瞳孔中央 译
我看到你在喷泉旁喝酒,双手
微小而苍白。不,你的双手不是微小
是短小,而喷泉是在法国
你在那里给我写了最后一封信
我回了信,然后再也没有听到你的任何消息
你过去常常给我写疯狂的诗
都是关于“天使和上帝”的,全是大写字母。你认识了
一些著名的艺术家,他们大部分
都是你的情人。我回信说,没事,
继续,加入他们的生活吧,我不嫉妒
因为我们从来没有见过面。我们曾经在
新奥尔良住得很近,一个半街区,但从没见过面,
从没有接触过。你和这些名人走到了一起,
写他们。而当然,你发现
这些名人很在乎他们的
名声——而不是跟自己一起躺在床上的这个
美丽的姑娘。你把那给了他们,并在早上
醒来后,用大写字母写诗,
关于“天使和上帝”的诗。我们知道上帝死了,他们
说的,但是你的话让我不敢确定了。也许
是因为大写字母。你是最漂亮的女诗人
之一,我跟那些出版商和
编辑说:“她,给她出吧,她是疯狂,但是她
很神奇,她的火焰里没有谎言。”我爱你
就如同一个男人爱着他从来没有碰过的女人,
只是给你写写信,有几张你的照片。我本来可以
更爱你,如果我能在一间小屋里,点上一根
香烟,听你在洗手间里小便。
但是事实并非如此。你的信越来越悲伤,
情人们背叛了你。你无力挽回这一切。你说,
你有一张哭泣的长椅,它在一座桥上,
坐落在一条河上的桥。每天晚上,你都坐在这张
哭泣的长椅上,为你的那些情人哭泣,他们
伤害了你之后就忘了你。我回了信,但是再也
没有收到你的信。一位朋友写信告诉我
你自杀的消息,这时你已死去三四个月了。如果我
和你见过面,我可能会很不公正地对待你,或者,
你会那样对我。还是这样最好。
An Almost Made Up Poem
Charles Bukowski
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.
查尔斯·布可夫斯基(Charles Bukowski, 1920年8月16日~1994年3月9日),是美国当代较有影响的诗人和作家,他的写作深受家乡洛杉矶的地理环境与气候的影响。尽管他的作品因为风格和题材流传的范围有限,但在文学界还是因为其争议性而倍受瞩目。
Oct 10, 2008 14:56
北木