不分行短诗五首

【美】马克·斯特兰德        陈子弘 译

1.  何处不是远方

　　我或许来自高原，也或是来自低地，我记不起到底是哪个。我或许来自城市, 但我更不知道是哪国哪城。我或许来自别人来自过要不然是只有我来自过的某城近郊。谁知？谁来定是下雨还是出太阳？谁记得？他们说边境出事，但哪个边境无人知晓。他们正谈及的酒店, 你在那忘带行李箱也无啥所谓, 另有一个还会等着你, 宽敞, 正适合你。

译注：高原，原文high country一般指美国北卡罗来纳州卡罗来纳高原地区； 低地，原文low country一般指美国南卡罗来纳州沿海低地地区

2. 诗人被深埋的忧郁

　　他依然还年轻的某个夏天，站在窗前，他遥想她们去了何方，那些临海而坐的女人，边看海，边等着永不会到来的东西，风轻拂她们肌肤，松散的发丝掠过她们红唇。她们从哪个季节开始堕落？从哪里抛却良善误入歧途？之前很久，他就看到她们靓丽而孤单，闲散却沉重，上演着希望渺茫的悲情故事。此即某夏，他游荡进奇异之夜，游荡进黑暗海洋，仿佛头次披露心迹，但他披露的是黑暗，他得到的是夜晚。

3. 岁月悠悠以后

　　朦朦轻雾、繁星不现、海洋气息的残迹，那个漫步的孤独身影，一小股激浪般的危险围着转很不要脸，弄懂自家要干什么要成什么之前很久已经服软，现如今，他的手伸出一如要问候未来，他走近我，细数话中微妙之处。而我看见了他，我过世已久的叔叔，在突如其来的阳光下伟岸而金光闪闪，他预言要与岁月同寿，与我同在，并说这是我的期待。

4. 落日时的神伤

　　忙碌一天空荡荡的心回到家中。空荡荡的心除了空虚中的空白别无其它。扫清余烬耗费心力，徒劳的努力不堪重负。空虚之心苍白，无力而且未老先衰，又如何紧随初心发动。但这挣扎如泥牛入海。空荡荡的心有违内心的命令。它独坐幽篁，白日梦, 空虚增长。

5. 无人明白何为已知

　　一男一女就在火车上。男的说：“我们要去某个地方？我不想，这次不这样。已经是下个世纪，看看我们在何方。何处是它乡。告诉我，格温多琳，我们登车时，为什么我们不知会有如今？” “振作点哦，”格温多琳说。火车穿过白雪皑皑无际的平川；不会有一个城镇等待它到来，不会有一个城镇悲戚它的离去。它只是继续行进，它以梦一般的脚步在苍茫大地滑行为目的，发出悲伤的呼啸，这呼啸在寒冷中慢慢消耗。

译自斯特兰德诗集《几乎看不见》Strand, Mark - Almost Invisible (2012, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group）

【诗人简介】马克·斯特兰德(Mark Strand，1934年4月11日-2014年11月29日) 是加拿大出生的美国诗人, 散文家和翻译家。他于1990年被美国国会图书馆任命为桂冠诗人, 并于2004年获得了华莱士史蒂文斯奖。2005年他任哥伦比亚大学英语和比较文学教授, 直到2014年去世。他通常被归为新超现实主义阵营，该阵营还有詹姆斯·迪基、默温、高尔韦·金内尔、唐纳德·霍尔、查尔斯·西米奇和约翰·海恩斯等诗人。这个流派普遍受到西班牙和拉美超现实主义的影响，竭力摆脱思想意识的控制，深入挖掘潜意识领域，富有梦幻色彩，而梦幻作为清醒和睡眠的中介，既不受理性机制的审查，又可以感知梦的全部过程，记录下意识与无意识、内在世界与外在世界的交流与对照，因而可以最大程度地使精神的隐喻活动得到解放。

“本译文及所附英文原文仅供个人研习、欣赏语言之用，谢绝任何转载及用于任何商业用途。本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。”

Anywhere Could Be Somewhere

I might have come from the high country, or maybe the low country, I don’t recall which. I might have come from the city, but what city in what country is beyond me. I might have come from the outskirts of a city from which others have come or maybe a city from which only I have come. Who’s to know? Who’s to decide if it rained or the sun was out? Who’s to remember? They say things are happening at the border, but nobody knows which border. They talk of a hotel there, where it doesn’t matter if you forgot your suitcase, another will be waiting, big enough, and just for you.

The Buried Melancholy of the Poet

One summer when he was still young he stood at the window and wondered where they had gone, those women who sat by the ocean, watching, waiting for something that would never arrive, the wind light against their skin, sending loose strands of hair across their lips. From what season had they fallen, from what idea of grace had they strayed? It was long since he had seen them in their lonely splendor, heavy in their idleness, enacting the sad story of hope abandoned. This was the summer he wandered out into the miraculous night, into the sea of dark, as if for the first time, to shed his own light, but what he shed was the dark, what he found was the night.

Ever So Many Hundred Years Hence

Down the milky corridors of fog, starless scenery, the rubble of ocean’s breath, that lone figure strolling, gathering about him without shame a small flood of damages, concessions to a frailty which was his long before he knew what he must do or what he must be, and now, with his hand outstretched as if to greet the future, he comes close and pours out to me the subtlety of his meaning and I see him, my long-lost uncle, great and golden in the sudden sunlight, who predicted that he would reach over the years and be with me and that I would be waiting.

Exhaustion at Sunset

The empty heart comes home from a busy day at the office. And what is the empty heart to do but empty itself of emptiness. Sweeping out the unsweepable takes an effort of mind, the fruitless exertion of faculties already burdened. Poor empty heart, old before its time, how it struggles to do what the mind tells it to do. But the struggle comes to nothing. The empty heart cannot do what the mind commands. It sits in the dark, daydreams, and the emptiness grows.

Nobody Knows What Is Known

A man and a woman were on a train. The man said, “Are we going someplace? I don’t think so, not this time. This is already the next century, and look where we are. Nowhere. Tell me, Gwendolyn, when we boarded the train, why hadn’t we known this day would come?” “Snap out of it,” Gwendolyn said. The train was crossing an endless, snow-covered plain; no town awaited its arrival, no town lamented its departure. It simply kept going, and that was its purpose—to slither dreamlike over blank stretches of country, issuing sorrowful wails that would slowly fade in the cold.

From Strand, Mark - Almost Invisible (2012, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group）
www.aaknopf.com/poetry