2016年10月24日星期一

Writing Verse in Classic Chinese

This poem of mine came to me through 'conversational' writing in March 2005 between myself and an unknown netizen who served in Iraqi war.

Writing Verse in Classic Chinese
I was smashed by a pale spirit
out of Bath a misty winter morn
it haunts hours away
from my X-Window frames.
Alas by this end of hours
and by this end of day
oh How i cut and paste
in every way
to restore a dream I've dreamt
yet lost ever since I left.
O blessed is the hours so ardently spent
waiting by wings of angelic forms
whereby beauty and grace behold
a forgotten tongue
a rusty art
of making ancient music
with silent sound
echoing between thousands of years
and thousands of miles around.
[fiveshinylights: comrade, dost you speaketh the china man's tongue?]

Brother 'cool hand luke', yes i do.
now as i remember my mother tongue
endured warring kingdoms hundreds of centuries strong
it is not to speak
but to paint, silently
out of gentle brushes rainfalls of firm strokes
thy worst enemy and thyself's speck of mind
for words uttered always turning into querrels by hauling wind
for words carved into oracles smoked by time and shifted by sand
can mean many things to one eye kings
thus bind thy people with one faith
no words no names
but mixing bloody drops from unquenchable dreams

2016年9月21日星期三

Winding Up by Derek Walcott

Winding Up
by Derek Walcott

I live on the water,
alone. Without wife and children,
I have circled every possibility
to come to this:
a low house by grey water,
with windows always open
to the stale sea. We do not choose such things,
but we are what we have made.
We suffer, the years pass,
we shed freight but not our need
for encumbrances. Love is a stone
that settled on the sea-bed
#13
under grey water. Now, I require nothing
from poetry but true feeling,
no pity, no fame, no healing. Silent wife,
we can sit watching grey water,
and in a life awash
with mediocrity and trash
live rock-like.
I shall unlearn feeling,
unlearn my gift. That is greater
and harder than what passes there for life.


 吾将上下而求索

我住在水上,
独处,无妻无子,
弃掉漩生出的各种可能
我成为如今的样子:
一片灰水的一间低矮房子里,
窗户总是敞着
面向无波的海。我们并非选择了这些事,
但最终我们还是从了本来的命运。
遭受,流逝的年岁,
我们卸下负荷 而非对自我的
自怜自爱。爱如石
安置于灰色水域的
河床。现下,我一无所求

真情出嫁于诗境
无怜无名无救。无言的内人
我们一同坐看泉泉的暗流。
和 浮世一生
在庸常和垃圾中
受洗的顽石。
我应该解下感情,
解下天赋。这比当初得到它们可是麻烦多了,
这也比一生随波逐流要好吧。

based on reader azur@douban 's another fine translation  ( without the title and #13 line onwards...)

Tension in contextualized translation...from English to Chinese, wor(l)ds apart... ? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Tension_in_contextualized_translationfrom_English_to_Chinese_worlds_apart [accessed Sep 21, 2016].

2016年9月18日星期日

Song of Foresight 謝選駿三部詩集

Xie, Xuanjun Three Collections of Poems by Age 26

出版說明 1980年代的學者、二十一世紀 的思想者,謝選駿在1970年代前 後(1967年──1980年)寫下了 這裏的三百六十餘首詩歌。這些 早期的詩行先於其學術和思想, 卻是其學術與思想的雛形,作為 「未與社會環境同化之前的靈魂 之作」,堪稱《先覺之歌》。

eBook .pdf
035一叢怪詩

A,黃昏的獨舞

蝙蝠、蝙蝠
你飛向何處
繞著衰弱的孤者
嘶叫溟溟的霧暮
飛入熒光的天河?

蝙蝠、蝙蝠
你飛往何處
獨對囚居的旅客
還把一滴無名淚
黃昏似的深邃
良辰夢幻的破碎
灑入焦渴的心!

蝙蝠、蝙蝠!
你已太上忘情?
一年年春花飄零
秋光也空空映射
你為何熱情獨行?
翩翩忙碌於晚景
你是故意地平靜
擾亂我枯寂的心?

B,無言的雨

厭世者的一片淚
漫無目標地菲菲
灑入慵倦的荒野
激起沉悶的死灰。

南冠之客的血滴
春天裏浪費丟棄
剝開黎明的蒙昧
傳播神州的萎靡!

游離之子的呻吟
夜草在獨自飄行
一片蕭索的苦心
激勵他堅忍遊行。
淪落之魂在幽怨
痛悔生世的徒勞
輾轉九回的愁腸
歸入無已的泥淖!


2016年9月14日星期三

泰戈爾《零散的鸟语》葉氏(yezi)


Most Like an Arch This Marriage
John Ciardi

Most like an arch - an entrance which upholds
and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace.
Mass made idea, and idea held in place.
A lock of time. Inside half-heaven unfolds.
Most like an arch - two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.
Two joined abeyances become a term
naming the fact that teaches fact to mean.
Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what's strong and separate falters. All I do
at piling stone on stone apart from you
is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss
I am no more than upright and unset.
It is by falling in and in we make
the all-bearing point, for one another's sake,
in faultless falling, raised by our own weight.

             如彼拱门   此桩婚姻

如彼拱门                                       横空似练
磐石叠立                                       一门洞天
以物喻理                                       理在其间
时不逝兮                                       内展穹天
如彼拱门                                       俩弱成强
相依偎兮                                       双坠弥坚
浪迹之侣                                       终成眷属
宣彼神迹                                       彰其美意
有念如斯                                       当无大谬
独强难存                                       天理如斯
我日垒石                                       盼伊相随
无你之空                                       如厦无顶
无获爱吻                                       吾乃鄙夫
相濡以沫                                       在彼深渊
无私相爱                                       我为卿狂
纵身跃下                                       永结连理

Children's Day and Father's Day, where has the time gone? - ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Childrens_Day_and_Fathers_Day_where_has_the_time_gone#57d958f85b49524de0540ba1 [accessed Sep 14, 2016].

泰戈爾《零散的鸟语》葉氏(yezi)  一片冰心 滿紙馮唐 =  造化?翻异 ?

冯唐的“树/大地的渴望/踮着脚偷窥天堂”更有诗的味道。

现世里孤孤单单的小混蛋啊  混到我的文字里留下你们的造孽?  (yezi)

大千世界在情人面前 解开紗丽 绵长如舌吻 纤细如诗行 (yezi)

如果因为思念太阳 而终日哭泣 星星也将离你而去

新的一天 我坐在窗前 世界如过客 在我面前走过 停了 点头 又走了

你无法看到真身  你能看到的多是自生的印象 (yezi)

端莊的美 在敬爱中 自作的秀 在镜愛里。(yezi)

不要为了收集花朵而留步 花朵也盛开在你前头?

飞黄腾达的人 号称有如神佑 神羞愧地低下了头?

鸟觉得它把鱼叼离海面 是积德行善

一个太忙着做好事的人 发现自己没时间做好人

当我无所事事时 请让我在深深的从容中 无所事事 仿佛水波不兴的岸边的漫漫长夜?
姑娘 你的简单仿佛湖水的碧蓝 彰显真理的绚烂

因为失去的爱情 生命变得更丰盈?

别说,“又早晨了” 别用一个早已用过的名字 见每个早晨如同初相见 如见一个还没有名字的孩子?

当我们爱这个世界的时候 我们才活在这个世界上 人变成禽兽时 禽兽不如

that i exist is a perpetual surprise which is life
我的存在無外與一个永恒的问号化梵。 (yezi)

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart like the evening among the silent trees. 痛在我心里渐渐平和/ 如夜被屏息的深林哄睡。(yezi)