译约翰·阿什贝利诗三首
约翰·阿什贝利(John Ashbery)2008年的诗集《A Worldly Country》貌似尚未有译本出版,匆匆弄了几个,发出来大家指正,权作抛砖引玉。
饥饿再临
既然我不能叫喊
那么就站在壶嘴旁边
雨水被耗尽
雨,这哨兵,
指责我的出现。
很快它便和泥土一般久远。
为什么要等待另一天呢?
你知道这正在发生
在此之后,并不会有什么变化。
什么都不能替代它
可以,这很好
虽然不是不人道,我们可以游戏
在似乎是上帝之处,
而上帝将不会带走我们。
还有一次,我在你家。
屋里突然暗了下来。
啊,风冲刷掉那些树木
的皮肤。它姗姗来迟了,
树们说。所有的风暴都是无能的。
是时候寻找心灵的结晶了,
注视着我们还拥有的事物,
我们所亏欠的巨大资源。
原文:
Hungry Again
Since I could not shout
I stood near the spout
the rainwater was running out of.
The rain, sentries,
taxed me with appearing.
Soon it was all old as clay.
Why wait for another day?
You know this one is happening
and will be the same after it has happened.
Nothing will come to take its place
and that will be fi ne, good.
Though not inhuman, we can play
at what it would be like to be God,
and God will not take us away.
Another time I was at your house.
It was suddenly dark inside.
A wind swept past the bark
of some trees. It was overdue,
they said. All storms are inept.
It was time to find the mind-crystal,
pore over what we still had,
the huge resource we owed.
黑王子
是森林里的一声脚步
或鼠王过时的快件
述说着,到边境来吧,一切将被赦免
他迷路了,对着一些未知小岛的岸滩
喃喃自语。他的手势与言词,当它们结合时
意思清楚不过。唯有在被风吹散时
它们才变得无足轻重,只对少数人有意义
原文:
The Black Prince
It might be a footfall in the forest
or an outdated dispatch from the Mouse King,
saying, come back to the frontier, all is forgiven.
And he was lost, gibbering on the coast of some
uncharted isle. His gestures and speech made perfect sense
when taken together. It was only when the wind blew them apart
that they didn’t matter, mattered only to some.
像一张相片那样
你也许会喜欢住在这些沿一座小山攀援而上的
矮房子中的一栋,然后摸索着
回到起点,仿佛什么也不曾发生。
你也许会和谦让的邻居一起
享受三明治晚餐。
它很快便会结束,你说。我们都
确信这一点,时钟滴答作响:烧吧,烧吧。
原文:
Like a Photograph
You might like to live in one of these smallish
houses that start to climb a hill, then fumble
back to the beginning as though nothing had happened.
You might enjoy a dinner of sandwiches
with the neighbor who makes concessions.
It will be all over in a minute, you said. We both
believed that, and the clock’s ticking: Flame on, flame on.