《1984：写给一万卡》: 俞心樵 (1984: Written for Ivanka by Yu Xinqiao)

白痴带来了黑夜
黑社会带来曙光
这世道那个乱呀
没什么道理可讲
  
这首诗也将大乱
岂能再整齐划一
  
川普一家及其
可怜的小团队
被正确主流媒体
泼污了四年之后
终于全都被封口
  
我很想帮你们的
可怜的一万卡
如果你读卡夫卡
你就必然知道
  
你们的可怜
快赶上了我的可怜
你爹的孤独
快赶上了我的孤独
  
唉，真是抱歉
我，作为一个
可怜的亡国之君
我的江山社稷
已丢失千百年
要军队没军队
要粮草没粮草
  
如今，我
只能抱着
一个破手机
干着急
   
可怜的一万卡呀
如果你读卡夫卡
不，不不，如果
如果你读奥威尔
  
黑夜带来了白痴
曙光带来黑社会
这世道那个乱呀
没什么道理可讲
  
 2020.1.10.简言居

1984: Written For Ivanka

Idiocy brings the night,
while the underworld brings the dawn.
These attitudes are so messy,
with no values to speak of.
 
This poem also brings a state of chaos;
how could it be balanced again?
 
Trump's family and
their small, pitiful team
are corrected by the mainstream media.
After a rough and brutish four years
they are all finally sealed up.
 
I want to help your
pitiful Ivanka.
If you read Kafka,
then you must certainly know.

Your pitifulness
quickly overtakes mine;
your father's loneliness
quickly overtakes mine also.
 
Ay--I'm really sorry.
I'm seen as a 
pitiful gentleman from a dying country.
The scenery of my country
already lost thousands of years.
I want an army, but don't have one.
I want provisions, but don't have any.
 
Nowadays, I can only
hold a broken cell phone
and worry helplessly.
 
Oh, pitiful Ivanka--
if you read Kafka…
No, no no--
if you read Orwell,
 
Darkness brings idiocy,
while the dawn brings about the underworld.
These attitudes are so messy,
with no values to speak of.

Picture: Alternative Ivanka II by me (Elda Mengisto). Charcoal and colored pencil and sketch paper, 2017

《空虚的女孩》 (Daughter of Nothingness)

I was rejected at birth, nestled in the arms of death— 
My mother was heaven, and my father the earth. 
The sun smiled at me as I woke up in the forest, 
Clothed in a blanket and crowned with dead wildflowers. 
 
The summer warmth raised me in the years to come, 
Melting the blue on my fingertips and the ice on my lips. 
Yet it also unveiled my heart, cracked by rocks and time; 
With daggers piercing my shield, many thoughts are revealed. 
 
Witnesses to my existence mock my elusiveness, 
A virginal soul enduring in the woods. 
Yet I was whored out by nature herself, 
Decayed by the fall and devoured by vultures. 
 
I seek wings which I could fly to a place where my soul could rest, 
Against the winter winds, against the snipes of gnashing teeth. 
As the scent of roses leaves me, I cry seeking for the sun, 
For there is no God, only birds. 

我在出生被拒绝了，就在死神的胳膊依偎着。 
我妈妈是天空，我爸爸是地球。 
太阳对我微笑当我在森林醒来了， 
穿着毛毯，也为自己用死着野花加冕。 
 
来到的岁月中，夏天的温暖养了我， 
融化了指尖上的蓝色和嘴唇上的冰。
可他也透露我被石头与时光开裂的心； 
匕首刺着我的盾牌，多少思想被暴露了。 

 我存在的目击者嘲笑我的谜团， 
 一个在森林中忍耐的处女灵魂。 
 可自然界，她让我吃喝嫖赌， 
 被秋天腐烂，就被秃鹫吞吃了。 

 我寻找翅膀，为了飞向一个我灵魂休息的地方， 
 超越冬风，超越切齿。 
 当玫瑰香味离开我，我为太阳哭泣， 
 因为没有上帝，而只有鸟。 

Picture Credit: StarFlames at Pixbay

《心愿》(Wish)

我不想为金硬币问你，
或用你的诗意称颂我。

 仁慈与真实，如银河与海洋—
 当他们和解，就互相毁灭。
我已经在雾霭帝国卖自己，
穿着紫色礼包，带着春天玫瑰。

可我已经被钉死了一百万次，
每一次把我的呼吸偷了。
只有我能为我的敌人惨叫，
我就推翻她们的尊严。

为了重生，凤凰在凤霞升华；
为了出生，星星在重力爆发。
可加入从沉沦的灵魂，
让我放弃眼睛里的星星，
我如何继续，在冷漠森林绽放？

当太阳再升起，
我只想要追求余火，
为了草原燃烧，
为了让我在烟中跳舞。 --2018年12月31日

Wish:

I don't want to ask you for golden coins,
nor to praise me with your poetic verse.

Mercy and reality are like the Milky Way and the sea--
when they reconcile, they destroy each other.
I've already sold myself in an empire of fog,
clothed in purple gift wrap, while carrying roses from spring.

But I've already been crucified a million times;
every time, it steals my breath away.
Only when I can shout out for my enemies 
could I overturn their dignity.

In order to resurrect, a phoenix sublimates in rosy clouds;
in order to be born, a star explodes in its own gravity.
But a soul entering oblivion
makes me lose the stars in my eyes--
how can I continue, and bloom in an indifferent forest?

When the sun rises again,
I just want to chase the sparks,
so that the grasslands may burn,
so that I can dance in the smoke. --31 December 2018

Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash

《寻贝-Ocean Beach》 (Finding Shells–Ocean Beach) by Chun Yu

I haven’t been on a beach for a while, partially because of the pandemic and because I haven’t gotten the chance to do so. I always liked the imagery of them; when I was younger, I loved to collect rocks and shells from there.

Chun Yu dedicates 《寻贝-Ocean Beach》 to the titular Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Despite going there twice, I never went to that specific place, but I’d imagine it is pretty. She lives there after moving from China to pursue a career in the sciences; Chun only started writing when she became a post-doctorate fellow.

Her best known book is Little Green: Growing Up in the Chinese Revolution, but she also does other projects, like anthologies, a poetry collection between Chinese Americans and African Americans alike, and even does some poetry herself! One of these, 《地图》 (Map), can be found here.

这彼岸的沙滩
我漂洋过海的
栖落之地
以海洋为名 
是伸展无际的
美洲天涯


听说那大海 
有时会抛出
沙钱贝
洒落在她的
黄金海岸


尽管零星渺茫
拾贝者众多 
我并不满怀希望 
却也不无希望地 
俯身寻觅


而海上风暴无常 
玲珑的沙钱贝 
或许早已被击碎
黯然飘散
无法重圆


当我耗尽了
心神与眼力
无意中抬头
望向茫茫大海
却看见飞溅的喷泉 
鲸鱼巨大的黑色脊背 
在海上浮现— 
如同希望 
身背重负 
却充满力量 
一旦升起 
整个海洋
都为之涌动


（2017年9月13日初稿于旧金山，2020年12月1日完稿于旧金山）

翻译/Translation

This beach on the other shore,
the sunken place where I've traveled the sea for,
gave the sea a name--
the ends of the Americas
which stretch out endlessly.

I've heard this ocean
would sometimes toss out
sand dollars,
sprinkling across her
golden coasts.

Even with fragments of uncertainty,
and a lot of people collecting shells,
I'm not filled with hope,
but I have a little bit, hopefully 
bending down to look.

And as the storm on the sea dies out,
an exquisite sand dollar,
or maybe one already smashed into pieces.
They dimly drift
with no way to reunite.

When I've depleted
my mind and vision,
I accidentally raise my head up,
and look at the endless ocean.
But looking at the splashing fountain,
a whale's giant black back
emerges above the sea--
like hope,
a burden on the body
but filled with strength.
In a day, it raises
the entire sea,
all to bubble forward.

《冬至》 (Winter Solstice)

A few years ago, my Chinese 401 class and I had to read a short story called 《取暖》 (To Warm Oneself). It’s about a young man who committed a crime and it imbues on him when he returns home for the Lunar New Year. It also covers his time in prison.

That form of isolation inspired me to write this poem in 2016-2017, but under different circumstances. This is probably one of my favorites I have written thus far.

站在那条孤独的路上
我祈祷为了从命运获释，
而为我亲爱的朋友终于原谅我。
当季节第一次降雪来到的时候，
我应该走，
去看我的亲朋好友，
可是如今，回来的我不是英雄，
而是拿着破碎灵魂的。

今夜，我想了英雄的意义，
我以为它是把我的刀剑，
走向天涯，为了救多生命。
其实，这个挑战，
也像冬至一样黑暗。
回家呢？不是个荣耀，
而是一个委任--
妈妈难以忍受疗伤我伤痕累累的脸，
爸爸告诉我只是个无助的流浪。

风又吹了，一首难忘的旋律，
也如此残酷。一位仙女独自
站在那遥远的岛，充满了山花。
但是她来不及送给我阳光。
天继续下雪，车继续飘逸，
可谁要花了时间暖和脆弱的我？
我问了白云，就又祈祷了。

Winter Solstice

Standing on the lonely road,
I pray that I will be freed from my destiny
and that my beloved will finally forgive me.
I should've left 
when the first snow of the season started falling,
but nowadays, the me who returns is not a hero,
but one holding a broken soul.

Tonight, I think about what it means to be a hero--
I thought it was holding a sword,
traveling to the ends of the earth, and saving many lives.
Actually, that challenge
was as dark as the winter solstice.
And returning home? It's not an honor,
but an appointment--
my mother cannot bear to heal my scarred face;
my father tells me I'm just a helpless wanderer.

The wind blows again, a melody not forgotten,
yet so brutal. A fairy stands alone
on a faraway island, filled with mountain flowers,
but she has no time to bestow sunlight on me.
The snow continues to fall, the cars continue to drift,
but who would waste time to warm me, oh so fragile?
I asked the white clouds, before praying again.

《我们的眼泪突然少了几百倍》(Our Tears have Suddenly been Reduced Several Hundred Fold by Yuan Yong)

This poem was several months in the making. One day, I was scrolling through Weixin when I found a curious set of poems on a page. One of them featured an enigmatic title, 《我们的眼泪突然少了几百倍》，which translates to “Suddenly, Our Tears Have Been Reduced Hundredfold”. I also found a number of poems I wanted to read; only this one caught my attention enough to translate.

I only finished this now, after remembering the page I found and finding who wrote it, a Sichuan based poet named Yuan Yong (袁勇). The pictures that accompanied this piece are particularly good too.

我们的眼泪突然少了几百倍
 多少年没哭过，就算哭，也流不出泪水
 这个时代，让我们的眼睛
 像干涸的月牙泉，映不出淡淡的星辉
 有机盐、蛋白质、溶菌酶、免疫球蛋白
 一夜之间全部凭空蒸发
 我们的眼睛，就像两颗生锈的疤
 但我们心未枯，眼没瞎
 夜深时看见并说出。那些人类的至暗物质
 在我们躯壳深处，组建了诡异的黑洞
 吞噬了我们颅骨里的月亮和太阳
 包括泪水！我们是不是选择了
 与达尔文进化论相悖的反向变异
 物竞天择，我们必将在今世自取明灭
 此刻，我轻轻扭转体内的灵泉开关
 那汨汨声，仿佛星星们渐行渐远的哭泣
 2020/3/7亥时

翻译/Translation:

Suddenly, our tears have been reduced several hundredfold--
and haven't cried for several hundred years. Even if we cried,
tears didn't flow.
This period made our eyes
dry up like a well during a crescent moon,
not reflecting off the dime starlight.
Organic salt, protein, lysozene, goblin immunity--
they completely evaporate in the air one night.
Our eyes are like two rusty scars,
but our hearts haven't wilted, nor were our eyes blinded.
The deep night sees and speaks.
The people's dark material 
is in the depths of our body; 
a strange black hole is set up,
engulfing the sun and moon in our skull, 
including tears! Whether or not 
we chose to go against Darwin's theory of natural selection,
we have to find our own food and twinkle in this age.
In this moment, the soul we turn inside the body goes on and off,
the sounds of the Milo River were as if the stars were crying, further and further away.

When Beatrice Calls

如果你们读过但丁的《神曲》，你就知道了Beatrice的人物。她不仅陪但丁到了天堂，而是他的缪斯。研究者讨论谁炫目但丁；然而，结论不太清纯。有一个女人，叫Beatrice Portinari, 就是他们猜猜看的但丁的亲爱的。虽然他们的关系比较弱，但是但丁的心一直为他渴望。

八年以前，我看过了《神曲》；但是我不记得那么多的事情。可是，这个夏天，我写了两首诗；他们都心想Beatrice 当缪斯。如果她是道德的化身，她就怎么帮助我们？

If you’ve ever read “The Divine Comedy”, you would know the character of Beatrice. She accompanies Dante as he moves out of Purgatory and into Heaven, along with acting as his muse. Researchers have debated on whom inspired him, but there isn’t a clear conclusion on who it is. They’ve came to a relative consensus, however, on Beatrice Portinari. Their relationship was a bit fragile, as they only met twice, but it gave Dante such a longing that it inspired him, such as with “La Vita Nuova“.

I’ve read The Divine Comedy in high school, but I don’t remember much of it. This doesn’t mean I didn’t use Beatrice’s figure as a muse in these two poems–one in English, the other in Mandarin. If she’s the embodiment of goodness, then what would that mean for us?

Beatrice Calls:

The waves beckon me afar--
 a siren song smothered；
 the bridge between myself
 and paradise
 is a tightrope made of spun sugar.
 The sand wraps my ankles
as ivy grows on a maple,
 and compels me
to submerge in millennia
 of bleeding transitions.
 I fantasize of a mermaid,
 her fingers on my toes,
 challenging me to come to the depths
 where opals dissolve.
 But Beatrice calls
 and I acquise.
Wrapping myself in the humid wind,
I swirl in the musky evening,
to prepare myself for the terror.

Beatrice召唤 （中文翻译）：

那些波浪招手我，
一首被抑制了的曲，
我自己与天堂之间的桥
是一条丝糖钢丝。
沙子包裹着我的脚踝，
像常春藤蜿蜒枫树
就强迫了我
为了在血着过渡的千年
淹没自己。
我意淫了美人鱼,
她的手指摸着我的脚趾，
一直激将我过来
在蛋白石溶解的深处。
可是Beatrice召唤我；
我就放弃了，
我把潮湿风包裹自己，
就在麝香晚上转一转，
为未来的战争准备自己。

《天涯》

晶莹的桃子
从霞光坠落，
在你心手里
又绽放了。
你把沼泽地
收获了
未枯萎的莲花；
天鹅飞翔
遥远的地平线。
你付出所有的
阳光灿烂的岁月--
忘了黎明的温暖，
为了假装勇敢的流浪。
可在霎眼，
Beatrice召唤我，
穿着月亮，
也拿着宝剑，
四海为家。

At the Ends of the Earth:

Crystal peaches
fall from the red sunlight;
they bloom again
in the palm of your hand.
You harvested lotuses
that never wither in marshlands;
swans fly towards
a faraway horizon.
You have given up 
all those sunny years,
and forgotten the dawn's warmth,
so that you may pretend to be a courageous wanderer.
But in a blink of an eye,
Beatrice calls you--
dressed in moonlight,
she holds a valuable sword,
a vagrant.

Picture Credit: Ray Bilcliff from Pexels

《哦，苦难中优雅的爱情：俞心樵》(Oh, A Graceful Love in Suffering by Yu Xinqiao)

她的眼睛，多么迷人
她在风中注视着世界
就好像，大自然是她
第一次发现的，星空
也是她第一次发现的。

地中海地区，第一次
法国，西班牙或希腊
葡萄园四周是橄榄树
我的四周是她的眼睛

哦，包括第一次在内
也是她第一次发现的
古老世界中的第一次
为什么？不是在中国

当然，她在风中凝视着我
就好像，凝视着一片废墟

她的眼睛不大不小，正好
第一次发现了我。就像好
2020年之前，根本不存在
爱恨，孤独，死亡和思念。

甚至，根本就不存在我
第一次她发现了第一次
哦，苦难中优雅的爱情

2020.11.29

翻译/Translation:

Her eyes are so charming;
she stares at the world in the wind
as if nature was the first thing she discovered,
and the starry sky also.

The first in the Mediterranean
is France, Spain, or Greece.
In the vineyards, there are olive trees everywhere;
all around me are her eyes.

Oh, the things in the first
are also the things that she discovered.
Why the first time in the ancient world?
It's not in China.

Of course, she stares at me in the wind，
like she stares a piece of ruin.

Her eyes are neither too big nor too small;
they're just right to discover me for the first time.
It's like before 2020, and the roots didn't exist:
love, hate, loneliness, death and longing.

Even the root doesn't exist in me
the first time that she discovered the first time.
Oh, the graceful love in suffering.

High Noon《正午》

连万花筒
都不能控制
白天的统治;
那个永恒的朝代
为军人面对他。
可我逃避了
我对早晨的渴望；
蔚蓝的天空
为我打开了--
海阔天空，
那个海洋的深渊。

我把我继承的蓝宝石
驱逐了天涯；
逐步, 地平线只是银线。
我又学会了微笑，
也学会了保护自己的火，
春天太阳的小礼物。

扔了硬币之后，
我发现了自己的指南针,
但我得学会读它的旅途。

所以，我终于决定了改变。

翻译/Translation:

Even a kaleidoscope
cannot control the day's rule;
the never-ending dynasty
waits for solider to face it.
But I've already escaped
the longing for dawn;
the azure skies opened for me
the entire world,
the ocean's abyss.

I've banished the sapphires
that I have inherited;
step by step, the horizon is just a silver wire.
I learned how to smile again,
and learned how to protect my own fire,
a gift from the spring sun.

After flipping a coin,
I discovered my own compass,
but I have to read its journey.

So, I've finally decided to change.

《梦境》/《诗人肖像》/《速写》(Dreamworld/A Poet’s Portrait/Quickly Written) by Tao Chun

梦境

 荒凉、鲜血、鱼刺
 弯下腰
 如同弯下深渊中的一个洞
 这些记忆
 静静等待复活的那一刻
 谋杀者穿上
 被谋杀者的躯壳
 把死者送入天堂
 那天堂
 虚渺中
 有超然之纯净
 仿佛隔着一棵树又一棵树

Dreamworld:

Desolation, fresh blood, and a fishbone
bow at the waist,
bending like a cave in an abyss.
These memories
quietly wait for
the moment to revive.
The murderer puts on
the murdered body
and sees off the dead entering Heaven.
In this vast emptiness,
Heaven has an aloof purity,
as if to separate one tree from another.

诗人肖像
 
沿语言之梯
 每夜——
 他，赤身
 滑落进
 自我拇指
 掘梦的深井
 以倾倒出白昼
 成筐死者
 用于伪装的壳

A Poet's Portrait

Along the ladder of language
Every night--
he slides naked
from my thumb
into a deep shaft 
where he digs up dreams.
He pours out the dawn,
turning into a basket of the dead,
using a disguised shell.

速 写

 在所有
 被邪恶诱惑
 分裂的
 人群中间
 你看见一张
 曾经信赖过
 的兄弟的脸
 像一弯陈旧的刀疤
 瞬间失去了
 昔日信仰的闪电 

Quickly Written

In all
the circles of people
who've been split and
tempted by evil,
you look at your brothers' faces,
once trustworthy
like an old-fashioned knife scar.
The moment is lost,
the lightning of beliefs once before.

Picture Credit: Mo from Pexels