Capricorn by Yu Xiaoman

 

 

Capricorn

                                 by Yu Xiaoman

My Egyptian queen sits upon a chair of moonlight.

Across her fingers, emerald waters ripple like a lake.

A black cat drifts in, spectral, as you are now.

 

摩羯座

                     余小蛮

我的埃及女王坐在月光椅上

手指上的绿宝石湖水荡漾

黑猫幽幽的走来，就像你现在这样

 

Yu Xiaoman, born in 1970s, a woman poet from Daqing, Heilongjiang, is a prolific writer. 

A Person Watches the Moon Rise by Xiao An

 The One Who Watches the Moon Rise

 

Alone, one watches the moon rise.
The moon is as quiet as that person.
Each is alone before the other,
and neither speaks a word.

 

Time passes as the moon walks the sky.
It moves farther and farther away,
until the sky is utterly clean.

 

小安（60后）

 

一个人看月亮升起

 

一个人看月亮升起

静静的月亮就像那个人

他们彼此孤独

谁也不说一句话

 

时间流逝就像月亮在天上走动

它越走越远

直到天空干干净净

 

 Xiao An, born in 1960s, a woman poet who has been working in a mental hospital for many years, is an often mentioned figue among the "spoken word" mode of poetry writing. She lives in Chengdu. 

Che Qian Zi 4 Poems 车前子诗四首

 

4 Poems by Che Qian Zi 英译车前子诗四首

Tr. Fan Jinghua 得一忘二  英译

  

车前子（1963-），原名顾盼，生于苏州，诗人、散文家，书画家。当代文人画的知名代表。

Che Qian Zi (1963-)，aka, Gu Pan, a native of Suzhou, is a famous poet, prose writer, and artist. His calligraphy and contemporary ink painting earns him a representative of contemporary literati painting. 

 

《游戏劳动》

 

“性爱是游戏呢还是劳动？”

 

我的回答，雷雨后的铁路桥头，天空晴朗，

那时有个女性爱我。

 

“性爱非游戏非劳动，

它是一种速度、省略、含糊其辞：

 

——

 

游动。”

 

——

 

于是火车在钢轨上，

像被渔船拖走的鲨鱼，

头顶乌云翻滚。

 

（我不回答我的问题。

 

“游戏，劳动，成双成对打倒佛洛依德

这位

信以为真的伪骗子。”

 

我杜撰“伪骗子”一词，

“累了，晚安全世界。”

 

 

Play-Labor

 

“Is sex play or labor?”

 

My answer: after a thunderstorm, the sky turns clear

Above the railway bridge,

And a woman will be there to love me.

 

“Neither play nor labor,

Sex is a speed, an ellipsis, an equivocation: --

 

Playbor.

 

Thus, a train lies on rails,

Like a shark trailed behind a fishing boat,

While dark clouds are billowing overhead.

 

(I do not answer my question-s.

 

Play, labor, when paired together, can knock Freud

Out,

A self-believing fake sham-man.)

 

I cobbled up the word “sham-man”,

And felt “tired, with a goodnight to the world.”

 

 

 

《这些青草》

 

这些青草，也会黑暗。

        2021, 6, 3

 

 

These Grasses

 

 

These grasses can also turn

Dark.

           June 3, 2021

 

 

《命运》

 

焰火穿孔

的瞬间，黑暗深邃

而短暂。我有一个蹩脚比喻：

来到沙漠中的彩凤

很快变成鸵鸟

狂奔，然后埋头

你怀抱——黑暗深邃

而健忘，更像挥霍一空的

燃烧，

却无热度，却无心跳，

亦无初逢。

 

 

Fate

 

For a firework-perforated

Instant, darkness appears deep

And transient. I’ve got a lame metaphor:

A phoenix in a desert will

Soon become an ostrich,

Running like mad and then burying its head in

My bosom — where darkness appears deep

And oblivious, much like a kind of squandered

Burning,

With neither heat nor heartbeat,

And with no first encounter.

 

 

《敲胡桃》

 

你要爱上自己的出言不逊。

 

照亮的——

一个小宇宙。翻山越岭，我在其中打雷。

明天，给小人国写信。

 

“半只胡桃，

你们，足够，

安排好生活。”

 

“洪水到来之前，

请焚毁方舟。”

 

 

Cracking the Nuts

 

You have to love your rhetoric of insolent speech.

 

Illuminated—

Small universe. The thunderbolts that I brandish amid the hills and ridges.

Tomorrow, I’ll write to Lilliput.

 

“Half a nut,

For you, is enough,

To prepare for the living.”

 

“Before the flood comes,

Burn the Ark first.”

 

Lei Pingyang 2 Poems

 

雷平阳，男，诗人，1966年秋生于云南昭通，他赢得了中国许多诗歌大奖。

Lei Pingyang (1966-), born in Shaotong, Yunnan Province, has won many prestigious prizes for his poetry.

  

《弹奏》

在老虎背上放了一张琴

老虎也乐意听我为它弹奏一曲

但我，顿时失去了常态，不知道

弹奏什么曲子为好

最终什么也没有弹奏

就在老虎背上放了一张琴

 

Performance

             by Lei Pingyang

             tr. Fan Jinghua

Put a zither on the back of a tiger

The tiger surely likes me to play for him

But I suddenly feel at loss and don’t know

What I shall play

And I end at performing nothing at all

With merely a zither left on the back of the tiger

 

 

《制烛》

在烛盏内的蜂蜡里插入麻绳灯芯

点燃之后，微黄的光亮中

他们继续制作蜂蜡和细麻绳

割蜂巢，火熬，剔麻丝——每一道工序

博伽梵说过，在蜡烛形成之前都需要

苦心的研修，且没有哪一道工序

可以单独完成功果。在此期间

还得有一个人，按时往烛盏添加

或新或旧的蜂蜡，不时用竹针挑直灯芯

如果黑夜延伸了长度，夜风一再

吹灭烛火，研修遇到了不可视为业障的

魔障，他们就会转移到存藏蜡烛的地下室

一家人围着豆粒大的火苗，低头

干一些用塑料封蜡、装箱之类的活计

悲观，但又保持了光明的沉默

 

Making Candles

             by Lei Pingyang

             tr. Fan Jinghua

Stick a twine wick into the beeswax in the candle container

They light it, and keep on in its yellowish glow

Making beeswax and fine twine

Cutting and boiling honeycombs, scraping hemp fiber—every process

As the Gita said, demands painstaking training

Before the candle takes its form and no process

Can be completed in its own right. Meanwhile, another hand

Is needed throughout, to add at regular intervals

Fresh beeswax, newly refined or used, into the container

And prop the wick erect with a bamboo needle

If the night extends itself a bit too long, or the wind keeps

Blowing out the candle, and the training encounters some obstacles

Not to be regarded as karma, they would move to the basement

Where the candles are stored

The family, heads bent, sit around the bean-sized flame, their hands

Full of such work as sealing wax with plastic and packing up

The air appears pessimistic, but the silence they maintain shines

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。

Into the Mountains 进山

               Into the Mountains

The feeble arms can still hold a young woman

when they are in the mountains, 

and the day dies duly.

As he enters her, intimacy grows

between the present body and the distant soul,

like a flower behind her closed eyes

that a drunken poet held a candle to admire.

"He was born never to live in peace

with himself and to prevent the rest of

mankind from doing so."* He is a tragic poet.

Myths deep in human nature go explained

like the plain before the mountains, two cows

not moving. Trees stand lonely like ghosts,

because they are too thin to pretend gods.

                       March 6, 2019

*B.M.K. Knox says of Euripides.

                 进山

到了山里，虚弱的手臂就仍能

抱一个年轻女人，

而这一天正当其时地死去。

当他进入她时，会有一种亲密

在此地的身体与远方的灵魂之间生长，

像一朵花长在她闭着的眼睛后，

一个醉酒的诗人曾经举着蜡烛欣赏。

“他生来就没能与自己相安，

也阻止了其余所有人这样。“*

一个悲剧诗人。人性深处的

那么多神话被他展平，就像山前的

平地，两头奶牛也是静止的。

树木像鬼魂一样孤独，因为

它们太瘦，假装不了神灵。

                        2019年3月6日

* B.M.K.诺克斯说欧里庇得斯的话。

The Task of Dreamers 有关做梦人任务的陈词

         A Statement about the Task of Dreamers

Dreams are once for all but not disposable,

And it’s the dreamer’s task to spell out the worth.

For example, when you see a pair of feet like dolphins

In the small shimmering pond by the West Lake,

It is a déjà vu, like a slice of memory from your last life.

Then, coolness flutters like winglets in your soles

Until a sense of guilt wells up like a porno clip.

Forbidden love grows deep, like night flowers are more

Enticing, but no answer can answer a night-induced question,

Unless a lightning breaks the morning as the first and last.

Dreaming is a wonderful thing if you can believe in

An art of failure, for only the imperfectible allows you

To indulge yourself forever. You can grow stars in your sky,

Only when you allow your day to darken unpredictably.

                           Sept.27, 2018

                           Feb. 11, 2019

       有关做梦人任务的陈词

梦是一次性的表演，却无法做完就清除，

发现它们的价值就成了做梦者的任务。

例如，当你在西湖边一个小池塘里

看到一双脚如海豚在波光粼粼中跃动，

那似曾相识就像是你对前世的记忆。

葱郁的凉爽如小翅在你的脚心扑闪，

直到一股罪恶感涌起，像一段黄片。

禁忌令人爱得深沉，正如夜花更诱人，

但是没有答案能回答夜色提出的问题，

除非闪电打开的既是第一也是最后一个清晨。

假若你相信失败的艺术，那么做梦不失为

一件美妙的事，因为只有不可能完美的事物

才容许你永远沉迷。同样，假若你能容许你的天

不可预测地黑暗，你就可以在你的天空播种星星。

                         2019年2月11日

Medium 媒介

   Medium

Fucking with syntax does not make it any better.

The best part lies even deeper,

And you may think distanciation is safer,

But words do not turn naturally to poetry,

Not like a pupa turning to a butterfly,

So better call this relationship a cocoon.

Does any of us stay in a prisonhouse before,

Be it structuralist, status conferment or deconstructionist?

Boiling water is necessary for reeling silk,

To complete the process of unweaving the woven essence.

Power is the devil, and it too lies in the detail,

So I am self-empowering when I picture your unsunned snow.

How I love you asking “where?”, knowing

Syntactical omission is thematic increment.

          Jan. 27, 2019

　　媒介

操弄句法并不能搞得更好。

最好的部分隐藏得更深，

也许你以为保持距离会安全些，

但字词不会自然地转化成诗，

起码不像蛹变成碟，

所以最好还是将这层关系称为茧。

我们有谁进过牢房吗，无论

是结构主义的、授权的还是解构的？

滚热的水对抽丝是必要的，

完成那个过程，拆散编织起来的本质。

力量是魔鬼，也暗藏在细节中，

是的，我想象着你那片未见过太阳的白雪，

以此自我赋权，喜欢你问“哪儿？”，

知道句法的省略是主题的增值。

        2019年1月28日

Four Poems by Quan Zi 泉子诗4首

Four Poems by Quan Zi  泉子诗4首

泉子，1973年生，浙江淳安人，著有诗集多部，《雨夜的写作》、《与一只鸟分享的时辰》、《秘密规则的执行者》、《杂事诗》、《湖山集》，诗画对话录《从两个世界爱一个女人》、《雨淋墙头月移壁》，作品被翻译成英、法、韩、日等多种语言，曾获刘丽安诗歌奖、诗刊社青年诗人奖、十月诗歌奖、西部文学奖、汉语诗歌双年奖等，现居杭州。

Quan Zi (1973--), native to Chun’an, Zhejiang, has published five books of poetry with several prizes. He lives in Hanzhou.

多么孤独啊

多么孤独啊

一个人从人世间走过

他留下的

是被别的眼睛忽视的

是被别的耳朵拒绝的

是被别的嘴唇

没有说出的

　　How Lonely

a man walks past the world of man

leaving behind

all that has been overlooked by other eyes

and rejected by other ears

and all that has not been said

by other mouths

　　已是冬天

向下生长的树

倒立着的，匆匆的人

一尾游鱼在鸟儿的阴影中迷路

已是冬天

湖水俯视着心底，那蓝色的孤独

　　It’s Winter Already

A tree growing downwards

A man standing on his head, in a hurry

A fish lost in a bird’s shadow

It’s winter already

The lake-water looks into its own heart, the blue solitude

　　在鸠摩罗什像前

那个伟大的龟兹古国在哪里呢？

当我站在鸠摩罗什像前

我身后是依然伟大而残缺的克孜尔石窟

而我的心因什么变得如此柔软呦？

是那在雀勒塔格山背面持续的闪电吗

是那伟大的目光与残损的崖壁的共同的俯视吗

还是因对一个女孩那绝望的爱情

　　Standing before Kumarajiva’s Statue

Where is that great ancient state of Kucha?

When I stood before Kumarajiva’s statue,

Lying behind me is the still great ruins of Kizil Caves,

But why was my heart turned so soft?

Because of the repeated lightening behind the Qoltagh Mountain?

Because of the mutual overlook of the great sight and the ruined cliff?

Or because of a desperate love toward a girl?

雨擦洗着天空

雨擦洗着天空

直到那最初的蔚蓝显现

大地在雨水的泼洒下变得更加洁净了

那些干瘪与耷拉着的树叶因体内一条持续暴涨的河流而重新鼓胀起来

那些闪耀着的绿色的光，

那群黑色的鸟儿在大地深处的尖叫

低沉，直到无言

只有那依然浑浊的湖泊与河流泄露了洁净得以洁净的秘密

直到一个夜晚重临，直到湖泊与河流在又一次的澄澈中苏醒

　　The Rain Is Scrubbing the Sky

The rain scrubs the sky

Till the inceptive blue emerges

The earth becomes even cleaner under the rain’s wash

The dry and droopy leaves firm up again with the ever overflowing river in their body

The shimmering green light

The screaks of black birds in the depth of the earth

Grow grave and low till no sounds are heard

Yet the still muddy lake and river betray the secret why cleanness is clean

Till another night falls, till the lake and river wake up again in another round of lucidity

About the Translator:

范静哗（得一忘二）生于1965年，诗人，译者，出版有诗集与译诗集，诗作发表于中国大陆、台湾、美国、法国、新加坡等地的杂志与诗选。目前他居住在新加坡。

Fan Jinghua (1965-) is a poet and translator, and his poems appear in various literary magazines and anthologies in Mainland China, Taiwan, USA, France, and Singapore, etc. He currently lives in Singapore.