Privileged Curse

      Privileged Curse

                 I am too pure for you or anyone.
                 Your body
                 Hurts me as the world hurts God.
                                   ---- Sylvia Plath

We are guilty of innocence, a guilt we must plead,

And of being too common.

We are merely a little too easily angered to keep calm.
Our hearts might be hard to refrain from shouting out:

"Shut up, you chunks of flesh,
You foul-mouth, muddy-eye and greasy-mind united."

We need a Shakespeare to curse,

But our benignity does not allow our words to force on

Tenderer ears. (My conscience ordains the above curse

Be censored.) May we say, needless to say,

Souls are to go toward God by whatever the name,

Because all the silences acquiesce in evil.

In matchsticks dwells hope and happiness,

At least the pursuit of illusionary freedom.

It's the privilege of the poor to deny the rudeness

of such an awakening: "You are doomed to die clean

at the corner of a cold wall." She should think herself blessed

With death and a stepma, if not a grandma and ignorance.

Flakes of purity from the mossy tongue of fat Cerberus?

Hmm, it is interesting.

----I need to wash my ears and exile myself

To Robinson Crusoe island, with only The Communist Manifesto.

Today is Friday. God has one more night

To decide whether it is worth to create man.

                    August 2, 2019

Notes:

China authority ordains there be no words like God and Bible in primary textbooks, and therefore "they were with God" from Hans Christian Anderson's Little Match Girl has been "adapted," the Bible Robinson Crusoe took to the island has been adapted into "a few books."

1) privileged curse, a term by Georges Bataille in Literature and Evil.

2) "Purity from the mossy tongue of fat Cerberus?" is also derived from Sylvia Plath's above-quoted poem.

     获授特权的诅咒

              对你、对任何人，我都太过纯洁。
              你的身体
              伤害我，正如这世界伤害上帝。
                             ---- 希尔薇娅·普拉斯

我们因为天真而有罪，这罪我们必须认，

还因为我们太平凡。
有那么一点太容易被激怒，难以心平气和。
我们的心可能会难以约束着不喊出声：

“闭嘴吧，你们这些肉块，

满嘴腐臭、满眼泥水、满脑浆糊的联合体。”

我们需要一位莎士比亚才能骂得过瘾，

可我们的心太慈软，容不得我们的话

强暴更为柔弱的耳朵。（我的良知命令

和谐掉上面的诅咒。）我们可以说，无需说，

灵魂怎么都会走向上帝，无论那是什么名字，

因为所有的沉默都是对恶的默许。

火柴棒里生长着希望和幸福，

毋宁说那只是追求的幻象式自由，

穷困者的特权是拒绝相信

警醒来得如此粗暴：“你们注定要纯洁地死

在冰冷的墙角。”她应该觉得自己幸运有福，

因为有后妈和死亡，或者有外婆和无知。

地狱肥犬长满青苔的舌头吐出一片片纯洁？

人人都想呵呵两声。

——我需要洗洗耳朵，然后自我放逐

到鲁滨逊·克鲁索岛，只带着《共产党宣言》。

今天是星期五。上帝还有一个晚上

决定明天要不要创造人类。

                   2019年8月2日

按：“获授特权的诅咒”（privileged curse）是巴塔耶的话。

“地狱肥犬长满青苔的舌头吐出的纯洁？”化自普拉斯诗《高烧103华氏度》，诗前引文也来自该诗。