Thursday 19 June 2008

Reportage Notes

By design enjoyable and personal in steps, up-to-date—
a place for brainstorming out of any room
a non-native handshake gesture, fumbled joy,
asides beyond ideas mapping voices to download
to keep the center gratifyingly empty, an other
world nailed down and cauterized
by cicadas by day, bats by night—
things couldn’t be worse
for the influx of harmless ants
though students rarely pick them up
for verbal consultation or have a good excuse
like having a blood transfusion appointment.
No emotions, no purpose besides facts
thrown together to please the form of the event,
no heart as if to care and respond—
pre-witnessed preemptively more cosmopolitan
and distant, unable to voice but a semblance
of the happy wedding, the sad car accident
the tragedy of the poor rags-to-riches-and-back story,
good restaurants along the Riviera, Macao,
sponsors die for, words of important people
objective being through others
and the dust that settles things
in depth, interview all sorts of dire situations
to resist this style—go out and talk with elderly people
which is good for both us and the elderly.

Saturday 14 June 2008

Not a Year after My Mother’s Passing

We are impervious to wormholes of rumor

carving seas, stormy minds adrift.

So many walk free in this state

terrified and posture. We are afraid

and garden. So many besieged

we are survivors. Our conversation

crosses the dead.

I am your eyes.

All is not well.

Send recipes.

(11-13-97)

Wednesday 4 June 2008

逝水流年/Time Slip

poem by Dean Brink 原文/包德樂
translation by Min-Jen Chiang 翻譯/江敏甄

逝水流年

誡碑被搗毀後(註1)總有人得將它們重新挖掘出土
隨後又席捲入所有千禧年的症候群中
並且在望遠鏡的演進史裡繼續前進
直到遠處的光解除了我們漫漫長夜的晦暗
不只成為一部電影,如柏拉圖所預測的那樣,
在眾所周知的那隧道盡頭的洞穴裡
偉大的神砸疼了牠的腳趾
搜尋引擎攤開手中的牌
稀釋了我們之中的我們如此疏離卻不至於崩解

如今我們唯一能寄望的僅剩美好品味的展現
但我們依然任三角旗標誌出地圖上的廉價旅館
在那裡,小鬼頭仰頭暢飲著從冰箱裡
噴出的涼水,別讓爸爸看見這一幕,
媽媽如是警告,認真點,不要冒犯了
打電話來的人,讓我們將性工作者重新打造成為女僕
畢竟,重點並不是做那回事
任何吐露真相的液體(註2)正蒐尋著
更多確實被禁制的一切——
沒辦法,我的手正被快樂地反綁著
等待有人來餵食我
投下硬幣點唱
然而沒有半首歌和一隻桶子我又能去哪兒
在褪去包裝的藉口裡尋找平衡——
那已經潰決的,距離心所在之處有多遙遠呢?
說到這裡,嘿,不如我們私通吧
趁著下載的同時。我知道,我說
雖然已經戒除
但雨天裡還是不能沒有她

註1.取自電影《十誡》之一幕,摩西搗毀了刻著十誡誡文的石碑。
註2.通俗電影如《蝙蝠俠》中常見的橋段,一種讓壞蛋喝了會說出真相或祕密的不知名的液體。


Time Slip

After smashing the tablets someone had to dig them up
later to scroll through all the millennial symptoms
and move on in the progress of our telescopes
until long-arriving light undid our darkness,
becoming more than just a movie,
the cave at the end of the proverbial tunnel
for a grand oneness to stub its toe
and the search engines to fan their cards
to dilute whatever us of us made it this far without collapsing.

All we can hope for now is a display of good taste.
But we still leave our toothpick flags on hostel maps
where the teen went down on a refrigerator
for chilled water. Don’t let father see that,
the mother warned. Trying harder, not to offend
callers, let’s recast the working girl a maid;
after all, it’s not about making that point,
any truth serum honing in on more
surely banned—my hands are happily tied
long as someone comes along and feeds me,
puts coins in to make me sing.
Without a song and a bucket where would I be
finding balance in the unwrapping of excuses—
what broke down, how distance is where the heart is?
Speaking of all that, hey, let’s fornicate
while we’re downloading. I know I said
it’s back on the wagon for me
but can’t live without her a rainy day.