your big house, your america

 

Two poems by Zhu Zhu, translated by Dong Li. 

朱朱Zhu Zhu肖像,2013年,摄影:范西 李栋Li Dong

月亮上的新泽西

by Zhu Zhu

— 致L.Z.

 

这是你的树,河流,草地,

你的大房子,你的美国,

这是你在另一颗星球上的生活,

你放慢车速引我穿行在山麓间,

就像在宽银幕上播放私生活的记录片。

 

大客厅的墙头挂着印象派的复制品,

地板上堆满你女儿的玩具,

白天,当丈夫去了曼哈顿,

孩子去了幼儿园,街区里静得

只剩吸尘器和割草机的交谈,

你就在跑步机上,像那列玩具火车

在它的环形跑道上,一圈又一圈地旋转……

 

这里我惊讶于某种异化,

并非因为你已经改换国籍

或者成为了别人的妻子,我

惊讶于你的流浪这么快就到达了终点——

我们年轻时梦想的乐土

已经被简化成一座舒适的囚笼,

并且,在厚厚的丝绒软垫上,

只要谈论起中国,你的嘴角就泛起冷嘲的微笑。

 

我还悲哀于你错失了一场史诗般的变迁,

一个在现实中被颠倒的时间神话:

你在这里的每一年,

是我们在故乡度过的每一天。

傍晚,我回到皇后区的小旅馆里,

将外套搭在椅背上,眼前飘过

当年那个狂野的女孩,爱

自由胜过梅里美笔下的卡门,走在

游行的队列中,就像德拉克洛瓦画中的女神。

 

……记忆徒留风筝的线轴,

我知道我已经无法带你回家了,

甚至连祝福也显得多余。

无人赋予使命,深夜

我梦见自己一脚跨过太平洋,

重回烈火浓烟的疆场,

填放着弓弩,继续射杀那些毒太阳。

 

new jersey on the moon

by Zhu Zhu

— to l.z.

 

this is your tree, river, lawn,

your big house, your america.

this is your life on another planet,

you slow down the car to lead me through foothills,

like a documentary of private life on the wide screen.

 

reprints by impressionists hang on the living room wall,

your daughter’s toys piled high on the floor,

daytime when your husband goes to manhattan,

and your child to kindergarten, the streets fall silent

except for conversation between vacuum and lawn mower,

on the treadmill, like a toy train

on its oval track you go around and around…

 

here i am surprised by a sense of strangeness,

not that you have already changed your nationality

or become someone’s wife, i am

surprised that your wanderings have so soon come to the end—

the dreamed-of happy land of our youth

already abbreviated into a comfort cage,

and on the thick velvet couch,

once we speak of china, your mouth curls in a smirk.

 

i am saddened that you have missed an epic change in time,

a myth of time upended amid reality;

every one of your years here,

is a day that we have spent back home.

twilight, i return to the hotel in queens,

put my coat on the back of the chair, before my eyes

that wild girl floats by, loving

freedom more than carmen depicted by mérimée, walking

among marchers in a parade, like a goddness painted by delacroix.

 

…memory retains nothing but the kite’s spool,

i know i can no longer take you home,

even blessings seem unnecessary.

no one to entrust a mission, deep in the night

i dream of myself one step over the pacific,

back to fire-bright smoke-thick battlefields,

loading crossbows and shooting down those toxic suns. 

translated from Chinese by Dong Li
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路过

by Zhu Zhu

昨夜并未喝酒,醒来

却带着宿醉——在旅馆

罩上蒸汽的镜子前,我怔忡地

倾听城区的车流。这里

我认识一位朋友,抛开了天赋

忙于捕捉廉价的赞美;一个

古典文学教授,爱自己的文字胜过

爱他人;一个音乐学院毕业的女孩,

丢失了爱情却爱上这个地方,

她有三份工作和少得可怜的睡眠,

——比这些更悲伤,是

几代人的激情转眼已耗尽,每个人

匆匆地走着,诅咒着,抱怨着,

冥冥中像无数把生锈的剑粘在一起——

这个平常的春日,他们当中有谁

能察觉我带有苛责的思念?

就让他们保持过去的时光中最好的的样子吧。

就让我路过而不拜访,继续孤单的旅程——

嗓子干渴,舌头被烙铁灼伤,

想说的话盘旋在昏沉的大脑里,如此难产,

为此需要年复一年地默祷,

反复地拥抱阵雨,风景,岔路。

我脆弱如树影,在路面的水洼里

感受着被车轮碾过的疼痛;

我冷,因为对面没有光,

人们相见时,都是捻暗的灯笼。

 

passing by

by Zhu Zhu

not a drop last night, yet i woke

feeling hung over—at a hotel

before a steamed mirror, in shock, i

listened to the city’s river of traffic. here

i know a friend, who brushed his gifts aside

and scurried to capture cheap praises; a

classic literature professor, who loved his words more

than he did others; a girl, a music school grad

lost a love yet fell in love with this place,

had three jobs and precious little sleep,

—sadder than this was the passion drained away

from several generations in a flash, all of them

rushing ahead, cursing, complaining,

like countless rusty swords impelled to stick together—

a usual spring day, who amongst them

could discern my exacting wishes?

let them keep the best face on the past.

let me pass by without a visit and continue my journey—

throat dry, tongue scorched by soldering iron,

words swirl in dazed mind, so slow to come,

thus the need to pray year after year,

embrace rain showers repeatedly, landscapes and forked roads.

frail like tree shadow, in the puddles of the road

i feel the pain of being rolled over by wheels;

i am cold, because there is no light on the other side,

when people meet, lanterns are turned down low. 

translated from Chinese by Dong Li
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a pilot dodging wood and granite crosses

Mestre. Foto Alejandro Gonzalez Puras.2Processed with VSCOcam with m5 presetTwo poems by Juan Carlos Mestre translated by Patrick Marion Bradley. 

 

Jardín Muerto

by Juan Carlos Mestre

Mientras paseo por el cementerio, el lugar más apropiado

para pensar en un currículum vítae, trato de recordar
qué carta del tarot me tranquilizaría. Sé que volveréis de nuevo

amores por los que se mueve el hombre ajo el hardware de

          las estrellas.
Y sin embargo estoy aquí, viéndoos tras la ventanilla de los tranvías,

camino de la historia siguiente. Como cuando era un niño
leo tus poemas apoyado en el alma de la noche y te oigo
como a un piloto que esquivara las cruces de madera y granito.

Estamos solos desde entonces, nadie ha venido a acompañarnos
y este día vacío de viento es la única recompensa.
Se han ido, eran las palabras que ya no pueden hablar
y las ardillas que, si se diera el caso, corren entre los robles.
Tened piedad, digo a las luces que brillan tras el estanque
y las tórtolas que duermen en el saúco salen a despedir
al cabello del carpintero, mi amigo, como a un ser en lo oscuro.

En el pedregal crece a su manera la flor de los lobos
el reino de los amantes desciende sobre las casas abandonadas
y las fresas de junio. Apenas duró un momento la iluminación,

pero brindo por ti, corazón de corazones, en la jaula de la

          Emperatriz y del saltamontes.

Dead Garden

by Juan Carlos Mestre

Walking through the cemetery, the most fitting place

to think over a résumé, I try to recall the tarot card

that could calm me down. I know you all will return again

for the love that moves men beneath the stars’ clockwork.

And yet I’m here, seeing you all beyond the tranvía glass,

the chain of these events. Like when I was a boy,

I read your poems nestled in the night’s soul and I hear you

like a pilot dodging wood and granite crosses.

Since then we’ve been alone, no one’s shown up to join us,

and this squall, hollow day is the only consolation.

They’ve gone, the words I still can’t speak

and the squirrels that, given the chance, scamper among the oaks.

Take pity, I tell the lights glimmering beyond the pond

and the doves sleeping in the elderberry, bidding farewell

the carpenter’s hair, my friend, like someone lost in the dark.

From the craggy earth a wildflower grows in its own way.

The reign of lovers descends over abandoned houses

and June’s strawberries. The flash hardly lasted a minute,

but I shine because of you, my heart of hearts, in the cage

of the Empress and crickets.

translated from Spanish by Patrick Marion Bradley
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La Presencia

by Juan Carlos Mestre

En cuanto a nosotros, encendidos bajo la misión del diluvio,

          haga la noche un canto para la intimidad de los infelices.

Oscuros como están en la marmolería del guardabosques,

          déjelos la noche hablar ya que han viajado al perdón de

          los que no se encuentran.

Elijan allí los panes del mandato, pues una cosa te darán,

          belleza, si cumples con ellos como personas verdaderas

          y de sus plazos apartas la ira como se retiran las aguas.

Están con Dios, le atan los cordones de las zapatillas, imagínate

          la pena, darles ahora una patada hacia qué precipicio.

Solo, para menos aún de lo que pide, sale el carrizo del Arca

          y regresa con un anzuelo en el pico.

Vuelve el armisticio de las viudas a la casa del sastre desde el otro

          lado de las inundaciones.

Nada cambiará bajo el peso de la advertencia tras el parimiento,

          en esto nos hemos convertido.

Da trabajo pensar dónde estuvo lo que no estuvo, cómo se

          las arreglará para convencer al portero de cada noche

          la Presencia.

Hierve el agua para ambos, para ambos cae la helada sobre

          los olivos y los que cosen, cosen hasta el amanecer.

The Presence

by Juan Carlos Mestre

As for us, afire with the mission of the Flood,

make the night a canto for bluest affections.

Dark as they are in the nightwatch marblework,

leave them the evening to speak the forgiveness

they’ve sought from those they could not find.

Choose there thy daily bread, they will give you

one thing: beauty, if you find them truly human,

and divorce like ebbing tides the anger from the terms.

They’re with God, they tie his laces; imagine it,

the shame, to boot them over the edge now.

Alone, for even less than asked, the dove leaves the Ark

and flies back with a hook in its mouth.

The widows’ truce returns to the tailor’s home

from the far edge of the floodwaters.

Nothing changes with the weight of precaution,

this is what we’ve come to believe.

It’s tough to consider where what wasn’t was,

how he will sort them out to persuade

each night’s gatekeeper of the Presence.

Boil water for both, for both the frost settles

over the olive trees and those that sew, sew until sunrise.

translated from Spanish by Patrick Marion Bradley
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to measure the body
or to neglect it

Gola04Two poems by Hugo Gola translated from Spanish by Hugo García Manríquez.

 

Pintar

by Hugo Gola

         los objetos

 su presencia

         erguida

      su forma huidiza

 o su sombra

 medir el cuerpo

 o descuidarlo

 

 Morandi recorre los bordes

 navega en un campo

 de violetas silvestres

 y sube hacia las cosas

   el jarrón

       la botella

         la taza vacía

             una y otra

           y otra vez

 caen de la sombra

       a la luz

 lucen en el espacio

   y tiemblan

       porque la mano

              tiembla

 y el ojo

         tiembla

 ante el vasto

       silencio

 del mundo

To Paint

by Hugo Gola

        the objects

their erect

        presence    

     their flickering form

or their shadow

to measure the body

or to neglect it

Morandi walks along the boundaries

navigates a field

of wild violets

and rises toward things

        the vase

            the bottle

               the empty cup

               again and again

        and again

plunge from shadow

     into light

glow in the open

and tremble

        for the hand

        trembles

and the eye

        trembles

before the vast

        silence

of the world

translated from Spanish by Hugo García Manríquez
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Sin Conocer

by Hugo Gola

        No puede

                 el ave

                  cantar?

 ¿O sí puede el ave?

 Cantar no es

        sino

        un sol

 ¿Sabe

        el ave

        de su sol?

 ¿Saber versa

        sobre

        lo que el ave

                 cantar

                 no puede?

 Pero igual

        el ave

        canta

        sin saber

 ¿Qué  es

        entonces saber?

 Si el ave

        sin saber

        canta

 el rio

        sin saber ríe

 el viento sin saber

        filtra

        su suave sonido

        entre las

                 ramas

 ¿sobre que versa el saber?

 ¿Sabe

       acaso

        el ave

 de dónde sube

            el sonido?

 Voz

        sonido

     silbo

 ¿sabe el que aprende?

 

Without Knowing

by Hugo Gola

        Cannot

                 the bird

                 sing?

        Or can it –– the bird?

 Singing is

        but

        a sun

 Does

        the bird

        know its sun?

 Is knowing versed

        in what the bird

                 cannot

                 sing?

 Nonetheless

        the bird

        sings

        without knowing

 What

        then is knowing?

 If the bird

        without knowing

                 sings

 the river

        without knowing laughs

 the wind without knowing

                 filters

        its sweet sound

        among the

                 branches

 In what is knowing versed in?

 Does the bird

        perchance

        know

where sounds

        come from?

 Voice

        sound

        whistle

 Does the learner know?

translated from Spanish by Hugo García Manríquez
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