Fan Jinghua: Love Letter

　　　Love Letter

Open a new word file and you
have a blankness to face.
Planarity is fathomless, and you feel
like mayonnais sandwich spread.
On the LCD, a pop-up
teaches you how to fold a letter paper
into an envelope, but then you cannot tell
which side is the content.
It must be a dream, with characters!
In the desk file folder, the plot unrolls,
breathing loss and lust. Its secret
cries “Help!” in the left-hand third drawer.
You have to take out another sheet, draw
an empty circle and some clouds of closed lines,
and write under the picture
"Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!"
before folding and feeding it into the envelope.
Wet warm the adhesive on your tongue and seal it.
There is no addressee, and a Y stands like a lonely tree;
you look at it hard and no “Help!” is heard.
As bouncy Good-mornings are in the air,
you are smiling in a dream.
　　　　　　　　　　　September 24-27 2007

　　　情书
打开一个新文档，于是你
就有了一片空白可以面对。
平面，深不可测；而你感觉
自己像涂抹三明治的蛋黄酱。
屏幕上，弹出广告教你
如何将一张信笺折叠成
信封，而你却无法说出
那张白纸哪一面是内容。
这必然是一个梦，
人物必须鲜活如生。
情节在案头的文件夹里
展开，有失落与欲望的气息。
它的秘密在左首第三个抽屉里
呼救。你又抽出一张纸，
画一个圆圈和几朵线条的云，
然后在图下写上“中秋快乐”；
叠好，塞进那信封，用舌头
舔湿自带的胶水，趁着微温，封口。
没有地址，空白的信封上
一个Y站着，像一颗孤独的树；
你看了很久，没有听到呼救声。
当“早晨好”在空气中跳跃，
你推紧抽屉，微笑，犹如在梦中。
　　　　　　　2007年9月27日

Fan Jinghua: Invitation of the Predawn Moon

　　Invitation of the Predawn Moon

So it is still in the sky, only a little to the west. This is comforting,
Especially so, as last night I forgot its season was waxing.
Now, with a mug in hand, on the thirteenth floor,
I cannot dig a pool on the opposite balcony and invite it to there.
Clouds may bloom like rootless water lilies,
But this hand-mirror of milk under my nose is sluggishly opaque.
No matter how sternly I hold it up, I cannot tell
Who is within its ashes and filth.
Tonight, it will still shine, tomorrow night, still brighter,
If something is not to be brought back,
If common souls can take the mackerel sky with a grin
Or forget some days like this had been expected not to overcast or rain.
The moon can always be regarded as a high ideal, forever for the yet-to-come,
As one sits before a mirror, seeing eye to eye with the other
Until they both grow hoary and blind.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　September 23, 2007

Today (September 25) is Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon-Cake Festival) (The 15th of the eighth lunar month), which is considred a day of family reunion as the full autumn/harvest month symbolizes perfectness (roundness and fullness).

　　　　凌晨望月

它仍在空中，只是已经偏西。这令人感到安慰，
尤其因为我的昨夜忘记了这是它盈满的季节。
此刻，我手端瓷缸，站在十三楼，既不能
在月色侵阶处凿个池儿，也不能将月亮唤到对面的阳台。
云朵可以开放成无根的白莲，
而我鼻子下这面牛奶的镜子却浓稠得混浊。
无论我审察得多么苛严，仍难说出
其灰烬与污秽之下的是谁。
今夜，明夜，它仍会照耀，更加明洁，
只不过有些事不要被重新翻开，
常人们要能对着满天鱼鳞的瓷片露齿而笑，
忘记他们曾期盼这样的日子不会阴雨。
月亮总能被视为一个至高的理想，为了未来，
犹如一个人坐在镜前颔首，直到两个人全都白头且失明。
　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月24日

The poem borrows some images from the following poems:
这首诗借用了以下三首诗词的一些意象：

辛弃疾《南歌子》
散发披襟处，浮瓜沈李杯。涓涓流水细侵阶。凿个池儿，唤个月儿来。
画栋频摇动，红蕖尽倒开。斗匀红粉照香腮。有个人人，把做镜儿猜。

王国维《虞美人》
碧苔深锁长门路，总为娥眉误。自来积毁骨能消，何况真红一点臂砂娇。
妾身但使分明在，肯把朱颜悔！从今不复梦承恩，且自簪花坐赏镜中人。

Walter Whitman: A Hand-Mirror
Hold it up sternly! See this it sends back! (Who is it? Is it you?)
Outside fair costume--within ashes and filth,
No more a flashing eye--no more a sonorous voice or springy step;
Now some slave's eye, voice, hands, step,
A drunkard's breath, unwholesome eater's face, venerealee's flesh,
Lungs rotting away piecemeal, stomach sour and cankerous,
Joints rheumatic, bowels clogged with abomination,
Blood circulating dark and poisonous streams,
Words babble, hearing and touch callous,
No brain, no heart left--no magnetism of sex;
Such, from one look in this looking-glass ere you go hence,
Such a result so soon--and from such a beginning!

My translation draft of 惠特曼《一把镜子》（大意）
紧紧地握着它！看它折射的是什么！（那是谁？是你？）
在华美的衣饰下——灰烬与污秽之中，
不再有闪亮的眼睛——不再有洪亮的声音或轻快的脚步；
此刻某个奴隶的眼睛、嗓音、双手、脚步，
一个酒鬼的呼气、滥食者的肥脸、花柳病的皮肤，
肺叶一片片烂掉、酸胀与溃疡的胃子，
风湿的关节、消化不良的肠堵塞，
毒素侵染循环不畅的污血，
毫无意义的咿呀、听觉与触觉的老茧，
没脑子、没心没肺——没有性的引力；
一切如此，在你进一步之前，哪怕看一眼这把镜子，
结果便已出现——从此一个新的开始！

Fan Jingua: In The World I Belong

　　　In The World I Belong

Sculptures and trees, by definition, are the patterns
engraved into ground glass which replaces the lake
of my adolescent love, rippleless and timeless.
On the water, birds are boating and fish are backstroking;
they are denied insurance
due to their chronic non-conformist lifestyle.
Diagrammed with fade-resistant red titles and toothpaste ad smiles,
fine print in capital letters is contracted
only to be archived as a number.
The machinery of telephones generates referents
for everything at present and in the past
so that invisible people are assigned
substantial duties and virtual names
in the future time.
I am straitjacketed with crazy visions that fail languages
other than itself;
the chair under my bottoms may crumble anytime,
but I know I will bounce high on its axial spring
that thrusts into my asshole.
I will not feel any pain,
because annually recompiled encyclopedia
does not accommodate such an entry,
except for one mention
in the definition of nociperception
when this word was still a neologism.
　　　　　　　　　　　　September 21, 2007

　　我归属的世界

按照定义，雕像与树是蚀刻在毛玻璃上的图案，
那玻璃代替了我青春期的爱情之湖，
波澜不起成为永远的波澜。
水面上，鸟儿在划船，鱼儿在仰泳，
因为这慢性病似的另类生活，它们都被拒绝投保。
那纸合约上的图示
是不退色的红色标题和牙膏广告中的微笑，
精细的附带条款
只是为了存档才会印刷出来。
电话的关系网
为此刻和过去的一切
生成一套指代词，于是不可见的人
在将来的时间里
被分配了实在的义务和虚拟的名字。
我穿着束身衣，满脑子的妄想
除了自身找不到任何适合的语言；
屁股下的椅子随时会坍塌，但我知道
如果椅子散架，它的主轴弹簧
会戳进我的屁眼，将我弹得很高。
而我不会感到痛苦，因为年年重修的百科全书中
没有这个词条；痛苦
曾出现过一次，
被用来解释什么叫做伤害感受机制，
那时，这还是一个新词。
　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月22日

Fan Jinghua: Stillness

　　　　Stillness

Sitting on the bathtub. The folding door behind
Is half folded, the turn window beyond
Is half turned. The tub is half filled
With sunlight. On the sill a pot in the backlight
Is a blackish solid. A cluster of leaves,
Translucent green, snuggles under a puffy scarlet.
Beneath my sole, water sends up a coolness
That rises to the dry instep of my sock and up;
This poetry book has a silvery grey cover,
And a dark tree comes out of fog on the garden of a manor.
The epigraph to the poem entitled "Marina" reads:
Quis hic locus, quae region, quae mundi plaga?
It starts: What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands…
The water faucet drops a clear lapping sound
That periodizes my trance.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　September 18, 2007

　　　　静

坐在浴缸上　身侧的折叠门
折叠一半　推拉窗推开
一半　浴缸盛了半池阳光
窗台上一只小瓦盆　在逆光中
实实在在的黛黑　一簇半透明的叶子
绿茸茸的　拥着一朵蓬松的红花
我的脚底　水的凉意上升　洇湿棉袜干爽的脚面
而这本诗集的封面上　一颗树
站在银灰色的雾里　远处有一座白塔
题为Marina的诗篇　有拉丁文的题记
Quis hic quae region quae mundi plaga?
然后还是一个问句　什么海什么滩什么灰岩什么岛……
而水龙头滴下一声拍击的轻响
为我的出神打了一个标点
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月19日

注：拉丁文意为“此为何地、是何区域、世界之何方？”

Fan Jinghua: Shield

Shield

When hailstones of love in these words fall
Down into your heart, they will have already melt,
And no mosses will grow in the impact craters
Even if there is moisture from your heart.
Along the dusty avenues of the oasis city,
You dodge the extraterrestrial fireballs;
Under your parachute of a gorgeous flower,
You meow for help, silently, as no one is around.
Over the plaza where a lottery is hot,
The sun booms with the loudspeakers that bray
Like the oily fifth leg from a donkey’s belly.
You are used to this by not seeing,
And smilingly, you walk by
Like a fish meandering in a kelp forest;
But in your mind you hopscotch
Between the columns of street lights and candlenut trees.
Then, you arrive at your own cave.
Close the world behind your fins, take off your scalecoat,
And glimpse at the mirror as if you are expecting a surprise.
There appears the usual self with dark eyes, ageless,
and when they meet, an irritant of ache enters
My bivalve heart which opens to hold it under its tongue.
The day’s noises have sunk and the night is not a mire.
The sky, twinkling with stars, is a borderless sway.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　September 17, 2007

　　　　　盾

当这些文字挟持着爱的冰雹
砸到你的心，它们应该已经溶化；
即便你的心散发出潮气，
那些陨石坑里甚至不会长出苔藓。
沿着绿洲般的古城尘土飞扬的大道，
你躲避着这些天外的火球，
一朵绮丽的大花为你打开降落伞，
你在下面无声地猫叫，而左右无人听你的求救。
广场上，一场彩票抽奖正在如火如荼，
太阳炽热，犹如高音喇叭
发出驴肚子下面油光光的黑色叫声。
你已经习惯于视而不见，
微笑着，走过
就像一条鱼儿穿行在海带森林；
而你正在脑子里跳房子，
从灯柱跳到法桐，再从法桐跳到灯柱。
于是，你到达了自己的洞穴。
挥鳍将世界关到外面，卸下防水防尘的鳞片外衣，
瞥一眼镜子，犹如期待一个惊喜。
那儿还是常日的自己，乌黑的眸子，永远，
而当它们目光相接，一颗痛苦的沙砾
掉进了我微微开启的心的双壳蚌，它用舌头将它含住。
白日的噪音下沉了，夜晚不是一个泥沼。
天空中星星闪耀，这是一座无边无垠的摇晃。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月19日

Fan Jinghua: TIMTOWTDI about the Lower Body

　　There is More Than One Way to Look at the Lower Body
　　　　(TIMTOWTDI about the Lower Body)

I genuinely believe in this, even though I also believe
this is only a truism, which can be the same as
"In the end looking is only one standpoint,"
like a mandarin’s square walk.
The differences, I know, may underwrite the same examples for foes.

Three years ago in Shanghai I was with a lady friend in a taxi
stuck on an overbridge that lay itself down
as an exit of a downtown street to an expressway,
and we were talking about the so-called the Lower Body poetry
in terms of what contributes to the pleasure
of reading or writing those representative ones under that category:
The excretory experience or the expression of it? Are they related?
The taxi was constipated in the traffic and I had to open the window
to let in the dirty air which immediately counteracted
the stale fragrance in the taxi and the faint perfume from my companion.
Then, the car revved up and the air howled by.
I said: See? Sheer speed can be a pure raciness, allegro vivace,
but if not for that, we might not feel the same as we do now.
Oh, I adore that woman, for her unadorned wit and her taste for music.
We were going to meet a boy for a supper, who fell one year later
from a cliff into water
at a breathtaking spot, smarter and far more energetic than I.

Years back in Beijing, in a dorm like a pigsty,
one of my classmates joked: Imagine that you drip for half an hour
and think your bladder is voided, but the moment
you tuck your always flaccid penis back, your trousers are wet.
We was so young then that we could still piss near as high as our heads,
and we could not wait in a queue for a pee,
and never felt ashamed to share a urinal,
holding the shafts aiming at a crossfire.
But his words made me shudder as if fully relieved.
That year, we were crazy about Nietzsche,
and euthanasia was heatedly debated,
while we preferred suicide than senility.
He was hit by a car later that year; he escaped his life,
but dropped out of the school.
A month ago he emailed me:
Due to chronic epilepsy, I am now in
"an accelerated pathological mental regression."
The euphemism he said he still understood.
I replied then, and never receive his RE: RE:.

Another year, in a New York downtown clinic,
a thirty-six-aged metrosexual stepped into the restroom
when waiting to collect his HIV test result.
There in front of the urinal stood an old man, shakily
apologizing for having kept him waiting,
and he tried to distract him into a light-hearted banter:
"Sorry that you are made to be patiently polite
even if you naturally cannot,
but when you eventually find that the women
once made you happy
are gone
from your world
one
by one
while you feel relieved
to find that you do not ejaculate any more…"
The metrosexual suddenly realizes that he is rustier
than the grey-headed, and the HIV test, of course,
proves negative and negative he remains toward family life.
He is happier, though, and he even begins to write poems,
exclusively about love, one of which is entitled
"There Is More Than One Way to Do It about the Lower Body."

A peep of it will learn that this is nothing
but a rubber-sheathed truism, which can be just the same as
"In the end doing is only one standpoint."
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Sept. 5, 2007

Note: The so-called Lower Body Poetry is a strand of poetry in contemporary Mainland China. This strand chides and dismisses the learned poetry or scholarly / campus poetry as being too high-brow and alienated from the everyday expereince of the ordinary people and promotes a writing that is not "thought out" by the brains (the Upper Body) but lived out by the body (the Lower Body).


　　　看下半身有不止一种方式

我真诚相信这一点哦，不过我也知道这不是什么
真知灼见，简直是陈词滥调，但是我就是相信。
迈着四方步的真理，它的反命题肯定一样合理：
说到底，看，就是一个观点。
其间的不同甚至可以令敌对双方举出相同的事例。

三年前的某日，在上海，我和一个朋友打车去会另一个朋友。
车子穿过了市区繁忙的街道正要拐上一条高速，
我们谈到下半身诗歌，刚好在谈阅读或者写作那样的诗
快感到底出自哪里，是排泄经验的被表达还是表达经验的被排泄？
而这时我们乘搭的出租车堵在高速入口的立交桥前，
犹如便秘；突然，那驾驶员打开了窗户（或许要放屁），
于是车里走味的芳香剂和我同伴那淡淡的香水味
立刻被城市最脏地带的空气压倒在后座。
后来汽车突然加速，空气贴着窗子呼啸而去。
我说：你瞧？仅仅是速度就能构成纯粹的快意，有活力的快板，
要不是刚才堵得难受，我们现在的感觉可就不会如此敏锐。
哦，我很欣赏这个女人，因为她不事雕琢的智慧和对音乐的品味，
而晚上聚餐的那个朋友一年后
从一座悬崖上落入山涧，
在一个令人屏息的风景点，那么洒脱、那么充满活力。

更多年前，在北京，猪窝似的男生宿舍里，
一个同学讲了个笑话，例证什么叫做年老：
你站在那儿滴了半个钟头，以为尿已经撒光，
但是当你刚刚将软不拉沓的老二塞进裤裆，
你就感到那儿热乎乎地湿了一块。
那时我们那般年轻，甚至还能将尿撒到头一样的高度，
我们的小便总是急得无法排队，
我们从不会不好意思
在小便槽里与别人交火。
但是他的话令我全身一抖，好像憋了很久的尿终于撒出。
那年我们正疯狂着尼采，人们首次热烈讨论安乐死，
而我们的信念是宁可自杀也不要老年痴呆。
那年圣诞，他遇到车祸；
捡回了一条命，不过从此辍学。
一个月前，他给我发来一封电邮：
因为长年癫痫，我如今已进入“病理性快速智力早衰”。
这个委婉的说法，他说，他还明白。
我当时就回了信，再也没收到对我回信的回信。

还有一年，在纽约市区的一个诊所，
一个三十六岁的都市酷男
在等着拿艾滋病验血报告的焦躁中
走进厕所。而小便槽前站着一个老头，抖抖活活地，
说抱歉令他久等，
并且试图用轻松的笑话为他分神：
“很抱歉，让你在自然条件不许可的情况下
还得耐心地保持礼貌，
不过当你最终发现
那些曾经令你快活的女人们
一个
又一个
从你的世界中
消失，
这时你才能轻松地
意识到你已经不能真正地射精……”
酷哥突然醒悟，自己已经比这位白头翁更加枯朽，
而艾滋病检验结果，阴性，
但他对家居生活依旧态度阴沉；
他幸福了许多，甚至开始写诗，只写爱情，
其中有一首题为
《搞下半身有不止一种方式》。

一看标题就知道那不过是
带着橡胶套的真话，那意思简直就是：
说到底，搞，就是一个观点。
　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月14日

Fan Jinghua: Pomegranate

　　　　　　Pomegranate

　　Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
　　Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
　　　　　　　　　　Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Late October. In the twilight, warmth lingers anywhere at your wish.
So you came, a little behind the tartan skirt,
With a middle-aged modesty, along the aspen-lined street.
Eyes filmed with a dark gleam. A sight
In my mind’s eye my eyes ached to divert.
Autumn could not be autumnally bettered.

How come you did not finish the street?
How could it not be ended on a whitewashed screen wall?
Which alley did you turn to follow and arrive at yourself,
As if you sleepwalked through a brown field
That was streaked with silvery riverlets and steaming furrows?
If dreams flower at night, do they bear fruits in the sun?

I heard you mumbling “The pomegranate tree by the old well…”
But dusk is falling fast and I was nor sure
Whether your lips bore the question mark of a smile.
There must have been a thin mist over your half-fledged forehead.
A pomegranate, its navel like a mauve rose in bud,
Resided there like an auspicious bell on the flying eave.

So photogenic! It was a jewel, a souvenir.
I do not need you to spell it out. I do not care
Whether it is a retarded leftover after the harvest.
The bridge of your nose glimmered, vivid like a firefly at dawn
Which I could catch only in my imagined memory
Of a time when I was too callow to pronounce the word love.

Tonight, I peeled its age-speckled rind
And scratched out the barnacled vesicles in the reddish pulp.
The mild acid induces a coolness on my tongue blade.
　　　　　　　　　　　　Oct. 23, 2006

　　　　　石 榴

　　　每天晚上她在那边的石榴树上歌唱。
　　　相信我，爱人，那是夜莺的歌声。
　　　　　　　　　莎士比亚《罗密欧与朱丽叶》

十月将近，处处都截留黄昏的温暖，真是遂人心意。
如此你走来，走在暗绿的格子呢裙子后，
是中年的矜持沿着白杨镶边的街道。
你的眼睛笼罩一层幽暗的光。这个景象
在我穿越时空的心目中久了，令我此刻的眼睛不忍。
秋天，已经秋到了极致。

而你怎么会久久走不完那条老街？
它怎么会没有抵达一面石灰粉刷的影壁？
你拐进了哪条小巷，消失在自己的深处？
犹如你梦游一般穿过棕色的田野，
走进那银色的小溪与散发土温的犁沟交错的画面。
如果梦在夜晚开花，它们是否会在阳光下结果？

我听到你喃喃地说“那口古井旁的石榴树……”，
但是夜色来得太快，
我无法看清你的嘴唇是否弯出了问号一样的微笑。
你半敞的前额上该有一层薄薄的暮霭浮起，
而一只洋红的安石榴悬在那儿，肚脐是一朵绛红的玫瑰花蕾，
像一只祈福的铜铃叮铃铃地挂在飞檐。

那么上相！一颗珠宝，一只纪念品。
我不需要你一字一顿地拼出它的名字，
我不管它是否是最迟发育的果实被人遗忘在收获之后。
你鼻尖上的微光是黎明时的萤火，
如今我只能在想象的记忆中捕捉，
而那时我太青涩，甚至不敢说出爱字。

今夜，我剖开它沾满年月斑点的果皮，
用指尖挖出一颗颗镶嵌在红色胞衣中的泡囊。
淡淡的酸涩在我的舌面上诱引出一丝清凉。
　　　　　　　　　2007年9月6日

Fan Jinghua: Lying beside a Woman, with a Jet Lag

　　　Lying beside a Woman, with a Jet Lag

Well, this woman is neither my wife nor my mistress or lover-to-be;
she is a friend, smart and glamorous, who believes in me
that I can be more than a casual friend.
In a country foreign to me, she chooses to act as a cultural hostess
to maintain my foreignness at a comfortable level.
She says she could do with a stay-away from her country house,
so she arranges a visit to the city “for the dirty air” as she says.
The fact is, both of us want to save money through not spending more,
therefore we decide to split the hotel bed and bill.

We are clever enough, of course, and we know even one night
of this luxury will make us closer than before,
which might be our unpronounced wish;
of course if we want to overdraw, a trip of a week is a little to short.
For a candlelight dinner on the hotel’s third floor,
we draw an advance on the savings from the impending night.
With two glasses of Bordeaux, I notice that the bosomy jazz vocal
sounds a little drunk, and her squeak throaty Empty Bed
goes even to my crotch. So bluesy gooood!
And I leave a handsome tip for the gay-look waiter,
and I usher her to the sightseeing lift.

Now is the time I become cooler as if by the night air.
I am a man, and of this I am fully aware.
My awareness also goes deep to my spine and scrotum,
but my heart shakes like a stretched smile.
The rising has a slowness—
the stately centenarian mansions become lower and lower,
the glass-and-concrete towers soar with us, higher and higher.
Now, my mind is an LCD, panorama,
upon which float scenes from a silent movie in technicolor.
Even if no one hears what I’ve said to myself,
it has already meant something beyond what I mean.

Over the lighted city and intimacy, the night sky is invisibly gray.
Tonight, we will lie down, somewhere, and we will not be etherized,
and we will tranquilly ramble from Bessie to Sivvy upon the double bed.
We will talk about words and words about words
and how men generically try to trap all the audience
by a mutual protocol of not letting words stand for the literal.
Therefore, I will have to distance from even myself
and learn to be at least another if not a Buddhist patriarch.
I agree there is something more than the superficial.
This is significant. Pause. Silence. Let it filter through.
This is like a mute witness who realizes words are spoken
to make the body going astray
like the mind that is easy to get paralyzed.

Outside, phallic structures are darkly hard, with splinters
ogling through the split fat curtains.
After bath, she wears a naked nightgown, kimono-style,
my eyes fall on her bare feet, the glossy toenails,
and my penis, I must say, stirs a little, despite of myself or itself.
Then I shower behind the translucent curtains, and soon
she comes in to dry her hair;
as I see her smiling at the erased vapor in the mirror,
I feel the after-kick of the wine.
But I am coming back to myself
as the soap foams rise and fall under the lotus seed head.
I am gallant like a Buddhist monk carrying a woman cross a river
and letting go at the other bank,
forgetting that there has been no bridge on the water.

Am I trying to drive the inert mind out of the excited body
or the inert body out of excited mind?
I am a man, heterosexual and married, now lying
beside a half-naked woman, in a hotel one-whole-day-flight away.
Can I claim to be a man of innocence and faith
when I am half-drunk with her female warmth in the air?
I realize my own skepticism toward this proposition,
and I also know assumptions always precede a question.

The TV is flickering, but it is the stereo that murmurs.
She is humming to the tune with a cozy laziness,
and I turn off the TV and the stereo as a compliment.
Then words naturally come in.
It must be sometime after 4 when she is too tired to comment,
eyes closed, hands still, and breath slackened,
and dusk is preparing to land in the country I come from,
but till morning I stay awake, lying as still as I can beside a woman
who is in deep sleep, beautiful and innocent like an infant.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　May 9, 2007


　　躺在一个女人身边因为时差而无法入睡

首先，这个女人既不是我老婆也不是我情妇或者潜在的情人，
她只是一个朋友，智慧而光彩耀人，
决定我可以信任得超过普通朋友。
对我而言，这是外国，而她要选择做一个文化主妇，
将我的外来感维持在某个舒服的程度。
她说她可以暂时躲开自己的乡村住宅，进城
呼吸一点“肮脏的空气”。
事实是，我们都想能够少花一点就少花一点，
于是我们决定分摊宾馆的账单，当然也就得分享床单。

我们都有足够智慧，明白哪怕仅仅一夜
豪华之后，我们会更加亲密，当然这只是无法说出的意愿，
而如果想要透支挥霍，几天的旅程又实在太短。
我们从即将来临的夜晚房费中预支了
宾馆三楼的烛光晚餐；
两杯波尔多红酒，一个大波的黑妹歌手
嗓子里带着醉意，好像转速偏慢的唱片，爵士老歌
《空荡荡的双人床》嘶哑地灌进了我的小腹。蓝调得如此到位！
我给那个同志侍应小生留下一笔潇洒的小费，
揽腰将她拥进了观光的电梯。

此刻我似乎因为夜风而变得清醒。
我是一个男人，这一点我明白得有点彻底，
彻底到我前裆和尾骨都能感到，
而我的心却有点颤抖，好像一个被撑开很久的微笑。
电梯的上升有一种缓慢——
庄严的百年大厦越来越低，
而玻璃的高塔却和我们一同成长，越来越高。
我的头脑犹如一只液晶显示器，环绕全景，
无声电影的片段一场场叠映，而且是人工加彩。
即使无人听见我对自己说了什么，
这一切已经超越我自己暗示给自己的意义。

在这被点亮的城市和亲密之上，夜空
是不可见的灰色。今夜，在这样的夜色某处，
我们将会躺倒，我们不会像被乙醚麻醉了的病人，
即使我们平静，我们还会闲聊，在双人床上从贝希聊到希薇。
我们将会谈论词语，还有有关词语的词语，
以及人们如何类属化地不让词语意指词语本身
从而将听众诱陷进一种彼此接受的协议。
所以，我将会暂时抽离自己，
即使不能成为一个高僧，起码也得学会做另一个人。
我也同意表面之外还有意义。
这一点就很有意义。停顿。沉默。让这一点沁入。
这就好像一个哑正人心里明白，人们的语言
总是被用来令身体误入歧途，
就好像头脑那么容易瘫痪。

窗外，阳具似的结构冷黑地坚挺着，点缀着晶亮的碎屑，
透过肥厚的窗帘缝隙送来媚眼。
沐浴后，她裸身穿着一件浴袍，日本和服的式样，
我的眼睛落在她的赤脚上，那些脚趾发出艳光，
而我不得不承认我的下面有点跳动，与我自己无关。
于是我躲进了半透明的浴帘后淋浴，而她很快便跟进来吹头发。
当我看到她对着被抹去水汽的镜子微笑，
我感到了晚餐时的红酒泛起了后劲。
莲蓬头洒下的热水将浴缸中的肥皂泡越激越高，
我看着他们轻声地此起彼伏，开始平静。
我简直就可以成为那个抱着女人过河的和尚，
到了对岸，就各奔东西，忘了刚才的水上并没有桥。

我是否正在试图将偏瘫的脑子赶出兴奋的身体，
或者相反，将偏瘫的身体赶出兴奋的脑子？
我是一个男人，异性恋者，已婚，此刻和一个半裸的女人
平排躺在十二小时航程之外的宾馆。
当我深吸这室内弥漫着的女性温暖，半醉，
我能否还能自称是个清白而忠贞的男人？
我知道所有的疑问之前都已经有了很多预设，
因此我已经意识到自己对这个命题本身的怀疑。

电视无声地闪烁，音响中传来耳语般的靡靡之音。
她跟着那调子轻轻地哼唱，慵懒而温厚，
于是我关掉电视与音响作为一种恭维。
然后言语自然跟进。
大概到了凌晨四点左右，她已累得无法插上一言半语，
轻闭的眼睛，静放的手，沉缓的呼吸，
而此刻黄昏刚刚开始准备在我的国度着陆。
直到天亮，我一直醒着，躺在一个女人的身边，尽量毫无动静，
看她沉沉的睡着，美丽而纯真，像一个婴儿。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月4日

Fan Jinghua: A Cat on a Town Square

　　　A Cat on a Town Square

Impulses can never be repeated.
I had one already. It has just happened, long ago.
For love to be high. For freedom to be low.
Or life? I have more than one,
but if once is all, once is enough. Over.
Over must forestall over again, as if I set fire with my own tail
to the plank over a ravine I have walked over.
No looking back, therefore
everywhere, ahead or sideward, life is pullulated with tropical fish.
Now I am a pet to myself, an exile in a shape of litter,
lurking in the margins of the town square.

Only when my tailbone hurts for the impending rain
do I realize what I left behind is the most unwavering velvet;
but I’ve learned the strategy of square and understand
what can be lost in a territorial gap
will never be what one cannot do without.
Now I am leaner and more agile,
my feral instinct comes back, sharper, like my claws.
Here, it is much more spacious, phobically unsheltered and planar,
and my self-trained gait meows a pride wider than any catwalk.
No one is to grip my scruff; I pat my own back
with my fluffed-up tail, averting
the most innocent street-sweepers and the loneliest scavenger.

On the public plaza, all the creatures are but floating phantoms,
and between their coming and goings
I hear my own pawsteps
echoing to the prowling draught.
In the most haunted hours when only streetlamps populate the air,
my eyes glitter green in the dark;
they are not cold, but merely composed.
Even in the harmonious society I once enjoyed,
I’ve always been solitary and self-sufficient,
for pet-keepers only understand the language I’ve chosen to share.
When blacks from above drag along the tile floor
like scum on a malicious lake, like shadows of love,
I am a leopard, stalking with the slightest growl.
August 29, 2007


　　　　广场的猫

冲动，不可重复。我已有过——
就在很久以前的刚才，记忆犹新。
为了爱得高昂，为了自由得卑微；
生命？我拥有，而且不止一个；
而能将一次活成许多，那么一次就已足够。就可以结束。
结束必须能先发制人，以防回首，犹如我以尾巴纵火
烧毁我越过深壑的独木桥。
不回顾，所以无论前视还是侧目，
每一步都可见生机无限，攒动，有如热带鱼。
而今，我是自己的宠物，自我流放，隐于
市镇广场的边缘，带着垃圾的形貌。

我的尾骨也会泛起预示阴雨的隐痛，只有这时，
我才会意识到
被我离弃的生活是最坚实的丝绒。
但我学到了广场之道，也明白
无论什么，如果会在领域差异中丢失，
那就绝非生命中的不可或缺。
现在我更见精瘦，因而也更加敏捷，
野性的本能逐渐回来，更加锐利，犹如我的脚爪。
这儿空阔宽裕得多，而面对二维的无限延伸，我也会恐惧；
但我自我培训出一种步态，无须咪咪作态，傲气也能横扫最宽的T台；
无人可以抓捏我颈背的皮毛，
我竖起尾巴，倒够着，拍自己的后背，躲避
所有人，哪怕是最无恶意的清道夫或者最孤独的捡垃圾的乞丐。

公众广场上，所有生灵都只是不实的影子，
在他们的去留往返之间，
我听得到自己的足音
在匍匐逡巡的过堂风下回响。
黎明前最多鬼魂出没的时辰，整个广场
只有街灯住在空气中充当人气，
我的眼睛在幽暗处泛着绿光，
那只是宁静，而绝非冷漠。
即使在我曾经贪婪享受的和谐社会，
我也总是独立独行，爱好宠物的人类
只是在理解我选择给他们理解的语言行为。
每当空中投下黑块，在广场的拼砖地面上拖曳，
我便是一只黑豹，屏住低吼的冲动，双脚以弧线插向地面，潜行。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　2007年9月1日