老姚拾麦

雨在行人身上越下越大
我因为鞋子湿了而有些生气
我站在窗口看马路对面的窗口
为这个离家一步之遥的地方感到荒谬

房间里的灯很昏暗
我看着你，感觉有些陌生
我们看电视，吃了热乎乎的干拌面
然后放下竹筷子，漫想些窗外的事情

后来我终于开口说话
我说我今天经历了很多
洪水和大象和微风和一切
让自己听起来丰富多彩的事情
可是你就因此不再相信我

我朝三暮四，信仰流浪

为了补救我说我有点想你了
尽管你不是最美好的
然后我又察觉到了危险
你需要没有道理的称赞

于是又交给沉默
沉默肩负了太多
在昏暗的房子里拥挤着

醒来时天微微发亮

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Fame is a bee.
It has a song -
It has a sting -
Ah, too, it has a wing.

from  An Essay Concerning Solitude

Waking at 3 a.m. is becoming an art;
an art, or gift, delivered through sleep and quiet,

parcels of snow and sky
from another country,

lights from a childhood that feels
so recent, we might not have aged at all.

Give us this day, we say, and continue
moving the pieces, trying to puzzle it out,

a picture of fog, or stars, through an open window,
hares in the long grass, mice in the folds of the yard,

the wisp of sun unfurling from a wall
that matches us

for warmth and transience,
the fabric of a life, asleep and waking,

finding and losing its way
in the house of the echo.

John Burnside

[ permission granted by the author ]

No one has taken away anything—–
there is a sweetness for me in being apart.
I kiss you now across the many
hundreds of miles that separate us.

I know: our gifts are unequal, which is
why my voice is—–quiet, for the first time.
What can my untutored verse
matter to you, a young Derzhavin?

For your terrible flight I give you blessing.
Fly, then, young eagle! You
have stared into the sun, without blinking.
Can my young gaze be too heavy for you?

No one has ever stared more
tenderly or more fixedly after you…
I kiss you—–across hundreds of
separating years.

(1916)

Marina Tsvetayeva, Selected Poems , trans. Elaine Feinstein (London: Hutchinson, 1986), p. 3–4.

These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
  Are but the varied God. The rolling year
  Is full of thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
  Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love.
  Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm;
  Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles;
  And every sense and every heart is joy.
  Then comes thy glory in the Summer months,
  With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun
  Shoots full perfection through the swelling year
  And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
  And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
  By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales.
  A yellow-floating pomp, thy bounty shines
  In Autumn unconfined. Thrown from thy lap,
  Profuse o'er nature, falls the lucid shower
  Of beamy fruits; and, in a radiant stream,
  Into the stores of sterile Winter pours.
  In winter awful thou! with clouds and storms
  Around thee thrown--tempest o'er tempest rolled.
  Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing
  Riding sublime, thou bidst the world adore,
  And humblest nature with thy northern blast.

- Thomson

画妹妹在水中
为她画两只灰眼睛

不知为什么
我要画细沙在水底
画细沙飞进妹妹眼睛的样子
画下水草缠绕着她
画下她沉睡了千年
一直到我冰冷的手
把她从琥珀里触醒

水上起了波纹
水下却那样柔软
水是妹妹的身子
我不能拉她在手中

但我听到她的歌声
是在教室的山崖中
像她的月光那样美丽
吹落我在冰凉的山谷

姐姐, 今夜我在德令哈, 夜色笼罩
姐姐, 我今夜只有戈壁

草原尽头我两手空空
悲痛时握不住一颗泪滴
姐姐, 今夜我在德令哈
这是雨水中一座荒凉的城

除了那些路过的和居住的
德令哈......今夜
这是唯一的, 最后的, 抒情。
这是唯一的, 最后的, 草原。

我把石头还给石头
让胜利的胜利
今夜青稞只属于他自己
一切都在生长

今夜我只有美丽的戈壁 空空
姐姐, 今夜我不关心人类, 我只想你

- 海子

St. Lucian for Beginners
(For D.W.)

Fred D'Aguiar

I

Day starts blue-black, shoe black.
Instrumental warm up by solo birds
Dotted about the stellar dark.
Sky waits untrodden for one of them
To flick all feathers and hollow boned across it.
In this soft light I might see wing beats
Leave a trail, chiaroscuro. Feather
In my cap. Feather I blew on
For embers of a past; that whistles
When I blow on it so I sound
Not unlike the bird it fell from.
Bird I become by such small acts.

II

Dog lying on the couch objects.
My glorification of flight omits the small
Miracle of crossing a yard at full pelt
On four coordinated, furry legs
To retrieve a stick and wait tongue-tied
For me to launch that stick as before
With an over arm bowl, more a throw,
Less a bowl than a swing, pelt, fling.
And barking comes, not from the throat,
Nor mastery of a reed, or grass blade
Or fingers in the mouth or tongue curl,
But from the stomach where speech rests.

III

Forgive me, Buddha, I took you for a dog.
I see you have returned, heavily disguised,
God. But you need a bath and I must
Give you one or else faint from the whiff
Of your doggy life, your holiness.
Can you see me alright through
All that hair over your eyes? How
Should I address you? Your two-syllable
Name reflects nothing of your majesty,
Your Majesty. All your barks, despite
Their ever so careful modulation,
Remain just that, not a patch on a bird.

IV
I could have come back as a cat
Or rat, then where would you be
But at the pharmacy for your allergy
Or at the hardware store for a trap?
I toyed with my return as a Japanese
Beetle, iguana, or marabunta.
A dog's shape keeps me close to you.
Sure I smell one way that intensifies
But you stink at various times of the day
In more ways than I can count. So
My fine-haired friend, do not point
At me. Take a long look in the mirror.

V
I took you for a god but you curse
Like a man, worse even. Someone
Should wash your mouth with carbolic
Soap. I would if all I had to fear was your bite.
God or not, the shape you take brings with it
A freight of problems that has nothing to do
With your hallowed condition, just as it does
For me without the holier than thou excuse.
You see cursing may well be what man
Does best, second only to his capacity
To play God with the planet, species
And each other, that's how close we watch you.

VI

I catch myself talking to the dog.
I need to get out more otherwise
I will find myself talking to myself
In some public place too late to avoid
Stares and the wide berth treatment.
Birds flutter away before I can get
A word in edgeways. They sing,
Listen to catch their breaths and sing
Once more or they sing without
Ever listening, pausing only to catch
Flies, believing there is nothing out
There that would benefit from their song.

VII

Sing of fire. A falme that is a bird,
Bath, whistle, clean, fultter, puff, air, smell.
Fire that does not burn - as W. would have it
But replenishes, wash over me with your pelt
Freshening song, oh feather, glory, hallelujah.
I do not wish to be saved, just refreshed
In my given skin and creak crack bones.
To sleep through the night without worry
Waking me before the first twitter from birds,
Even before the earliest evasive move
Made by worms wise to the siren trance
Inducing song that brings them into the open.

VIII

Wise up, what! If that were so we would
All become bags of bones and loose feathers.
Like us, worms must surface for air.
And when they push up their pretty,
Little, meaty heads, we do not bite
Them off, we grab them and pull
Ever so gently, so as not to break
The delicate, silk thread of their boneless
Meat bodies, and only when they are
Fully out, head and body above
Ground, and wriggling in air as if drowning,
Only then we throw our heads back; swallow.

IX

Telling it brings a song to my throat
And a tickle in my belly. There is a moment
When the worm lies flat in the beak,
Half-way down the throat, when you
Have yet to swallow and could just as
Easily gag on what is ambrosia and
Death sentence rolled into one;
When the head is back and the throat
Fully extended but the worm just lies
There like a noodle, and a noose inside
Ready to tighten and strangle you.
Birds must choose right there and then.

X

That is, no choice at all: to do nothing
And very soon become nothing, I mean
Gag, choke and keel over with the tip
Of worm hanging out of your beak
For some other bird to pluck from you,
Or, reach up to the heavens, extend
The neck that extra little bit
That you thought you could not do,
Opening a gap between the vertebrae
In your neck and introducing air into
the gap, almost, where gristle should be,
Extending beyond reason, and swallow.

XI

At the start of every day we bring ourselves
Thus to the brink to carry on, and step back
Daily from the precipice. I say draw ourselves
Away from it because I have never in all
My flight found a fellow bird in a condition
Of having failed to make the extra diameter
Throat stretch, and therefore dead, worm
Stuck in its neck, unless all the dead birds
I happened upon lose the worms from their beaks,
Unless death forces those worms down,
Or else once the birds die the worms free
Themselves, wriggle away, astonished.

XII

Astonishing escape from the jaws of death;
Headlines. Brought about by laying their bodies
On the line. More like, forced to lie there
With one of two outcomes. How can this be?
I feed with a flock. We all sing, eat, sing
Some more, Not one fails in front of my eyes.
Even if I am too busy singing, cocking my head
Back to swallow - when I see nothing,
Can see nothing, cannot even breathe,
So much is required of me - that I may
Miss losing a comrade and then not see
As well the pillage of the body after the fact.

XIII

You see how odd it sounds to suggest
Such a sthing? Listen to yourself trying to salvage
The reputation of the worm above that of what
Birdds do to them in a cycle of natural violence.
We birds put up with cats and birdshot.
Hunting season comes our way without fail.
We fall as scattered feathers, nose-dive
When we catch bullets. Rest in the watery
Mouths of beagles that retrieve us from reeds.
Spare a thought for us as much as the worm.
We are hunted for sport. I swear before
Your god, I never eat worms for sport.

XIV

Or should that be ate? In the past tense.
Present tense speech for a past tense life.
For something that happened some time ago
Through recalled as if happening as it is told.
Partly because saying it makes it real once
More, more real re-lived because more
Aware the second time around, if anything.
Too much in it the first time to even know
What was happening, so that the second life,
The life of the thing considered piece by
Piece, may well be the best prospect
For peace in a life under consideration.

XV

The clock speeds up. I breathe fast.
A fine tremour ruins my grip during these
Repetitions, rehearsals, visitations.
Yet it is ground already trodden, soil
Already turned and a crop harvested
Some time ago leaving straw in its wake,
Husks, empty shells, or so I think
Until I actaully get onto my hands
And knees and almost touch my forehead
To the ground, head down, tail up in
Supplication as my revised revisions
Beg to be dignified. If the truth be told

XVI

I forget so fast I have no choice
But to go back, remember as if
For the first time. In which case I
Experience again, more deeply some
Thing missed the first time round
That I must sift a second time
Or else lose to oblivion, and oblivion
Dear ladies and gentlemen is never an
Option, even if it is the last card
In the pack and the dealer grins
Knowing he will soon run out of cards
For you, even as he tires of your nod.

XVII

Bird or beast. Bird and beast.
Flesh, spirit, invention, idea, person.
Words only and then only words when read.
Beware of the man who talks like a god
Or the god who thinks like a man.
And the dog that believes its bark
Is its bite. And the bird enamoured
With a diet of worms. Even the worm
Who believes today, this dark blue,
Shoe black, blue-black morning is
His lucky day and no bird on earth
Can outwit him, so pushes from soil to air.

Alfred Corning Clark
(1916 - 1961)

You read the New York Times
every day at recess,
but in its dry
obituary, a list
of your wives, nothing is news,
except the ninety-five
thousand dollar engagement ring
you gave the sixth.
Poor rich boy,
you were unreasonably adult
at taking your time,
and died at forty-five.
Poor Al Clark,
behind your enlarged
hardly recognizable photograph,
I feel the pain.
You werer alive. You are dead.
You wore bow-ties and dark
blue coats, and sucked
wintergreen or cinnamon lifesavers
to sweeten your breath.
There must be something --
some one to praise
your triumphant diffidence,
your refusal of exertion,
the intelligence
that pulsed in the sensitive,
pale concavities of your forehead.
You never worked,
and were third in the form.
I owe you something --
I was befogged,
and you were too bored,
quick and cool to laugh.
You are dear to me, Alfred;
our reluctant souls united
in your unconventional
illegal games of chess
on the St Mark's quadrangle.
You usually won --
motionless
as a lizard in the sun.

Robert Lowell

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.

1

Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone,
And the interrogation will not die
For there is no eternal city
And there is no pity
And there is nothing underneath the sky
No rainbow and no guarantee -
There is no covenant between your God and me.

2

It is superb in the air.
Suffering is everywhere
And each man wears his suffering like a skin.
My history is proud.
Mine is not allowed
This is the cistern where all wars begin,
The laughter from the armoured car.
This is the man who won't believe you're what you are.

3

This is your fault.
This is a crusader vault.
The Brook of Kidron flows from Mea She'arim.
I will pray for you.
I will tell you what to do.
I'll stone you. I shall break you every limb.
Oh I am not afraid of you
But maybe I should fear the things you make me do.

4

This is not Golgotha.
This is the Holy Sepulchre,
The Emperor Hadrian's temple to a love
Which he did not much share.
Golgotha could be anywhere.
Jerusalem itself is on the move.
It leaps and leaps from hill to hill
And as it makes its way it also makes its will.

5

The city was sacked.
Jordan was driven back.
The pious Christians burned the Jews alive.
This is a minaret.
I'm not finished yet.
We're waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
What was your mother's real name?
Would it be safe today to go to Bethlehem?

6

This is the Garden Tomb.
No, this is the Garden Tomb.
I'm an American. I am a Copt.
This is Utopia.
I came here from Ethiopia.
This hole is where the flying carpet dropped
The Prophet off to pray one night
And from here one hour later he resumed his flight.

7

Who packed your bag?
I packed my bag.
Where was your uncle's mother's sister born?
Have you ever met an Arab?
Yes I am a scarab.
I am a worm. I am a thing of scorn.
I cry impure from street to street.
And see my degradation in the eyes I meet.

8

I am your enemy.
This is Gethsemane.
The broken graves look to the Temple Mount.
Tell me now, tell me when
Where shall we all rise again?
Shall I be first in that great body count?
When shall the tribes be gathered in?
When, tell me, when shall the Last Things begin?

9

You are in error.
This is terror.
This is your banishment. This land is mine.
This is what you earn.
This is the Law of No Return.
This is the sour dough, this the sweet wine.
This is my history, this my race
And this unhappy man threw acid in my face.

10

Stone cries to stone,
Heart to heart, heart to stone.
These are the warrior archaeologists.
This is us and that is them.
This is Jerusalem.
These are dying men with tattooed wrists.
Do this and I will destroy your home.
I have destroyed your home. You have destroyed my home.

I had been told about her.
How she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
I'd watched and listened
but I still fell for her,
how she always, always.
How she never, never.

In the small brave night,
her lips, butterfly moments.
I tried to catch her and she laughed
a loud laugh that cracked me in two,
but then I had been told about her,
how she would always, always.
How she would never, never

We two listened to the wind.
We two galloped a pace.
We two, up and away, away, away.
And now she's gone,
like she said she would go.
But then I had been told about her -
how she would always, always.

女子的声音如下雨
甚至好像她们
也在回忆里死去

下的也像是你们
我一生中奇妙的际遇
呵滴滴的水珠

而这些跨越的云
开始嘶鸣了
一大群传声的城

你听是不是在下雨呢
当遗恨和藐视
飘下旧时的乐曲

你听下的是
细丝缕缕
把你上下系住

Guillaume Apollinaire

Red Shoes - Andrew Motion

Reaching the restaurant late
I find the empty shells
Of your gloves on the cold kerb:

Stretchy, crushed red velvet
Which slithered off your lap
To float in the sodium stream.

What could they mean, except
You have arrived before me,
And simply taken your place?

The things we forget, or lose,
Live in a heaven of debris,
Waiting for us to collect them;

Already your naked hands
Are fluttering over the table,
Missing they don't know what.

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