4、玉梯：严力的诗（4首）……………………………BH, LMK, WNH & Yan Li 等译

抒情诗：

 Unstoppable 


 Lift Inside The Body 


The Acupuncture Point for Liberty 


‘Lost’ 


.    

严力（1954- ），祖籍浙江宁海，出生于北京，旅美画家、纽约一行诗社社长、朦胧诗人代表之一。1973年开始诗歌创作，1979年开始绘画创作。1985年至2006年，曾在香港、法国、英国、美国、日本、瑞典、大陆和台湾举办过个人展或参与集体展。画作曾被日本福冈现代博物馆和上海美术馆收藏，以及世界许多地方的个人收藏家收藏。同时，在大陆、香港、台湾、纽约出版过小说集和诗集十种以上，作品被翻译成多种文字。出版诗集有《这首诗可能还不错》（1991）、《黄昏制造者》（1993）、《严力诗选》（1995）等，主持海外汉语诗刊《一行》。

LYRIC POEMS

Unstoppable

can’t stop


whiplashed broken-necked thought from looking around


can’t stop

either
sunlight from waving neckties nothing to do with office workers

can’t even stop


the clang of cracking eggshells in birdsong from soaring on

can’t stop


the water surface from rusting out sunken ships soon or late

can’t stop either

moistly aroused nipples from firming up in milk powder

can’t even stop


life growing computerised then going on ageing


can’t stop

beasts from appearing and disappearing in the forest of buildings

can’t stop either
frogs from jumping out of the pond trodden by lotuses

can’t even stop

frogs from going on stuffing lotus seed songs into their roots

can’t stop the kitchen smoke


can’t even stop the village from going on heat

[BH, LMK]

Lift Inside the Body

Romance really can resist mediocrity


Humour, even more, can make knowledge start dancing


Not many people still want to use the endless steppes of the distant past

To gallop inside a body where there are no skyscrapers


Primitivity doesn’t mean much


Ancient history too stupid too fatuous


Modern people have long dug for oil and ore beneath the ruins

Archaeology has actually lost its past mystery


Modern people, in their hearts, even


Make tall buildings raise the ruins of the future


That’s why we in the modern age


To climb the brain and look out over the scenery of thoughts


Have to go the length of being tourists


Inside our own bodies


And waiting for the lift

[BH, LMK]

The Acupuncture Point for Liberty

I want to give Lady Liberty a massage


she’s been on an island so tiny it couldn’t get tinier standing for so many years


her back and legs must be aching like no one else’s

I want to negotiate with the new century


to give her a chair to take a little seat

thinking of the way she would sit down


it makes me think of giving her a glass of something

and so I think of Coca-Cola, ever-popular


and of the hamburger that goes with it


I’ve thought of the torch in her hand


and even of changing it into an ice-cream cone

but, oh, Lady Liberty!


in the end what kind of liberated life


does your lack of hunger and thirst symbolise?

and who is it


chose for you this gender to delight men with?

though I know better the orgasm liberty gives

only those who see life as a prison


can come to any deeper understanding

Lady, oh Lady


instead of giving you a chair


and those who press you to take the big step into the Atlantic

I want even more to give you a massage


but liberty, oh liberty


up to now I haven’t found


the real acupuncture point for you

November 1999 [BH, LMK]

‘Lost’

is a wonderful word


I put a bet on poverty and

I lost
I put a bet on pain and lost


I bet on sickness and lost


the problem is who I lost to –

which gambling house


which government


even which god


can take all that on board


the next problem is


my tolerance seems even greater –

I keep winning

[WNH & Yan Li]