Winter '22 Issue Bilingual Readings

改头换面

翻译：诗验室

摇晃的钻击

重又出现忧心忡忡

不适的心。

进度会有的

每个人都很惊慌

神经细胞被

痛苦磨损。

粉底将液状的

清醒甩

成混凝土

等待盖亚

重设秩序

加强深度

平息混乱

现代版无礼

往上旋向

一个

         宁静的

重生。

Transformation

by Shawntaye M. Scott

Scintillating drills

reemerge haunted

unwell souls.

Progress happens

everyone’s dismayed

neurons frayed

from distress.

Foundation shook

liquid sanity

into concrete

awaiting Gaia

resetting zones

fortifying depth

quelling frenzy

modern insolence

spiralling towards

a

            quiet

rebirth.

fishing for baby octopuses in the pescadores islands

translated by PLS

I untie your watch strap, so bright

a chrysalis, like you talking to me

as the car races through the tunnel beneath the mountain

cooling down section by section, on 

the road shrouded in the smell of pines, the smoking room of emotions

the shadow of a smoking demon

to invent this scenario of a hidden plot that allows one to hide

reminds one of the swaying clouds

the landlocked sea that keeps migrating during rainy seasons

sweet goose feathers and the typewriter at the bay

perhaps saluting in the dark

that’s our mutual kitten

so we still cannot label the position

all of the sands receded

in this joke

have faith in the motherland, and have faith in love

believe me that I can take good care of you in the future

and in the fishing news tomorrow on TV

why once again

compare the history with being compliant

this happens when a dangerous thing 

such as following orders is repeated too many times

you’ve got your proper virtues

I have a net, my unrestrained mountain forests

etcetera etcetera

在澎湖钓小章鱼

作者：程予

我解下你的表带，一颗

那么亮的蛹；像你对我说话

随着汽车穿越山底隧道

一段一段放凉；在

松树气味的路，情感的吸烟房

吞云吐雾的魔鬼的影子

虚构这一幕可以藏身的暗场

让人想起云朵摇摇

雨季里迁移不定的内陆海

海湾里甜蜜的鹅毛和打字机

或许在黑暗里敬礼

那是我们共同的猫咪

所以仍然无法标记位置

所有在这场玩笑中

倒退回去的沙子

相信祖国，相信爱情

相信以后我能照顾好你

和电视里明日渔汛

为什么再一次

将历史比喻成照做

照做这一件危险的事

历经多遍便就是这个场景

你有你妥善的品德

我有网，我没有节制的山林

及其及其

鸽子情结

翻译：诗验室

一只鸽子死在了我的窗外，周六早上或周五晚上，抑或是一个星期四。我已经记不清了。它靠在一棵树上直到有人发现并将其铲走。它的死亡过于平静。那种安详至今仍令我不安。

妈妈曾经说过我有着一种成瘾人格，当然不是生理上的问题，但我确实很容易迷恋某些东西。在发现自己除了鸽子外什么也不写时我就开始不否认了，脑海里回荡着盯着鸽子看时身体发出的颤抖，我意识到一只死鸟可以比呼吸的活人更有生命力。

曾经有一次我坚信有个女人的前世就是一只鸽子。她蹲在路旁用裸露的双手从一堆纸盘里捡米吃。我感觉到无法满足的饥饿与在审视下消失成缩影的时间。

有些事情仿佛就是永恒，比如洗衣服，比如想在一个周六晚上在曼哈顿找个地方坐下来，比如哀悼或爱，比如忘却，比如惦记。她的手给我的感觉就像不朽，我觉得这个世界缺少她手中所握住的那种清纯。

人们喜欢在派对上分享见不得人的秘密。他们诉说着童年的阴影、暴力的伴侣以及他们曾与陌生人做爱的奇葩场所。所以当我提到我曾经梦到自己心甘情愿被一只饥饿的鸽子吃掉并在温暖地死去的身体内手淫时，整个房间一片死寂，但在那个无语的瞬间我却感受到了前所未有的活力。

Pigeon Obsession 

by Cynthia Chen

A pigeon died outside of my window on a Saturday morning, or a Friday night, or a Thursday. I am not sure. It leaned against a tree until someone noticed it and shoveled it away. There was too much tranquility in its moment of death. The stillness still disturbs me. 

Mom once said I had an addictive personality, not in a medical way, but that I’m easily obsessed with things. I started to cease the denial when I found myself writing about pigeons on every page, lingering on the trembles that arose from staring at them while realizing how a dead bird can be more alive than a breathing man. 

There was once this woman whom I firmly believed to be a pigeon in her previous life. She was kneeling by the curb eating rice with her bare hands from a stacked paper plate. I felt the hunger demanding and time diminishing into a miniature under inspection.

There are things that resemble eternity, like doing laundry, like waiting to be seated on a Saturday night in manhattan, like mourning or loving, like forgetting, or remembering. Her hands felt like eternity to me, and I thought the world was lacking the exact kind of rawness she held.

People love sharing their darkest secrets at parties. They spilled childhood traumas, abusive partners, and weird places that they have had sex at with strangers. So when I shared that I once dreamed of voluntarily being eaten by a starving pigeon and masturbated inside the warm, dying body, the room went dead silent, but I’ve never felt more alive than in that moment of speechlessness.

sacred dances

translated by PLS

Gurdjieff* on his Fourth Way

walking for a hundred years

(irrelevant to the first, second and third

all human beings, have their own methods)

sacred dances, wedding

reality and virtuality, three reduces to two and two to one

head, hands and feet, are different paths

but the same passengers

（inseparable, walking together

returning home together）

sacred dances, like you can

write poems with the right hand, essays with the other

the modern talents

writing novels with the right foot, and criticisms with the other

light ink in their mouths, dramatising everyone

the dances that unite the body and mind, each one

knows how to enlighten

any gesture, with hand or leg, drilling the wood

will certainly lead to a fire, which will burn

the ashen souls of dry trunks 

*Gurdjieff (1866~1949), American philosopher and mystic.

神聖舞蹈

作者：王圣元

葛吉夫*在第四條道路上

走了百年

（無涉第一、第二與第三

眾生，都有自己的門道）

神聖的舞蹈，整合

虛實，三二歸一

頭、手和腳，是不同的路徑

又是相同的路人

（形影不離，一同走路

一同回家）

神聖舞蹈，像你可以

右手寫詩，左手寫散文

現今的能人異士

右腳寫小說、左腳寫評論

口裡含徽墨，渲染眾人

統合身心的舞，任何一支

都能悟道

任何一手、一腳，鑽木

必能取火，火將燃燒

槁木死灰的眾魂

*葛吉夫（1866~1949），俄國神祕主義者。

云

翻译：诗验室

扭成一处的细条

轻薄的面纱

鱼骨

每条都是一场

在我们的双目

被破碎的

羽毛

取代前

死去的

小灾难

拱门与铁砧

它们变换的姿势

掠过空气

留下雾状的痕迹。

鸟儿们聚集

在移动的炫光中

在他们堆叠

的深处

抹去、重写

新图案

在蓝天

空白的画布上

Clouds

by Barbara Southard

Tangled shreds 

thin veils 

fishbones 

each a small

catastrophe

that dies

before our eyes

replaced

with ragged plumes

arch and anvil

their changing ways

skimming through air

in vaporous trails.

Birds gather

in a moving dazzle

in their depths

of heaps and layers

erasing, rewriting

new patterns

on the blank canvas

of blue skies.