帐篷
吹灭灯盏。在灵魂那无尽的三更天，
任何地方都不是故乡。活着，仅仅是
一个醒着的梦。在寻常岁月的京城，
成排的琉璃瓦黯淡于煤灰，
旗杆被来自海上的风阵阵摇撼；
他宅邸的门对着潭水，墙内
珍藏一座江南的庭院，檐头的雨
带烟，垂下飘闪的珠帘，映现
这个字与字之间入定的僧侣，
这个从圆月开始一生的人，
永远在追问最初的、动人的一瞥。
选自朱朱英文诗集《野长城》李栋译