酷我-北美枫

Noël
圣诞节

by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they're cut down
And brought into our houses

当雪从冷杉树
上抖落
树被砍倒
带进房子里

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows

当一簇簇火花
来自于五颜六色的火
出现在夜晚
普通的窗口

We hear and sing
The customary carols

我们倾听并吟唱
以往的圣歌

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common

它们带来不协调的奇迹
干草和蜡烛
以及诗歌的花籽
这些更被人喜爱
因为它们如此平常

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet\'s message

但是有些颂歌
带来另一个世界令人
难以忘怀的乐句
猛烈危险的音乐
如一个预言者的神示

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies

或者孩子们鲜嫩的真话
虽然他们来自于
我们自己的身上

Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices

但他们是全新的
带着他们小小的肢体
小鸟似地声音

They look at us
With their clear eyes
And ask the piercing questions
God alone can answer.

他们看着我们
用他们清澈的眼睛
提尖锐的问题
只有上帝才能回答。

Guanyin

You come with a smile
brush me with a willow branch
nourish me with clear dew from the water jar
Parched souls shout from the wilderness
your reply is the most beautiful echo

Lotus flower holds your feet, like clouds
light and graceful, to rescue me from the turbid river
to moor my dream to the lotus pond, to the fragrant
green shade, where it rises, to the sound of chattering stars
distills into a water droplet on the tip of a leaf

When my head is heavy as a rock
muscles and bones saturated with fatigue
you are my
forever young mother

观音
--李加建

含笑而来，以杨枝拂我
滋润我，以净瓶之水的甘露
燥热的灵魂在荒原上呼喊
你是应答的最美回声

莲花托你双足如云，轻盈
拯我于浑浊的河流
把梦泊向荷塘、那清香的绿荫
在星星的碎语里、升华为
荷叶上一颗小小水珠

当头颅沉重如磐石
疲惫浸透筋骨
你是我
永远年青的小母亲

The Sixth Patriarch Hui Neng

Again and again, dusk drum and dawn bell
Pine grove, aging into lingering sound
When melancholic moonlight has congealed to moss
time still casually outlines mottled yard walls
Oh -
I am an illiterate, untonsured monk
in a small house of a monastery

The hungry stone mortar never steals grains
Firewood is chopped apart by an ax
I cleave the years with my head
Yet a wooden ladle cannot cut pond water into pieces
Oh –
I am an assiduous, untonsured monk
in a small house of a monastery

They say the wooden clapper swallowed Buddhist sutras
so they beat it hard day and night
But I have a friendly bird
that often flies to my window chirping its mind
Oh –
I am a lonely, untonsured monk
in a small house of a monastery

One night, while fondling stars
I, unconsciously, play out a little poem
I’d like to be draped with sunset, facing the mountains
why is this little kesa passed onto me?

Ah – I am purified as wind
running away from all statutes

六祖慧能
--李加建

一遍遍，暮鼓晨钟
松林，衰老进袅袅余音
当月色的忧郁凝为苔藓
时光乃于院墙上胡乱勾勒斑痕
噢——
我是禅寺寮房
一个不识经文的行者

饥饿的石臼从不偷吃谷物
木柴迎向斧头崩裂
我以头颅劈开岁月
木瓢却不能把潭水切成碎块
噢——
我是禅寺寮房
一个辛勤劳作的行者

他们说木鱼吞吃了佛经
昼夜狠命将它敲打
我却有一只相好的鸟儿
常来窗前啁啾一些心事
噢——
我是禅寺寮房
一个品尝孤独的行者

有个夜晚我抚弄星星
不知不觉弹出一首小诗
我本爱披着斜阳面对群山
为何却把小小袈裟传授与我？

吁——我澄清为风
逃离一切雕塑

Damo

Standing astride a piece of reed you came
from the sea, the sea-storm was
simplified to a worn bamboo hat
hanging on the back of your shoulders
Then, sharks had not learnt to eat humans

Your hometown was only
this pair of straw sandals under your feet
Stepping onto the luxuriant divine land
the more they were walked in, the thinner they became
No one remembered where
they were laid aside in the end
With a kowtou, two thousand years had passed

Alas! There’s no Pure Land in the West
the mountains in the East were like dead waves
How could all the living creatures be relieved of suffering?
Slanting sun. Leaning on the cane by
the temple door, did you quietly turn your head
to look back down the road whence you came?

达摩
--李加建

一苇踏海而来
海上的风暴
简化为一顶破笠
悬挂在肩背之后
那时、鲨鱼还没有学会吃人

你的故乡就只是
脚下这双芒鞋了
踏莽莽神州
越走越薄。也记不清
最终弃置在何处？
一稽首，已是两千年

噫——西方无净土
东方的群山如死浪
众生其可普度乎？
满目斜阳，倚杖寺门前
不知你是否悄悄、回头
望一眼来时路？

（年前收到李加建老师赠送的诗集《李加建诗集》（北京：作家出版社），喜出望外。边读，边学，边试译了几首。）

栏目名改为《已发表诗歌大比拼》好像和现在的形势更贴切。

加精有无标准？
是否作为斑竹就有权在自己的作品前随意插旗？
是否得到过发表的作品都应加精？
那么非马先生的许多作品是否也都要把红旗扛起来？
累不累？

在这个论坛发表的诗歌，是否应以此论坛的评论为主？
大量转贴其他论坛的读者反馈，只能证明此处失去了活力，失去了“酷我”精神。
在这里发贴还有什么意义呢？除了自我炫耀？

近来这里的一些表现，实在是令人感到滑稽可笑。

Fibonacci Poems

Fib is an experimental Western poetry form, based on the Fibonacci sequence.

The first number of the sequence is 0, the second number is 1, and each subsequent number is equal to the sum of the previous two numbers of the sequence itself, yielding the sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc.

So for a Fibonacci poem which is made up of 6 lines the syllable count is as follows:

1 syllable
1 syllable
2 syllable
3 syllable
5 syllable
8 syllable

I played with this:

Why
does
spring come
so early?
April snow awaits,
in hibernation bears snore on.

I
know
he is
there watching
on the other end.
My heart quivers at such a thought.

The
pain-
less tree
has been cut
down to frozen ground.
A pain to see a greenless spring.

Deng
said:
be it
white or black,
the one that catches
the mouse is a good cat. Topnotch!

Very Happy

An Undeliverable Valentine Card

I wish you could come
to read my poems
as I’m now reading yours
and bring your pruners
to trim each dead branch

I wish you could listen
to my readings
as I’m now listening to yours
and add your luring accent
to my monotonous voice

I wish you could look
into my eyes
as I’m now looking at yours
and feel my mind surging
like a spring river

But you’re gone
without leaving an address
the words I want to say to you
dropped to the deepest dream
you promised to haunt

.

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Moontarn
Barrie

cherry
dips its lip of
blossom
into
the moon

whispers ripple
through
the silver night

山湖月色
- In memory of Barrie

樱花
唇瓣
浸
入
月中

轻语涟漪
弥漫
银色夜空

I had this poem translated a while ago, but never had had the nerve to show it because I thought my translation was not comparable to Barrie's original. Now that he's gone, not even had a chance to read it.

In recent months he has built quite a portfolio of musings on death, all are marked with his usual Barrie-esque characteristics – humor, sarcasm, shrewdness, and poetic craft…

This is the last one he wrote on Dec. 29, 2008

A Meeting with the Almighty

I'll see you
tomorrow,
I said.

I'll be there,
but you won't,
came the retort.

What makes you say that?

I know everything,
I made it so.

If you're saying it's all preordained,
then I'll prove you wrong.

I knew you'd say that,
so I moved you forward
by a day.
You never showed up.

How do you know,
you've been here all the time.

I'm omnipresent and omniscient.

You're a cheat.

Just omnipotent.

Do you exist, then?

Why,
asked God,
do you need proof?

Now when I came back to read it again,

I knew you'd say that,
so I moved you forward
by a day.
You never showed up.

I can't help asking "Why did you argue with God, Barrie." It is so ominous. Crying or Very sad

(photo by Danté)

Watching

Such eyes are, indeed,
those of an angel!

This little pink girl
perceives the world with
a dust free mind.

Flame shines upon Grandma’s last moments
Tr. Lake

Revised

Flames swallow the dry firewood
and warm the coldness
Sitting in front of the kitchen stove
as the red light licks along her wrinkles
grandma, narrowing her eyes
watches the wood turn to charcoal
then ash

No one knew
how much firewood remained in her body
as the kindling stored in each person varied
Her countenance, the way she walked
suggested there should be more
but she was burnt out, extinguished, way below our expectations
we didn't even see the last flash of light

Original

Flame swallows the dry firewood
warms the coldness
Sitting in front of the kitchen stove
as the red light licks along her wrinkles
grandma, narrowing her eyes
watches the wood turn to charcoal
then ashes

No one knows
how much firewood left in her body
as the kindling stored in each person varies
Her countenance, the way she walks
shows there should be more
She’s burnt out, extinguished, far off our expectation
we haven’t even seen the last flash of light

火焰，照耀外婆的最后时刻
沈河

火焰吃着干柴，发出的温暖
冲淡寒冷
外婆坐在灶前
红光舔着她的脸，沿着皱纹的走势
她眯着双眼，看干柴变炭
变成灰烬

谁也不知道
她的体内还剩多少干柴
因为每个人体内干柴的存贮量有多有少
看她的面容，看她的走路
应该还有很多
她烧完了，灭了，严重偏离我们的期待
连最后闪一下的光，我们都没见到

（痛惜诗人沈河英年早逝，译其旧作一首，以寄哀思。）

Breeze blows over Green Dappled Stream
By Shen He
Tr. Lake

Revised

Settle down. Even rough wrinkles become
smooth when a gentle breeze blows over.
By the bank, I’m becalmed, fame and gain
disappear from my mind, noises no more.
Before a farmer fetches water, I dip my feet in.
Fish swim over, jumping from my palm to veins,
then upstream. At this moment, whispers cease
from Green Dappled Stream's lips and tongue,
because of my presence and my foot in the water.
An unknown bird, deliberately, treads
its little feet softly over the surface of the water
like an adult quietly tickling a child's armpit
with his forefinger; water splashes and sprays with
a burst of giggles. Not only do I see the laughter
but I hear the sound of Green Dappled Stream.

Original

Quiet down. Even rough wrinkles become
smooth when a gentle breeze blows over.
By the bank, I’m becalmed, fame and gain
disappear from my mind, noises no more.
Before a farmer fetches water, I dip my feet in it.
Fish swims over, jumping from my palm to vein,
then upstream. At this moment, Green Dappled Stream
stops whispering at its lips and tongue,
because of my presence and my one foot in the water.
An unknown bird, wittingly, treads
its little feet softly over the surface of the water
like an adult gently tickling a child's armpit
with his forefinger; water splashes and sprays with
a burst of giggles. Not only do I see the laughter
but also I hear the sound of Green Dappled Stream.

微风扫过青印溪
沈河

静下来。仅要微风扫过
粗糙的皱纹也会平整。在岸边
我静下来，心中的名利
收敛了，不再吵吵闹闹
我在农人挑水前，轻轻把脚放入水中
鱼儿游来，从掌心跳到我的血管，逆流而上
此时，青印溪的私语
停在唇舌间，因为我在这里
以及伸进一只脚
一只不知名的小鸟是故意的
小脚轻轻地踩过河面
像大人的食指悄悄伸进孩子的腋窝
发出的笑由水花一一表现
我不仅看到笑，还听到青印溪的声音

steam blurs my window
I wipe it off –
snowflakes shower !

a silver glow
on this moonless night
what can it be?
I roll up the blinds
ah! the first snow!

~~~~~~~~~~

falling
on this still green grass
first snow

snow shatters
from an oak
a raven takes off

snowy wind -
sound of silk
tearing bare branches

fresh footprints
leading toward the woods
a deeper winter

quiet alarm clock
what’s the morning noise?
snow plow outside

~~~~~~~~

bathroom mirror
she writes I love you
in steam

north wind whips snow across
the prairie into a silver dune

charity bell
rings soundless
holiday shoppers

this year no gifts wrapped up yet
a lone Christmas tree

(I may keep adding more to it.)

1
as I rake the backyard
a dog answers
from the picket fence

2
long lines of vehicles
crawling in the morning -
first November snow

3
physical therapy
I rest my arm
in a stranger's hand

4
just the chair and table
blooms and gardener long gone -
November noon

5
leaves rustle
a farewell song
to a quiet pond

6
blue stem grasses
turn their heads silver in
late autumn wind

7
cries in the sky
geese overhead, how swiftly
they're gone!

8
memories of you
grow stronger
as autumn deepens

9
in dreams
my tears
wet the pillowcase

10
a crow perches
atop a pine tree –
autumn's end

.

red pin

pinched between
a thumb and forefinger
I’m pushed hard
onto a bulletin board
that reminds me of
my sole function -
to tack things together
as a reminder
if someone abuses me
sticking things
more than what
I could hold
(since I’m light weighted)
then nothing can stay
but fall off
like now

.